Michael Jordan on Tyler Reddick Win: "Little Kid Drove His Ass Off"
As an NBA Player, Michael Jordan had ice coursing through his veins. Time after time, when his Chicago Bulls team needed Jordan to close out an important Playoff game, No. 23 took the ball into his hands and sunk a shot at the buzzer, which would serve as the proverbial dagger stabbing through the heart of his competition.
In Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series Straight Talk Wireless 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Tyler Reddick, who drives the No. 45 Toyota Camry XSE for Jordan's 23XI Racing NASCAR team, pulled off a clutch Jordan-esque moment of his own in NASCAR's Playoffs as he overcame having older tires than his competition on his car on the final run of the race as well as being stuck behind two of the best drivers in the sport today in defending series champion Ryan Blaney and Denny Hamlin in the closing laps of the race.
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RESULTS: NASCAR Cup Series Straight Talk Wireless 400 at Homestead
STANDINGS: NASCAR Cup Series Playoff Standings After Homestead
The odds were stacked against him, but defiantly, Reddick didn't care. Reddick's steering wheel served as the basketball for his clutch performance as he knifed around Hamlin for the runner-up spot in Turns 1 and 2 on the final lap, and then, in Turns 3 and 4 he pulled off a daring move to the outside lane to surge past Blaney for the race win.
TYLER REDDICK PASSES RYAN BLANEY IN THE FINAL CORNER!
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) October 27, 2024
HE WINS AT HOMESTEAD-MIAMI AND IS GOING TO THE NASCAR CHAMPIONSHIP! pic.twitter.com/GtgwGyY6jb
The victory officially secured Reddick's advancement from the Round of 8 of the Playoffs to the Championship 4 at Phoenix Raceway, where he'll be one of the four drivers that will compete for the NASCAR Cup Series championship in a couple of weeks. For the young driver, and the 23XI Racing team, which was founded in 2021, it's the first-ever Championship 4 appearance. After the hair-raising move that Reddick put on to take the win on Sunday, Reddick was greeted by Jordan on the frontstretch at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
The 6'6" Jordan lifted the 5'5" Reddick into the air and delivered a massive bear hug. In the midst of the hug, Jordan was speaking to Reddick. According to Reddick, Jordan was just expressing his pride for his driver, and overall, his race team.
"He was just really proud, the fight that we had, never giving up, fighting through the adversity," Reddick explained in his post-race press conference. "Just really, really proud of the effort we put forth.
"Like I said, he believes in me. He believes in this team. I know the circumstances weren't ideal. This is the kind of things we have to overcome when we get put in these positions. We've had to do it a few times. He was really proud of the whole team for the effort we put forth."
While Jordan was obviously proud of the total team effort from everyone involved with 23XI Racing, the team owner was overjoyed to see the killer instinct in the driver of his No. 45 car, who pulled off a buzzer-beater at the 1.5-mile speedway.
"Little kid drove his ass off. I'm proud of him," Jordan said of Reddick in a jubilent interview on the NBC Sports broadcast.
As far as the move itself, Jordan explained, "Oh, man, he just let go. He just went for it and I'm glad. We needed it. We needed it."
“Little kid drove his ass off.”
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) October 27, 2024
Michael Jordan and Tyler Reddick are going to the NASCAR Championship together. One as an owner. The other as a driver. pic.twitter.com/Z5XiMWqPir
Jordan, who was approached with the idea of owning a NASCAR team by Denny Hamlin in 2020, has become very active at the track in supporting his two-car race team over the last couple of seasons. In the Playoffs, Jordan has been in the pits every single race. He loves NASCAR and always has.
There are photos of Jordan hanging out in the NASCAR garage at the age of 19 with Richard Petty at the 1982 World 600 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. Aside from shooting hoops, Jordan loves racing. He even owned an AMA Superbike Racing team for several years. Unfortunately, Jordan didn't experience true success in motorsport -- until he became a NASCAR Cup Series team owner.
Now, in just four seasons, his team has gone from a startup to a true championship contender. But while they're nearly at the mountain top in the NASCAR Cup Series, 23XI Racing still faces choppy waters ahead.
When Jordan says 23XI Racing needed Reddick's win on Sunday, the Pro Basketball Hall of Famer and team owner meant it.
As Jordan's 23XI Racing team continues to march toward a battle for the Bill France Cup, the trophy awarded annually to the NASCAR Cup Series champion, at Phoenix Raceway, the team is among two that are headed toward a legal fight with NASCAR and the France family.
Following a two-plus-year negotiation surrounding the Team Charter Agreement, which had developed into a stalemate NASCAR allegedly forced the feet of the NASCAR Cup Series team owners to the fire with what 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports have described in their antitrust lawsuit, filed by all-star antitrust attorney Jeffrey Kessler, as a last-minute take it or leave it deal.
While nearly every team caved under the pressure of potentially losing their Charters if they didn't sign the deal on September 6, 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports called NASCAR's hand.
Now, they'll battle it out in the courts in an effort to better the overall deal for the NASCAR Cup Series team owners in the Charter Agreement, which is set to control how revenue is distributed to the teams for the next seven seasons beginning with the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series campaign.
While 23XI Racing is seeking an injunction, which will allow them to compete as a Chartered team in 2025 while the legal situation plays out, that injunction has yet to be granted by a judge, NASCAR is fighting back against the injunction request. If the injunction isn't granted, 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports will have to operate their race teams in 2025 without Charters.
Without Charters, the teams will earn some money as an "Open" team, but it'll be a much smaller chunk of the overall pie as NASCAR issues a percentage of the Media Rights Agreement money back into the weekly race purse, which is distributed among the 36 Chartered entries. The non-chartered entries in NASCAR compete for a much smaller pile of cash, which is partly why no Open team has competed in a full season in recent years.
It's a potentially stressful situation for any NASCAR Cup Series team to see a tangible asset such as a Charter, or in 23XI Racing's case two Charters, potentially stripped away. But the ongoing noise surrounding the pending lawsuit isn't slowing the team itself down on the race track.
"That's a good question. But I think we just answered it," Dave Rogers, 23XI Racing's competition director said in his post-race winner's press conference at Homestead when asked how the team works through the lawsuit. "We represent the competition department, so we compete. Our ownership is committed to giving us the resources we need to compete. It's our job to use those resources the best we can, regardless of any outside situation, whether it's the one you bring up or any other situation, right? We're here to win races. I think everyone at 23XI is focused on that."
While the higher ups fight the battle in the courtroom, the competition side is doing its best to deliver on its end.
Depending on how things go at Phoenix Raceway in a couple of weeks, the perception of 23XI Racing's lawsuit with NASCAR could go from people seeing it as the new team on the block bellyaching about the sport, to it potentially being seen as the NASCAR Cup Series championship-winning organization raising serious concerns about the way the sport that they compete in is run.
Toby Christie is the Editor-in-Chief of Racing America. He has 15 years of experience as a motorsports journalist and has been with Racing America since 2023.