Tyler Reddick Wins Wreck-Filled NASCAR Race at Texas.

Today's 500 mile NASCAR Cup Series race at Texas took more than five hours. Sudden flat tires, burning cars, a rain delay, on-track contact between contenders under caution, and one particularly harrowing mid-race crash delayed an event that was among the sport's most worrying in a decade. In the end, the recently-eliminated Tyler Reddick found himself alone in front of the field.

Reddick fought to the lead over the day's final stint before starting behind cars with older tires on the day's second-to-last restart. He fought past them quickly, taking the lead and never looking back. Although the win can no longer help him in the championship hunt after elimination at Bristol last weekend, Reddick has his third win of the season. It makes him a three-time winner for his career, which will continue with 23XI Racing in 2024 after one more year at Richard Childress Racing, and a three-time winner this season.

Behind Reddick, however, the day's chaos was impossible to ignore. In particular, a rash of sudden tire failures led to many of the day's 17 cautions.

Much like last weekend's race at Bristol, consistent tire issues popped up throughout the race. Today, the issue seemed to be right-rears, with most problems coming off the exit of turn 4. Sudden flats popped up during many long stints, even after a brief rain and thunder delay gave Goodyear a chance to adjust its official tire pressure guidelines mid-race. Championship contender Chase Elliott's crash was both the biggest and most worrying, igniting a massive fire and ending the 2020 champion's day early. After the intermission, the same fate took both Kevin Harvick and Martin Truex Jr. out of the race lead. Harvick recovered to 19th, while Truex and Elliott were scored in 31st and 32nd respectively after failing to finish.

Tire problems also took out others, including playoff drivers Christopher Bell and Alex Bowman. While he was the first driver to advance last round, Bell was scored 34th today and now finds himself 30 points behind the cut line. Bowman was able to continue, but he is 29 points behind the line himself. If they hope to advance to the next round, both drivers will head to the next two races at Talladega and the Charlotte Roval hoping for either wins or substantial misfortune from other contenders.

Another major crash saw Cody Ware hit the outside wall in turn 4 before sliding down the pit lane and narrowly missing a head-on retaining wall before slamming into the pit wall. Ware was in significant visible discomfort while he was extracted from the car, but a team representative says he has no concussion and no broken bones.

The Cup Series will not escape chaos when it heads to Talladega next weekend. The series will visit the pack racing track next Sunday.

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