The Regular Season Championship leaders will start alongside one another on the front row for Sunday’s Straight Talk Wireless 400 playoff race at Homestead-Miami Speedway (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App), with 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick besting Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson by a slight 0.077 seconds Saturday morning to claim the pole position.
This is the 28-year-old Californian’s third pole of the 2024 season in the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota — the ninth of his career — and comes at a crucial time in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs’ Round of 8 with Sunday the second of three races that will decide which four drivers advance to the Nov. 10 Phoenix race championship eligible to hoist the big trophy.
Reddick, a two-time Xfinity Series winner at the 1.5-miler, turned a 167.452 mph lap in his Toyota Camry to set the pace and earn the first pit stall selection. His work gave Toyota a three-series pole sweep for the weekend, with Toyotas starting first in Saturday’s Craftsman Truck Series and Xfinity Series races — the 13th time the make has done that.
“The pole has eluded me in the Cup Series here. We’ve been very close and just needed a very good Round 2. I think for our group, we ran a really good lap for sure,” said Reddick, the Regular Season Champion, who arrives in South Florida ranked sixth in the championship standings, 30 points behind Hendrick Motorsports’ William Byron in that all-important fourth-place transfer position.
