The cool shirt was giving him trouble. The electrical system was acting up. The Lady in Black was doing what she does — eating tires, eating patience, eating everybody who doesn't belong on her dance card.
Tyler Reddick didn't care.
Sunday afternoon at Darlington Raceway, the 23XI Racing driver won the Goodyear 400 from the pole position, his fourth Cup Series victory in the first six races of the 2026 season. He beat Brad Keselowski by 5.8 seconds. He passed Keselowski for the lead with 28 laps to go and pulled away like a man settling a personal argument with the rearview mirror. Mike Joy called it "one of the gutsiest performances in the history of the Cup Series." I'm not saying I agree, but I'm not NOT saying it.
And here's the thing — it wasn't clean. Nothing at Darlington ever is. Reddick ran into the back of Chris Buescher during a green-flag pit sequence when Buescher made a late call to come in. The 17 team radioed the 45 crew to say it was on them. Reddick's crew chief Billy Scott kept him calm. They moved on. They won anyway.
That's the story of this season so far. Something goes wrong for the No. 45 team, and Reddick just drives through it. His crew had to rig a fix for the cool shirt during a pit stop — handed him some kind of switch to drain the thing so he wouldn't cook inside the car. The electrical gremlins were real. The Lady in Black was swinging. Reddick took every punch and kept his foot in it.
Four wins in six races. A 95-point lead over Ryan Blaney. Michael Jordan's team — the same outfit that was running as an open, unchartered team during the lawsuit just sixteen months ago — now has four of the first six victories this season. Toyota as a manufacturer has five — the best OEM start since Chevrolet in 2007.
I wrote about Carson Hocevar going back in Earnhardt's colors this morning and wondered what Throwback Weekend would deliver. It delivered THIS. Hocevar ran a solid race in the Wrangler tribute. Kyle Larson blew a right rear tire with five laps to go and dropped from eleventh to twenty-ninth. The Hendrick cars looked lost all afternoon — Chase Elliott's handling went south and never came back.
But Reddick? Reddick stood in the winner's circle with his son Beau on stage and joked with the media: "If I can win there next week at Martinsville, the world is going to end."
Folks, I've been covering Charlotte sports long enough to know what dominance looks like when it's building. This isn't a hot streak. This is a driver and a team operating at a level nobody else in the garage can touch right now. Friday night, 23XI development driver Corey Heim won the Truck race at Darlington. Sunday, Reddick won the Cup race. Charlotte's motorsports corridor is HUMMING.
Martinsville is next Sunday. Bring your short-track nerves and a fresh set of tires.
The 45 car won't need them.