There were equal parts truth and defiance in the comments Tyler Reddick made upon triumphantly emerging from his car at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Despite having older tires than both Denny Hamlin and Ryan Blaney, he had just passed both of them on the final lap to earn a monumental win that has put him in the Championship 4 for the first time. And at a track like Homestead, where even a five-lap difference in tires is an enormous one, that sort of thing isn't supposed to happen.
"I knew we were at a tire deficit, and here at Homestead that's a death sentence -- but I don't care," Reddick told NBC Sports. "We did what it took to win this race."
That's one happy boss. pic.twitter.com/gndoIQPTzm
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) October 27, 2024
In defiance of that death sentence, Reddick went from the guillotine to glory, earning the right to compete for his first Cup championship at Phoenix Raceway, a place on the highlight reel of all-time great NASCAR playoff moments, and salutations from his famous car owner Michael Jordan. And he's also earned a place at the top of the CBS Sports NASCAR Power Rankings, behind only Christopher Bell, ahead of this weekend's elimination race and penultimate event of the season at Martinsville:
| Rank | Driver | Change | Comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Christopher Bell | -- | While a 29-point advantage over the cut line doesn't assure him a place in the Championship 4, it certainly feels like Bell is a virtual lock. All he'll likely have to do next week at Martinsville is pick up some stage points and keep anything catastrophic from happening. | |
| 2 | Tyler Reddick | The way Tyler Reddick won at Homestead is emblematic of a champion rising to the occasion when the moment arises and it all matters most. If Reddick ends up hoisting the Bill France Trophy, you can go right back to the final lap at Homestead and say that's where he won it. | ||
| 3 | William Byron | There's the William Byron who has won Martinsville twice, and then there's the William Byron who had to scratch and claw in last year's fall Martinsville race to barely make the Championship 4. With Byron just seven points above the cut line, which one are we getting on Sunday? | ||
| 4 | Kyle Larson | -- | It's difficult to suggest that a driver as talented and accomplished as Kyle Larson is "held back" in any way, but there are times where he costs himself races by being undisciplined the way he was at Homestead when he tried to force it between Ryan Blaney and a lapped car instead of just staying patient. What's worse is that with Larson now seven below the cut line, that decision could lose him much more than just Homestead. | |
| 5 | Ryan Blaney | I guess as long as I'm criticizing drivers, if I were Ryan Blaney I would have put my car up on the wall in Turn 3 on the final lap and forced Tyler Reddick to try and pass me anywhere but the preferred line. For Blaney, that could be the difference between getting to defend his Cup title and missing out on the opportunity. | ||
| 6 | Denny Hamlin | -- | Among all six drivers still trying to get a Championship 4 spot, Denny Hamlin feels most like the one who can make magic happen at Martinsville. After all, he's led 882 laps there dating back to 2020 -- let alone won there five times in his career. | |
| 7 | Joey Logano | Don't be deceived by Joey Logano following up a win at Las Vegas with a pedestrian 28th-place finish at Homestead that was nowhere near any other playoff driver. It's just to lull everyone into a false sense of security before he and Paul Wolfe take a bullet of a race car to Phoenix when it really matters. | ||
| 8 | Alex Bowman | Just for the heck of it, I decided to play the "what if" game with Alex Bowman. If he hadn't gotten disqualified at the Charlotte Roval, he would be sixth in the Round of 8 standings right now and 34 points below the cut line to make the Championship 4. | ||
| 9 | Chase Elliott | It's hard to fault Chase Elliott with a fifth-place finish, but it feels like whatever adjustments his team made in the run to the finish wasn't what his car needed. Elliott faded out of contention after leading 81 laps, the most he's led in any race all season. | ||
| 10 | Carson Hocevar | After finishing ninth at Homestead, Carson Hocevar now enjoys a 110-point advantage on Josh Berry for the Rookie of the Year title. Which means barring something miraculous the next two weeks, you can start engraving Hocevar's name on that trophy now. | ||
| 11 | Bubba Wallace | Bubba Wallace led two laps at Homestead, and there's a good chance he leads more at Martinsville. Wallace started from the outside pole before finishing fourth there in March. | ||
| 12 | Chris Buescher | For one reason or another, Homestead has been a place prone to pit road accidents over the years. Chris Buescher got spun into his pit box on Sunday, but recovered to finish 15th. | ||
