What was true for much of the 1990s in the NBA can also be said about the ongoing NASCAR season: Michael Jordan’s team is in first place.
Co-owner of the 23XI Racing team, Jordan was seen sauntering across pit row at Darlington Raceway on Sunday to celebrate driver Tyler Reddick’s fourth checkered flag of the young season.
‘You never know what’s gonna happen, especially at Darlington,’ Jordan told FS1 after the win. ‘We just had to get the car right and [Reddick] kept his composure.’
And once again, Reddick took the win amid a considerable difficulty. A malfunctioning battery, a cool suit that got very hot and a big deficit to the leader with less than 50 laps remaining at Darlington Raceway. The ‘Track Too Tough To Tame’ tested Tyler Reddick in every way possible Sunday, and this year’s top star in NASCAR naturally passed with flying colors.
‘I know never to give up,’ said Reddick, who broke through after three runner-up finishes on the tricky 1.366-mile oval. ‘I think it’s very fitting that when we finally get our first win here at Darlington that ‘The Lady in Black’ would test us like that. We’ve been so close so many times.’
Starting on the pole position for the car co-owned by driver Denny Hamlin, Reddick led 77 laps in the No. 45 Toyota for his 12th career victory. Chasing down Brad Keselowski after his final pit stop, Reddick breezed to a 5.847-second margin of victory.
Michael Jordan slaps five with driver Tyler Reddick after their fourth win of the year
Michael Jordan smiles after his team’s fourth victory of the young NASCAR season
Co-owner of the 23XI Racing team, Jordan was seen sauntering across pit row at Darlington Raceway on Sunday to celebrate driver Tyler Reddick’s fourth checkered flag of the year
Ryan Blaney finished third, followed by Carson Hocevar and Austin Cindric.
The problems started on the first lap for Reddick, who radioed his team about an alternator problem that caused his voltage to drop dangerously low. The team swapped a battery with larger capacity into his Camry after the first stage, but the charging problems remained.
Reddick had to toggle off his cockpit fans and the power to his cool suit, which provides driver comfort through a water circulation system. During a later pit stop, Reddick pumped water out of the suit, which had begun to cook because of temperatures in the high-80s.
‘The battery wasn’t charging at all,’ Reddick said. ‘All day long just not running fans and sweating my tail off inside the race car. We knew it was going to be physical. Really wore out, but I guess I don’t need as much of that cooling stuff as I normally have.’
With the win, Reddick (pictured) now has 325 points on the season compared to 230 for his closest competition, Ryan Blaney, who has just one win and two top-five finishes
It might not quite have been a performance on par with the ‘flu game’ that Jordan delivered in Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals, but it still pleased the basketball great.
‘Pretty sure it’s frustrating for him because he had an unbelievable car, and I think the key to him winning was just keeping his head,’ said Jordan, who has been on hand for every Reddick win this season and got to celebrate Sunday at a track he attended with his family decades ago as a child growing up in North Carolina.
‘I just wanted everything to be good, because once he gets back out there, then I feel like his competitive juices are going to carry him all the way to the end. He earned it all week, and I’m real proud of the team.’
Keselowski led a race-high six times for 142 laps. But the Roush Fenway Keselowski driver made his final pit stop four laps earlier than Reddick, who made the most of fresher rubber to erase a seven-second gap and complete the winning pass on the 266th of 293 laps.
Tyler Reddick, driver of the #45 Xfinity Toyota, celebrates with his crew after winning the NASCAR Cup Series Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway on Sunday in South Carolina
‘We didn’t have the best car today, not compared to Tyler,’ Keselowski said. ‘Tyler drove a hell of a race, and he’s driving a rocket and making it count right now.’
Reddick began the season with a Daytona 500 win on the way to becoming the first driver in NASCAR history to win the first three races of the season. He joined NASCAR Hall of Famers Dale Earnhardt (1987) and Bill Elliott (1992) as the only Cup drivers to win four of the first six races in a season.
With the win, Reddick now has 325 points on the season compared to 230 for his closest competition, Blaney, who has just one win and two top-five finishes.
Meanwhile, Reddick’s teammate Bubba Wallace is in third with four top-10 finishes, while Hamlin, the team’s co-owner and a rival driver, is in fourth.
