NASCAR takeaways: Corey LaJoie flips, Tyler Reddick wins at Michigan

BROOKLYN, Mich. — Tyler Reddick overcame some adversity late in the NASCAR Cup Series race at Michigan International Speedway to capture his second victory of the season. 

Reddick was passed by William Byron on the first overtime restart but returned the favor on the second and final one to capture the event where the final 154 laps were run Monday after rains suspended the race on Lap 52 a day earlier.

“I feel like I’ve been doing a better job of keeping a level head — reset, what’s our next move going to be, how are we going to pass this car ahead of us and the next one,” Reddick said. “Just having a better mindset has helped me.”

The race didn’t just have dramatics at the end. Corey LaJoie went on a scary flip on Lap 136. He climbed out of his car and was not injured.

With two races left in the regular season, there are currently four spots in the playoffs available on points. Martin Truex Jr. has a 77-point edge on the cutoff, while Ty Gibbs is 39 points ahead and Chris Buescher is 16 points to the good side. Ross Chastain holds a one-point margin for the final spot.

Takeaways after a race where Reddick and Byron finished 1-2 with Ty Gibbs, Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski finishing in the top 5. 

LAJOIE CRAZY FLIP

LaJoie’s car launched quickly as he was side-by-side trying to get by Noah Gragson.

“He chopped me off of [Turn] 2 a couple of different times when I had a run late and I tried to get to his left rear and misjudged it,” LaJoie said. 

The cars have roof flaps designed to deploy to help keep the cars on the ground when they start to spin, but LaJoie’s car launched before the flaps could be effective.

“I don’t know if it was the arms of an angel or what it was, but that thing was up quick,” LaJoie said. “I’m not an engineer [so] I don’t know. Looking at the flags, that was into a headwind, too. So maybe that [contributed].

“[Being near] the liftoff speed and you add a 15-20 miles-an-hour wind, too, I don’t know. I don’t like to get upside down and I’ve done it twice this year and it’s no fun.”

LaJoie’s car slid on its roof for a bit before hitting grass and starting to barrel-roll. He was wearing a mouthpiece that collects data from an accident, and he was interested in what it would indicate. 

“I should try not to flip it in the first place,” LaJoie said. “The grass [hits] were the hard ones when it’s pow, pow, pow. … It hurts.”

Veteran driver Denny Hamlin said the Next Gen car might be prone to flipping more often with its solid underbody, but the car is built more to protect drivers in rollovers and from intrusions in those instances. He said he’d rather flip in the Next Gen car then hit a wall head-on.

“He was just right in the middle of the straightaway probably doing 185 [mph] or so when he turned sideways,” Hamlin said. “I just don’t know that you’re going to be able to slow it down enough to keep the car on the ground in that situation. … I feel comfortable with the speeds that we’re at.

“When you turn these things sideways, with that pan underneath the bottom, it’s literally like a wedge — the air is pushing that thing right over the top. Short of getting rid of the underbody, I just don’t know how you’re going to stop it.”

REDDICK CAPITALIZES

Reddick has seen potential wins slip away earlier this year, so the manner in which he won Monday could be a boost to a potential championship run. It lifted him to the regular-season points lead by 10 points over Chase Elliott, 28 on Hamlin and 32 on Kyle Larson.

He had every reason to implode late — the late caution that resulted in the first overtime restart came after Martin Truex Jr. brushed the wall, resulting in some smoke but not significant debris. Then he was behind Byron when the caution came out on the initial lap following the first overtime restart. He then restarted on the inside, and he felt his car might not be good enough to beat Byron in that situation. 

“That’s why I have a great team around me,” Reddick said. “I was selling myself short a little bit. … [I thought] of how I can do the best job to get the lead back.

“Ty [Gibbs] played a huge role in that giving me a really good push, got me ahead enough where I was able to clear the 24 [of Byron. The rest is history.”

Hamlin said that drivers who have the best car win 35 percent of the time in the recent Next Gen era, and Reddick will win his share.

“As long as you have a big enough sample size, while it’s easy to get down in the moments where you had winning cars and didn’t win, if you race here long enough — and he will — it’s all going to work itself out, and he’ll have a big win total,” Hamlin said.

Byron was frustrated — he wonders if he had chosen the inside lane for the final restart, whether Redidck would have beaten him.

“I was torn on top or bottom,” Byron said. “The bottom gives you a chance for sure. But it seems like the leader always takes top here, and it seems like he gets beat pretty often. Lane choice is really difficult here.

“The safe bet is to take the top. But I feel like I’ll replay the fact that I maybe could have won from the bottom.”

FLURRY OF FLATS

Joey Logano, Todd Gilliland and AJ Allmendinger all had flat tires within a couple of laps of each other and soon after they had pitted for fresh rubber.

It would make one think that maybe they all hit debris on the track, but Goodyear tire engineers saw no evidence of that. Logano said his likely was a matter of just starting the run on low air pressure. Teams put tires on the car with low air pressure because they can go fast and the air pressure increases after a handful of laps as the tires get hotter.

There is a recommended tire pressure for teams, but they don’t necessarily have to follow it.

Logano said there’s so much load through the corners and on low air with stiff springs, it stresses the tire while also generating significant speed.

“I’m sure we just got aggressive,” Logano said. “There’s speed down there and the whole field knows it. That’s so many went down after green-flag stops. … Unfortunately, we’re in a box of there is speed in low air. 

“It’s risk versus reward and how fast you want to go. How much risk are you willing to take? So it’s just one of those racing things.”

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.

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