| 13 | Daniel Suarez | Daniel Suarez has two top-10 finishes in his career at Martinsville, but he hasn't had one since 2019. He finished ninth in the fall of 2018 driving for Joe Gibbs and 10th in the spring of 2019 driving for Stewart-Haas. | ||
| 14 | Martin Truex Jr. | It was a real pity that Martin Truex Jr. faded over the course of the race at Homestead, because his 2017 throwback scheme was a real beauty to see out there again. Truex qualified sixth and ran top 10 in both stages, but wound up a disappointing 23rd. | ||
| 15 | Brad Keselowski | This sort of thing goes under the radar when you're out of the playoffs, but Brad Keselowski has been on quite a lull over the fall. A 17th-place run at Homestead is his second-best finish of the entire playoffs and just his third finish inside the top 20 in that span. | ||
| 16 | Michael McDowell | Michael McDowell made his Cup debut at Martinsville in 2008, but he's still looking for his first top-10 finish there. A 14th in June 2020 is the closest he's come to that. | ||
| 17 | Ross Chastain | Hail Melon, full of grace, it's the two year anniversary of Chastain's famous move in the final corner at Martinsville. Unfortunately for us Catholics, Sunday's race on Nov. 3 will just miss lining up with All Saints Day and All Souls Day on the liturgical calendar. | ||
| 18 | Kyle Busch | The count is down to two races left for Kyle Busch to avoid a winless season. He'll have to get it done at either Martinsville (two career wins) or Phoenix (three career wins) to avoid his first winless season and a long offseason beyond that. | ||
| 19 | Justin Haley | At this point in the season when the championship is on the line, certain drivers' accidents can have devastating consequences. Chase Elliott was very fortunate that he got on the binders well enough to avoid Justin Haley, who spun right in front of him on the opening lap. | ||
| 20 | Ricky Stenhouse Jr. | Admittedly this is scraping the barrel for stats, but it's worth mentioning: Ricky Stenhouse Jr. hasn't had a top-10 finish this deep into the end of a season since 2017, when he ran eighth in the penultimate race at Phoenix (in a beautiful tribute car to Robert Yates who had just passed). | ||
| 21 | Chase Briscoe | Arguably no track on the Cup calendar has been kinder to Chase Briscoe than Martinsville has. Briscoe's two top fives and seven top 10s at Martinsville are the most he's had at any single track since his Cup career started in 2021. | ||
| 22 | Ryan Preece | With a 10th-place finish at Homestead, Ryan Preece earned his fifth top 10 of the year to give him the most he's ever had in a single season. His first top 10 of 2024 came at none other than Martinsville, where he ran ninth in the spring. | ||
| 23 | Noah Gragson | All of the Stewart-Haas cars had solid days at Homestead, which included Noah Gragson. Gragson ran in the top 20 consistently throughout the day and brought home a respectable 19th. | ||
| 24 | Corey LaJoie | There were only two cars that finished a lap down at Homestead. They were Justin Haley and Corey LaJoie, both of whom were involved in accidents, continuing the ways in which they've been connected since swapping rides late in the season. | ||
| 25 | Austin Cindric | The spring Martinsville race was not what you would call an exceptionally high-contact affair. But Austin Cindric managed to get himself knocked around, as he got pinballed during an overtime finish on his way to winding up 23rd. | ||
| 26 | Zane Smith | Unfortunately, a 30th-place finish at Homestead was more in line with Zane Smith's early season results than it was his results as of late. Smith ran 31st at Martinsville back in the springtime. | ||
| 27 | Ty Gibbs | Justin Haley's second spin of the race off the bumper of Ty Gibbs didn't seem like it needed to happen. If it was of any solace to him, Gibbs got caught up in another accident in Turn 2 just a few laps later and limped to a 36th-place finish. | ||
| 28 | Todd Gilliland | Homestead was a definite improvement for Todd Gilliland compared to the way he's run as of late. A 20th-place finish gave him his first top 20 on an oval since the Southern 500 nearly two full months ago. | ||
| 29 | Harrison Burton | Harrison Burton has been piecing together some solid finishes to close the year, just in time for a Southern Virginia homecoming for both him and the Wood Brothers. Burton has two top 15s in five Cup starts at Martinsville, including an 11th in the fall of 2022. | ||
| 30 | Josh Berry | Josh Berry and his team finally stopped the bleeding at Homestead, as an 11th-place run marked his first top 15 since all the way back at Richmond in August. That's going to be the difference in Berry in the Rookie of the Year fight, as his slump caused him to lose too much ground to Carson Hocevar. |
