Reddick wins race at Texas

FORT WORTH, Texas — Tyler Reddick opened the second round of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs with a victory Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway, winning a week after being one of the first four Cup Series drivers knocked out of title contention.

After none of the contenders won the first three races of the playoffs — a first in any round in this postseason format — the trend continued with the eliminated Reddick leading 53 of the final 54 laps on a long race day that went into the night.

The Richard Childress Racing No. 8 Chevrolet finished 1.19 seconds ahead of Joey Logano’s Team Penske Ford at the end of an extended race that had a track-record 17 cautions, a record 36 lead changes, a 56-minute red flag for lightning and multiple tire problems leading to crashes — including for playoff contenders Chase Elliott, the points leader going into the second round, and Christopher Bell.

“I was extremely worried, I’m not going to lie,” Reddick said. “Unfortunately, just about every time we’ve had fast cars, we’ve had some tire problems. That last run, the right sides were vibrating really, really hard there. … I was just trying to maximize and use the gap that I built over (Logano) just in case.”

Logano took over the points lead, by 12 over Ross Chastain.

Elliott, who entered the round of 12 as the points leader, had a fiery finish after his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet made contact with the outside wall in the fourth turn while leading just past the halfway mark of the race.

Flames were already visible from under the right side of the No. 9 car when he got onto the front stretch, then turned across and came to a stop in the middle of the infield, where Elliott climbed out uninjured as the car was being engulfed by flames. He finished 32nd.

“I’m not sure that Goodyear is at fault,” Elliott said. “Goodyear always takes the black eye, but they’re put in a really tough position by NASCAR to build a tire that can survive these types of race tracks with this car. I wouldn’t blame Goodyear.”