Winning the Daytona 500 gave Tyler Reddick an emotion only his sons could give him
It’s been two years to the day, and Tyler Reddick can still see it clearly. The visual is seared into his soul. And who could blame him? It’s of his wife, Alexa, and then-4-year-old son, Beau, smiling and screaming and sprinting toward Dad.
That was Feb. 15, 2024, in the Daytona International Speedway infield, after a qualifying heat he’d just won.
Two years later, on Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026 — after winning the biggest race of his life — he thought he’d see that again.
“I was wondering where my family was,” Reddick recalled as he stood in the grass near the start-finish line. “I was ready for my son, like the Duels a couple years ago, to come running across the grass.”
That’s not exactly how it happened Sunday. No sprinting kids. This year’s scene saw Reddick fist-pumping through the delirium of his first Daytona 500 win in front of 150,000 fans on the frontstretch for a while. Then his pit crew mobbed him. Then Reddick drove over to Victory Lane, where a teary Michael Jordan was waiting to bear hug him, and where owner Denny Hamlin and teammates Bubba Wallace and Riley Herbst were waiting to congratulate him.
Eventually, Reddick met up with his family and held them close, yes.
But when he did, his mind didn’t just travel to that joyful day in 2024. It also traveled to a scary one in October 2025.
He thought about his youngest son — now 9-month-old Rookie.
“The only time I’ve ever felt the level of emotions I did in that moment was winning the pole at the Charlotte Roval, when Rookie was in the hospital,” Reddick said. “For me that was a whole different set of reasons, everything that my son was going through, our family was going through.”
In October 2025, the Reddicks announced that Rookie had been diagnosed with a tumor in his chest that was affecting his heart. It was the kind of tumor that was “choking” the renal vein and renal artery. It resulted in Rookie, then 4 months old, getting his failed right kidney removed.
It was all scary. It was all a lot to worry about just as Reddick was facing elimination in last year’s playoffs. And on Sunday, after snapping a 38-race winless streak with the greatest win of them all, that’s where Reddick’s mind went: to both of his sons, he said.
“The emotion I shared with my wife, my sons, it’s more reflecting on the personal things we’ve went through. The struggles. The hard times,” Reddick said on Sunday. “The uncertainties of what’s going on with Rookie. Is Rookie going to be OK? What’s going on there? So for us to have this moment, in this race, again, everything I went through the tail end of the season and the offseason and getting back under our feet, it has its own place.”
Another moment Reddick will remember forever
Reddick counted a lot of blessings Sunday.
For one, Rookie is fine now, Reddick said. Healthy and happy. The infant traveled to Daytona International Speedway this weekend. He was part of the family’s three-day Disney cruise just before Speedweek. Rookie loved every moment of being at the racetrack, Reddick said. The 23XI Racing driver called his youngest son “a trooper” who realizes “the crazier it is, he just starts laughing” more and more — like when the Thunderbirds did a flyover, sending an earthquake of sound through the Daytona venue. “He’s wild,” Reddick said.
Another blessing? Reddick was about as effusive about the organization he races for as he could be. He said that Hamlin and Jordan — the two principal owners of 23XI Racing — “have believed in me a lot” and that “they wanted me to be here” and that it’s nice for him to come up big on the “moments I’m supposed to deliver on.”
Reddick is now the only driver in NASCAR history to win the February race at Daytona in the Truck Series and the O’Reilly Series and the Cup Series. He’s now also just one of four drivers to win his first nine Cup races at nine different racetracks. The others: Jeff Gordon, Kyle Busch and Bill Elliott.
He did all this Sunday in the craziest scenarios imaginable — after leading a total of one lap, after being part of only one of 65 lead changes, after being one of a gobsmacking 25 leaders.
But there was another blessing he counted. Another one of him about him as a father. Go back to Reddick on the grass in Daytona, waiting for his son and wife to chase after him.
“I was standing in the grass in front of the start-finish line at Daytona after I’d just won the Daytona 500, and I’m looking for my family,” Reddick said. “It’s the biggest race you can win as a Cup Series driver, and I’m looking for my family. ... It’s important for me to celebrate it with them.”
On his way there, he saw Beau running to Victory Lane, where Reddick was driving to. Reddick called after his now-6-year-old son and told him to hop into his 500-winning car. They pulled up to Victory Lane together.
“I remember when I was a kid growing up racing dirt, me and my family went on the road, my family, my sister would make their sacrifices to go on the road with us,” Reddick said. “It’s about celebrating the wins as a family.”
He added: “In the tough times, my son has done a great job of really helping lift my spirits up. I can’t think of a specific moment at this time, but there have been plenty of times I’ve come back to the bus, and we’re getting ready to go ahead to the plane, when I’ve just been irate or just sad because of something I did on the racetrack, and my son has done a really good job of picking me up in those moments.”
Once Tyler and Beau got there to Victory Lane, right before the confetti popped and rained down and reminded Reddick that yes, this was real, and yes, Jordan was bear-hugging him, and yes, a childhood dream had come true — a new memory took place.
It won’t replace the one at Daytona two years ago. It won’t heal the scars that came from the scares in October. But it’s there, seared in Reddick’s memory nonetheless — and in the collective memory of the sport on its most special day of the year, too.
Anyone who saw it can see it clearly. It was his son, Beau, climbing to the top of the car, fist-pumping with his dad — who then, after throwing water into the crowd, safely picked up his son off the racecar’s roof and hugged him as tight as he could.
This story was originally published February 16, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Winning the Daytona 500 gave Tyler Reddick an emotion only his sons could give him."
