Tyler Reddick won the Autotrader 400 at EchoPark Speedway in Atlanta on Sunday, giving himself back-to-back victories to open the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season. He held off runs from Carson Hocevar, Chase Briscoe, and Ross Chastain in his No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota on the final overtime restart.
Though Reddick is the one with two wins, 23XI Racing as a whole now has control of the top two positions in the points standings. Bubba Wallace has started the year with two top-ten finishes, plus a series-high 29 stage points thus far.
“A lot of hard work in the offseason. It’s awesome. It’s paid off two weeks in a row at two very hard-to-win races,” Reddick said. “This time around it was not looking great about 40 or 50 laps to go. Yeah, we just found a way to fix the damage and, yeah, just kind of push through it.”
Tyler Reddick’s Historic Rebound
All the more impressive about Reddick’s momentous season opening is that he didn’t win for all of 2025. 23XI Racing captured only one win in the entire year, a Bubba Wallace triumph at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Now, just two weeks into 2026, they’ve doubled that figure.
By winning both of the first two races of the season, Reddick joins a club of only five other drivers who have done so. Marvin Panch was the first in 1957, followed by Bob Welborn in 1959, David Pearson in 1976, Jeff Gordon in 1997, and Matt Kenseth in 2009. If Reddick won three in a row to open up the year, he’d be the first with that accomplishment.
“Tyler did an unbelievable job,” said 23XI Racing co-owner Michael Jordan. “Both teams did an unbelievable job. I wanted him to win. I feel bad for Bubba, obviously, because he had an unbelievable day, but Tyler drove his ass off, and I’m very happy for Tyler. I’m very happy for 23XI.”
The Final Two Restarts
It took two overtime restarts at the end of the race before a winner could be decided. On the first, Bubba Wallace and Christopher Bell lined up together on the front row. Moments after the green flag Carson Hocevar put his No. 77 Chevrolet in between the two, sending Bell hard into the outside wall. The caution came back out, setting up another attempt.
On the second restart, the field stayed green for two laps to end the race. Bubba Wallace initially got out to the lead, before moving to block Hocevar and ending up alone on the outside. After receiving a push from Chase Briscoe, Reddick surged ahead coming to the last lap, with the field then reverting to single-file. By then, Reddick was in the clear.
“I got such a big run, and he kinda opened it,” Hocevar said. “As I got there I felt like there was a hole, but I got there so fast that I’m sure that it was by all means closed by the time I got there.” This year’s February Atlanta race is the second straight year where Hocevar nearly picked up his first career win.
Briscoe finished second for his first top-five of the year, followed by Ross Chastain in third, Carson Hocevar in fourth, and Daniel Suárez in fifth. After being shuffled out of the draft, Bubba Wallace wound up with an eighth-place finish.
“Wish I would have been able to have a bigger run to take it three wide and take the lead, but I just couldn’t do it for whatever reason,” Briscoe said. “That was I would say the one thing that our car lacked all day, was the straightaway speed. It drove good, and I could make moves, but it felt like I was slow down the straightaway.”
Hard Times in Atlanta
The Autotrader 400 was a week to forget for several drivers who were caught up in accidents. The first two were Ty Gibbs and Josh Berry, both of whom were eliminated from contention after making contact on Lap 81. Another multi-car crash ended the hopes of Ricky Stenhouse Jr, BJ McLeod, and Riley Herbst, while Kyle Busch hit the inside wall hard after a bad push from Noah Gragson.
“I didn’t get the best of exits off Turn 2 there, a little crossed up but not bad when I got up there into the wall,” Busch said. “Perfect timing for the No. 4 to just ram me as hard as he could and send me spinning instead of just checking up for a second and making sure I was straight.”
Kyle Larson triggered another incident when he pulled a late block on Shane van Gisbergen on Lap 160, leading to race-ending damage for himself. After being released from the infield care center, Larson admitted blame for the incident.
On Lap 223, Denny Hamlin got loose and made contact with Joey Logano, causing an incident that involved himself, Reddick, Alex Bowman, Chris Buescher, and Michael McDowell among others. Because of this, Reddick finished the race with a large part of his right-front fender sawed off.
Joey Logano spun in the final stage after contact from Carson Hocevar, but was able to continue without damage. With four laps to go William Byron hit the wall and lost momentum. That incident collected Logano, Austin Cindric, Todd Gilliland, Cole Custer, Cody Ware, and Noah Gragson.
Race Results
