How 23XI Racing sacrificed everything to deliver Daytona 500 glory for Tyler Reddick

It’s easy to look at the final results for the Daytona 500 and assume Tyler Reddick won without the help of his team-mates. In reality, his colleagues pitched in even if it meant sacrificing their own finishes.

His 23XI Racing boss Denny Hamlin might have taken sacrifice too literally as he clipped Joe Gibbs Racing team-mate Christopher Bell and sent him into the wall with nine laps to go. However, the resulting caution gave Reddick time to regroup and prepare for what would be the final restart.

The race resumed with four laps remaining. Reddick ran on the inside line with two-time defending winner William Byron pushing him, while 2021 victor Michael McDowell was on the outside with Spire team-mate Carson Hocevar as his drafting partner; McDowell had been staying out for as long as possible and stretching his fuel, a gamble that paid off when the caution came and burned up laps under a slower speed.

Reddick and Byron struck first, allowing the former to get enough of a run to duck outside and block McDowell. The move seemed to blow up in his face when McDowell simply went even further up the banking and caused Reddick to be swamped on both sides until his team-mate Bubba Wallace came in to save him. Wallace would eventually fall back himself, unable to keep up.

As McDowell and Hocevar led, Reddick tried to get back in the pursuit on the inside. Hocevar passed McDowell and trapped him on the inside line with Byron.

Hell quickly broke loose on the final lap when Hocevar was turned in Turn 1, triggering a wreck. NASCAR opted not to wave the caution since the crash swept most of the involved into the infield and away from the racing surface. Chase Elliott seized the opportunity to pull ahead with Zane Smith on his tail, while Reddick tried to link up with his other 23XI partner Riley Herbst.

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Herbst pushed Reddick until he caught Smith, then made his move. As Reddick sliced past Elliott, Herbst was hit coming to the finish and led to another pile-up.

“I don’t win that race without Riley Herbst. That’s a fact,” Reddick proclaimed. “I respect him even more on the frontstretch for pushing me to the #38. I got to the #38, now the #9 is in front of me, and I make my move.

“I love that he made the move at that moment even though it was right for him to win the Daytona 500. I told him, ‘Man, I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you in the way that you wanted it to,’ but in my opinion, he did everything right on that last lap, pushing me and then doing everything he could to win the race for himself.

“Obviously they all crashed, but he did a really good job today as well.”

Alfredo cooked by Daytona, but enjoys tasty conclusion

Anthony Alfredo hoped that 2026 would be a turning point for his career. After his lone full Cup season in 2021, he has struggled to find stability as he bounced between multiple teams in the lower series. Although he has run the full schedule annually since returning to the now-O’Reilly Auto Parts Series in 2022, each year has been with a different outfit.

He signed with Viking Motorsports for the 2026 O’Reilly Auto Parts season, a midpack team that had shown decent pace over the last two years, while also returning to Beard Motorsports for the Cup superspeedways. After missing the 2025 Daytona 500, he was banking on his luck finally turning around this time.

Instead, he had to endure what was by far the most difficult week of his racing career. Alfredo initially qualified for the Daytona 500 after beating B.J. McLeod and J.J. Yeley in his Duel, but his time was disallowed because the transmission cooling hose detached from his car.

Since the hoses control airflow into the cockpit, they are required to stay fastened at all times; Beard Motorsports affixed the cooler hose using tape, which came off during the race. The penalty promoted McLeod into the grid.

“Any small open team we don’t like to have these problems, but we do have to do our job, make sure there’s parity amongst the field and parity amongst people trying to make the 500,” Cup Series director Brad Moran explained. “The rule is it needs to stay connected. We’re not saying it was intentional, it was unintentional.”

Now out of the 500, Alfredo turned his attention to the O’Reilly race on Saturday. As luck would have it, he failed to qualify for that too after setting the second slowest time. While this would’ve meant the end of a disastrous weekend, Caesar Bacarella was happy to step out of his car and let Alfredo in.

Bacarella is the co-owner of Alpha Prime Racing, so his focus is on growing the team any way he can. He offered to sell his seat for the race to Alfredo, who graciously took it.

Even then, it seemed like the racing gods just didn’t want him to do well as he was collected in a crash coming to the green flag. Fortunately, the car was able to keep running. Additional wrecks at the front of the field allowed him to make up lost ground and survive for an 11th-place finish.

“Nothing was really where I expected, but I got the hang of it and made sure we stayed out,” said Alfredo. “All the wrecks were there at the end, made a hard push for the top ten and ended up one spot short. That’s pretty good for the week we’ve had. I’ll certainly take it. That boosted my mood and made me feel a lot better about things.

“We still got a lot to work on and rebuild moving forward, but I appreciate everybody’s effort today. There’s a lot that went into getting this car prepared, get me in the seat and I’m just thankful for the opportunity. Glad I had a great race to to make the most of it.”

2026 Daytona 500 – Results