Tyler Reddick's Team Is Back

Tyler Reddick finished 3rd at Las Vegas on Sunday driving through the infield grass. On the last lap he got spun by Kyle Larson, kept the Toyota under control through the grass and crossed the finish line on pit road without losing the spot. It was his second comeback of the day, after a penalty in the second stage for too many crew members over the wall sent him to the back.

Reddick has won 5 races in 2026, more than anyone entered Sunday, and all 5 came by the middle of April, before a long summer slump. His Chase had gone badly since he finished 3rd at Darlington to open it. At Gateway he was knocked into the wall early, sent to the back, then climbed another car's wheel in the big crash and finished 25th. At Bristol he fell through the field early and finished 18th, laps down. At Kansas the car was loose from the green flag, a slow stop with a loose wheel cost him more, and he finished 11th. We read that last lap at Las Vegas as his team being back, and it would not surprise us to see them string together some good finishes.

Charlotte is a good place to start. Reddick has the best average finish at Charlotte of anyone entered, 9.5, and he has never won on the oval. Since 2022 he has finished 6th or better in every Charlotte race but one. In May he led the most laps and finished 4th. Over the last 6 Charlotte races his driver rating is 2nd best in the field, behind only William Byron.

The market likes him more than our sim does. DraftKings Sportsbook had him at +750 on Thursday morning, the 4th Toyota on the board behind Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell and Chase Briscoe, and ahead of Ty Gibbs and Bubba Wallace. Our sim has him finishing 9th, behind both Byron and Gibbs, who are longer prices. He finishes inside the top 10 in 58% of our runs. The sim weighs his whole season, slump included. If you are looking at a top 5 or top 10 market, the gap between the sim and his Charlotte record is the thing to think about.

Sunday's Cup Projections

Can Larson keep this going?

Larson leads the Chase by 40 points over Hamlin, and the two of them share the shortest price on the board at +450. He has earned the lead. Across the 5 Chase races he has averaged a 2.2 finish and led 92 laps a race, and he has done it on every kind of track the Chase has given him: the old, steep oval at Darlington, the steep short track at Bristol, the flat track at Gateway, the wide mile and a half at Kansas and the steeper one at Las Vegas.

He has 18 top 10s this season. A top 10 in all 5 races left would give him 23, 1 more than his best season in the current car. Everybody remembers how hard his summer was. The question is whether it lasts. His Charlotte finishes in this car have been hit or miss: 9th in 2022, 30th in 2023, 37th in 2025, then 5th in May. Our sim has him finishing 6th, which is the sim expecting some of this run to cool off.

Hamlin is the sim's favorite. He projects to finish 4th, and he projects to lead the most laps. He has led more laps at Charlotte than any driver entered, and he won from the pole in 2022, his only win on the oval. He also gains time on pit road, where nobody in Cup has been faster this season.

Running up front isn't finishing up front

Since 2022, 5 drivers have been the class of Charlotte: Bell, Reddick, Byron, Hamlin and Gibbs all average a top 10 running position. 3 of them finish where they run. Bell runs 8.8 on average and finishes 8.0. Reddick runs 8.8 and finishes 9.0. Byron runs 10.0 and finishes 9.6. Those 3 also have more top 10s at Charlotte in that stretch than anyone else entered.

Hamlin and Gibbs are just as fast and keep less of it. Hamlin runs 9.2 on average and finishes 12.0, almost 3 spots lost by the checkered flag. Gibbs runs 9.3 and finishes 15.5, more than 6 spots lost. In 2025 Hamlin ran 5th on average and finished 16th. In 2023 Gibbs ran 12th on average and finished 26th. Our sim has Hamlin finishing 4th and Gibbs 8th. In a top 10 market, the question with both of them is whether the finish matches the run.

Gibbs is also the hardest fantasy call on the slate. DraftKings has him at $9,400, well above what he has cost on average this season, and nobody in Cup has been in more perfect lineups this year.

