Tyler Reddick Confident 23XI Racing Has Brake Issues Figured Out

Tyler Reddick has been plagued by brake issues since joining 23XI Racing, but is confident the team has figured it out heading into Gateway, a tough track on brakes.

Billy Scott (left), crew chief for the No. 45 23XI Racing team, talks with Tyler Reddick in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway garage earlier this season. | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

After a third-place finish in last Sunday's Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, Tyler Reddick finds himself on a three-race top-10 finishing streak, and he's starting to work himself back into his early-season form, which saw him lead the NASCAR Cup Series championship standings after each of the opening 17 races of the year.

The breaks are finally going Reddick's way after a horrendous summer, which tanked his opening-Chase seeding to third. However, this weekend, the Chase rolls into World Wide Technology Raceway, and Reddick will now need the brakes to go his way.

The 23XI Racing driver comes into Gateway, one of the most notoriously tough tracks on the circuit for the braking systems on the Next Gen cars, having a long record of brake issues that have plagued his No. 45 Toyota.

"Not just this year, I feel like it's been my entire tenure here [at 23XI Racing]," Reddick quipped about the brake issues at NASCAR Chase Media Day.

While Reddick was able to get a chuckle about the worrisome brake issues that his team has suffered since he moved to 23XI Racing in 2023, the 30-year-old racer genuinely feels that his team has figured out its issues.

"I feel like we're in a good spot, though, with [brakes]. We've learned," Reddick explained.

And that's not just Reddick feeling overly optimistic; he can point to several races in recent months, where he felt the team's strides in the brake package showed through, enough that he is encouraged heading into this weekend's Enjoy Illinois 300.

"We went to Loudon; we didn't have brake problems, a place where we typically always have [them]," Reddick said. "We did have some brake issues at Bristol, but I think we've learned from that. We didn't run long enough at Iowa to have issues, but I was pretty confident we weren't going to. Richmond was another one that we didn't."

Reddick continued, "So, for us, it really does look like we've finally figured out what we were missing and cleaned that up. So, for me, I'm not worried about brakes."

If Reddick's No. 45 team has truly figured out the brake package, Sunday's race would be one of the biggest hurdles left for them on the schedule, as Reddick continues to battle for his first NASCAR Cup Series championship.

In four previous starts at the 1.25-mile oval, Reddick has just one top-10 finish, which was a fourth-place result in 2024. His other three finishes at the track have been results of 16th-or-worse. If Reddick can improve his 17.8 career average finish at Gateway on Sunday, his odds for hoisting the Bill France Cup at season's end will improve greatly.

Reddick has four career victories at tracks remaining on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule this season. Reddick has claimed two wins at Kansas Speedway, and one win at Talladega Superspeedway, and Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Entering this weekend's race, Reddick sits fourth in the Chase Grid standings, but he sits just 24 points behind Denny Hamlin, the series point leader who had a rough outing in the Chase-opening race at Darlington Raceway last week.