At Darlington Sunday night, the 23XI Racing hauler might as well have been split down the middle. Out on pit road on one side, Tyler Reddick sat heartbroken after coming within a car length of winning the Southern 500. On the other, Bubba Wallace shrugged his way into the playoffs’ next stop like a man who’s already playing with house money.
Reddick’s second-place finish was his best of the season, but the way it happened left him staring into the South Carolina night like he’d just been robbed. After nearly 500 miles of survival—including contact on the very first lap when Josh Berry slid up into him—the No. 45 Toyota had fought its way back to the front. Reddick lined up behind Chase Briscoe on the final restart, hounded him for lap after lap, and then, with the white flag waving, tried a desperate slide job into Turn 3.
“When I dove off in there, I was already sideways,” Reddick admitted. “I learned from last spring that that doesn’t work. Yeah, a good solid day, but hopefully one day we’ll win here at Darlington.”
That “hopefully” carried the weight of a driver still chasing his first win of 2025. Reddick has been fast, consistent, and in position more than once, but victory keeps slipping through his fingers. His frustration was palpable. “All in all a really solid night for points in the Playoffs,” he said. “Really want to win here. It’s frustrating to finish second, going for it like I did last spring, doing the wrong thing, ending our day and finishing 36th. Yeah, I wish I could have been just a little bit closer.”
Reddick knows the bigger picture—he’s plus-35 above the cutline heading into Gateway—but in the moment, that hardly mattered. This was the Southern 500. “We scored a lot of stage points, almost won the Southern 500,” he said, shaking his head. “We’ll turn these second-place finishes into a victory one day.”
Just a few cars down on pit road, Bubba Wallace had finished sixth, his fifth career top-10 at Darlington, and his mood couldn’t have been more different. He had fought through pit road mistakes and balance issues with his U.S. Air Force Toyota, but instead of focusing on the frustrations, Wallace wore the laid-back smile of a man who’s already checked a box this season.
Chase Briscoe Stamps Himself a Contender With Southern 500 Masterclass
“All in all a good day for our team,” Wallace said. “Great Playoff run. Just solid execution. We had a couple mistakes on pit road. I had a couple mistakes on the track. We were able to rebound really well.”
He joked his way through the post-race questions, even catching himself when he confused Indy with Darlington. “None of us have had the breakout year we wanted,” Wallace said with a grin. “A big win with the Indy 500—Jesus, that was a long race.”
For Wallace, the key was balance—on track and in life. “I was counting down the laps one by one,” he said. “Limit the mistakes. I seen a lot of people had bad days. I didn’t want to add to that factor. It’s what it’s all about, is just keeping the aggression levels in check, keeping the big picture in check, enjoying the moment.”
That’s the picture of a driver who’s found perspective since his Brickyard victory. Wallace knows his team has speed, knows they can advance, and doesn’t feel the need to white-knuckle his way through every lap. “It will be fun battling old teammate Tyler Reddick there the next couple of weeks,” he said.
Both 23XI cars leave Darlington above the playoff cutline—Reddick at plus-35, Wallace at plus-25. The stats show two solid playoff runs. But Sunday night, the body language said more than the numbers. One driver left Darlington consumed by what might have been. The other? He just seemed happy to keep the train rolling.
At 23XI, the results were nearly the same. The mindsets? Couldn’t be further apart.
Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, and a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.
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