485 laps led, no trophy

Byron opened the Chase with a 37th at Darlington. Since then he has finished 4th, 9th, 7th and 6th without leading a lap. The big ovals are his best tracks, and his driver rating over the last 6 Charlotte races is the best in the field. He has finished in the top 10 in his last 4 Charlotte races, the longest active streak of anyone entered. He has also led 485 laps at Charlotte without winning, 283 of them in last year's 600, when he finished 2nd.

If you play fantasy, this is where Byron gets interesting. He projects to finish 8th, and we expect every other driver projected to finish between 6th and 10th to be in more lineups than he is. We project Byron in 19% of DraftKings lineups. Gibbs, who projects right alongside him, is at 26%, Reddick is at 27% and Bell is at 44%. At $9,000, Byron also costs less than all of them.

This isn't the 600

Sunday is 400 miles, the first fall Cup race on the Charlotte oval since 2017. Every Cup race on the oval in the current car has been the 600, and each one had a different winner: Hamlin, Ryan Blaney, Bell, Ross Chastain and Daniel Suarez. Chastain won from 40th, and the driver who led the most laps won only 2 of them.

A shorter race should make it harder to win from deep in the field or to run away with the laps led. That matters for fantasy, because laps led and fastest laps have paid more at Charlotte than at most tracks: 19.9% of all DraftKings points since 2015, against 15.6% everywhere else. Most of those points came in 600 mile races with more laps to lead. Our sim has Hamlin leading the most laps on Sunday, 34.5 of the 267.

Penske looks fixed, except at Charlotte

The mile and a half races in the Chase went well for Penske. Austin Cindric finished 2nd at Kansas and 4th at Las Vegas, Blaney was 5th in both, and Joey Logano won Bristol the week before Kansas. Cindric's recent form is 3rd best in the field, and it looks to us like Penske has fixed whatever was wrong on the intermediate tracks for most of the year.

Charlotte is the catch. In the current car Cindric has never finished better than 20th at Charlotte, and his average finish is 30.8. Blaney won the 600 in 2023, but his other 4 finishes on the oval were 29th, 39th, 38th and 7th. Our sim is not sold either: Blaney is the best of the 3, and he projects to finish 10th. Penske, once again, is the team Saturday's practice will tell us the most about.

Wallace's quiet Chase

Reddick's teammate has had a good Chase that nobody talks about. Wallace finished 8th at Darlington, 14th at Gateway, 7th at Bristol, 9th at Kansas and 8th at Las Vegas: 4 top 10s in 5 races, with no top 5s and no wins. His driver rating was 110 at both Darlington and Las Vegas.

Charlotte has not been kind to him, a 23.0 average finish in 10 starts. He projects to finish 12th, and he is +1800 to win.

Friday's Truck Projections

The weekend starts Friday with the Truck Series. Kaden Honeycutt leads our table and projects to finish 4th. He wins 22.9% of our runs, the best chance in the field. Layne Riggs, who won the Truck race at Charlotte in May, projects to finish 5th. He wins 18.3% of our runs.

The Ecosave 200 goes green Friday, Oct 9 at 5:00 pm ET on FOX. Truck Series practice runs Friday, Oct 9 at 1:00 pm ET, with qualifying right after it.

Saturday's O'Reilly Projections

Corey Day won the O'Reilly race at Las Vegas last week, and our sim still ranks Justin Allgaier and Jesse Love ahead of him. Allgaier projects to finish 5th. He wins 19.1% of our runs, the best chance in the field. Love projects to finish 6th, and Day 7th.

The Blue Cross NC 300 goes green Saturday, Oct 10 at 4:00 pm ET on The CW. O'Reilly Series practice runs Saturday, Oct 10 at 10:30 am ET, with qualifying right after it.

How to watch Sunday

The Bank of America 400 goes green Sunday, Oct 11 at 3:00 pm ET on USA Network. Cup practice runs Saturday, Oct 10 at 1:00 pm ET, with qualifying right after it.

The Bank of America 400 is the 6th of the 10 Chase races. Once Saturday's practice and qualifying are in, the projections page runs the race 10,000 more times, and those tables will not match the ones above.