Michael Jordan: Tyler Reddick 'gutted it out' at Darlington with his own 'Flu Game' reprise

DARLINGTON, S.C. — Tyler Reddick was laid low, sick as could be. The Cup Series Regular Season Championship was at stake, and 500 grueling miles in surface-of-the-sun heat at one of NASCAR’s most punishing tracks stood between him and that goal.

Team co-owner Michael Jordan, on hand to watch 23XI Racing’s operations on a sultry day at Darlington Raceway, knew a little about that.

Reddick turned in his own version of “The Flu Game,” taking a page from Jordan’s historic Game 5 performance through a bout of food poisoning in the 1997 NBA Finals. Reddick — facing his own severe stomach ailment — rallied to 10th place in Sunday’s Cook Out Southern 500 to seal the regular-season crown by a scant single point over Kyle Larson, who swept the stages but slipped to fourth place at the checkered flag.

RELATED: Race results | Reddick seals regular-season crown

Reddick was taken to the infield care center for treatment immediately post-race, but emerged at the team’s gathering spot near pit road’s exit. Among the first to congratulate the 28-year-old driver on his accomplishment was Jordan, who battled his own case of nerves throughout the nearly four-hour event.

“I mean, I know what it feels like to be sick and trying to perform, and just to do what he did, I mean, I wasn’t going around 200 miles an hour in a car, but I’m proud of his effort, and we needed it,” Jordan said. “We won by one point. I mean, he gutted it out. So hopefully he feels better tomorrow, and we feel better next week.”

Reddick began telling his team near the end of Stage 1 that the stomach bug he’d fought since midday Friday was flaring up. He said his son, Beau, had been sick from the previous weekend and that the illness apparently was contagious. His team offered crackers, Tums and fluids for his next pit stop, when Reddick said he worried his ailment had taken a vomiting turn. Despite all this, he finished fourth at Stage 1 as the searing sun began to set.

Reddick spilled the first batch of pills that his No. 45 Toyota team had handed him, and his crew settled on offering a water bottle filled with a medical concoction that would help him through the race’s long stages. By Lap 128, the No. 45 radio signaled to its driver: “Just remind him of MJ.”

“Just really thankful that a lot of great people on our team, they were feeding me the right stuff in the car to help me manage it best as I could,” Reddick said. “Just smart people. Able to put the right stuff in my drink to help calm my stomach down. At one point, I was just waiting to puke all over myself. Thankfully they kept that from happening. A whole lot of other gross stuff. We were able to avoid a lot of that, which was nice, but it was extremely uncomfortable in the car all night.”

Reddick faded to eighth by the end of Stage 2, telling his team, “I’m doing all I can, I promise.” He also asked for an update on the running Cup Series standings and was told that he’d start the final stage one point behind, but that he’d need to gain two spots since Larson held the tiebreaker with more regular-season wins. He slowed when a multicar crash erupted in front of him with 24 laps remaining and was 14th at the time of his final pit stop.

The service left him on Goodyear tires that were nine laps fresher that some of his competitors by the end, and he methodically clipped off the handful of spots he needed, with his crew giving him regular updates over the team communications. Larson’s slide after Chase Briscoe took control for the victory, combined with Reddick’s final pass of Chase Elliott for 10th on the 362nd of 367 laps was part of what made the difference. The other part was Reddick pushing through his physical anguish in one of NASCAR’s longest events.

“To answer that, it’s what we have right in front of us,” explained Reddick, who said he never considered having a relief driver. “We’re trying to win this thing, win the regular season. I mean, that’s what we were mindful of the whole way. Just trying to think of what we could do to stay in the hunt of that. We got to Stage 3, we were just thinking, OK, how many points are we behind? Where do we need to be? We went to work on what we needed to do to try to put ourselves in position to get there. I mean, it took things out of our control to make it happen. Some cars got in front of the 5 (Larson). That’s ultimately what allowed us to get it from 10th.

“Yeah, just got to fight all night long. You never can count on that happening, right? The best car all night losing control of the race. But you have to be in position to take advantage of it in case it does.”

MORE: Race Rewind: Darlington | At-track photos: Darlington

Blocking out the woozy feelings was no easy feat, especially with the team offering reminders — almost as a distraction.

“We were making jokes about it because Michael was giving him a hard time, asked if he was alive, and he said the flu game there was always a very notable win, back in the day on their run to the championship,” said No. 45 crew chief Billy Scott. “We were making jokes about we were going to compare how many points he got versus Michael got that day. So yeah, that’s amazing to gut that out, to run top 10 all day long, to finish top 10, to have to make the passes there at the end that he needed to put us in position to win. You’re right, I have not experienced that, not witnessed that, but I can’t imagine how tough it was.”

To answer Scott’s conjecture, a comparison of the points shows:

• Michael Jordan, Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals: 38 points; Chicago Bulls win by two points

• Tyler Reddick, 2024 Southern 500: 37 points; wins regular-season title by one point

Jordan’s exuberance for Reddick’s accomplishment, however, was tempered by the end of Bubba Wallace’s postseason hopes. Wallace won the pole in 23XI’s No. 23 Toyota but his involvement in the race’s biggest crash, plus Briscoe’s breakthrough, thwarted his hopes.

Jordan had said in a late-race interview with NBC Sports that he was “terrified” watching the team that he co-owns with driver Denny Hamlin fight for dueling regular-season goals. Post-race, he was smiling alongside the Regular Season Championship trophy, but his feelings were split.

“I’m still disappointed. Obviously, I’m disappointed we didn’t get both cars in,” Jordan said. “Like I said, Bubba did a great job of qualifying and trying to get himself in, but you know that disappointment makes me a little bit happy to see Reddick fighting himself to a championship. I mean, I’m kind of halfway feeling better and halfway feeling sad. But look, we are blessed as a team and we’re going to keep getting better. I’m gonna stress that from my perspective, and I know Denny’s going to do the exact same thing.”

Reddick used up every bit of the 17-point cushion he had entering Sunday night’s 500-miler, but escaped with a valued bonus of 15 playoff points for the 10-race postseason ahead. That windfall slots him as the third seed for the playoff opener next weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

The trophy represented what’s been a journey for the 23XI Racing organization, still just in its fourth season of Cup Series competition.

“Yeah, it’s just a testament to all the hard work that everyone at 23XI, here at the race track, week in and week out, back at Airspeed, puts into this,” Reddick said. “We’re on year four of their goals, right? It’s just been really, really fun the last two years to be a part of this process, building up to where we want to be. I mean, it takes a lot of hard work to be consistent as we’ve been through the summer stretch. Both years really feel like we had rocky starts to get going. It’s nice to be able to get to where we did in the middle of the year and start thinking about points.

“I think it really helped us just continue to be more consistent, get us in the right mindset for these playoffs, just managing risk versus reward. We’ll be doing it three races at a time here soon.”