NASCAR's regular season champion Tyler Reddick was having a strong run at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with the Stage 1 win already in the bag until lap 89, when his 2024 Cup Series Championship hopes suffered a literal twist of fate.
It was on the restart — Reddick made a run on the outside to go three-wide with Chase Elliott and Martin Truex Jr. beneath him through Turns 3 and 4. Battling for fourth position on track, Truex drifted up on corner exit, putting Elliott in a difficult position. He tried to lift, but it was too late. The Hendrick Motorsports star made contact with the charging Reddick and both drivers spun down the track. They moved across the front stretch, collecting Brad Keselowski and all three cars spun out of control through the infield grass.
It was fairly standard for a restart wreck -- until Reddick's car crossed over from the grass to the asphalt section that makes up Turns 3/4 in the Legends car oval. He went completely sideways facing pit road — the car hopping up off the ground.
The car was already leaning when the right-side tires returned to Earth. It dug into the grass, fighting against it for a brief moment before finally rolling forward.
The car laid on the passenger side door as Keselowski's car made its way back up the track. Both Austin Cindric and Ryan Blaney hit the outside wall as they attempted to avoid the orange No. 6 Ford. In the background, Elliott's car also hopped across the paved part of the infield, but his No. 9 Chevrolet did not flip, thankfully.
Reddick's car was fully upside down when it returned to the pavement, skidding across the restart zone with grass and dirt flying.
Unlike blowovers like Corey LaJoie at Michigan and Josh Berry at Daytona, this car did not stay on its roof for very long. The No. 45 Toyota never stopped rotating, continuing to roll forward while fully on the apron.
The car was finally right-side up again as it exited the restart zone and reached the start/finish line. Luckily for Reddick, this was a single-flip rollover.
After just three seconds from the moment the car initially hopped off the ground, Reddick was back on all four wheels. The car did a single roll before slamming back down on its wheels.
Most impressively, Reddick was still able to drive the car. He limped the No. 45 to his pit stall, but the damage was too significant for him to continue racing.
As confirmed by Seth Eggert -- known as the resident 'stat guy' in NASCAR circles -- this was the first NASCAR stock car to flip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in 24 years and just the third to ever do so. Shane Hall flipped in testing in 2000 and in 1998, Randy LaJoie flipped in a NASCAR Xfinity race at Las Vegas. This is also the fourth rollover crash of the 2024 NASCAR Cup season with the others occurring at Daytona (Berry), Talladega (LaJoie), and Michigan (LaJoie).
Reddick took responsibility for the aggressive move that led to the crash, saying: "By the time I realized I was in trouble, it was just too late ... I needed to make the decision earlier when I saw them sliding. Just be a little more conservative. That would have avoided the incident. Just not who I am, not what we do."
The flip left Reddick unscathed, but the same cannot be said for his championship hopes. He is now 30 points below the cut-line, firmly in the elimination zone with two races left in the Round of 8.
