Tyler Reddick had arrived early at 23XI Racing’s Airspeed headquarters one day last week, before the sun had fully risen. Walking by and noticing the No. 45 Toyota that he’ll drive this weekend at Darlington Raceway as it sat on the pristine arena-like floor, he did a double-take.

Reddick had already channeled Tim Richmond with his paint scheme for Darlington’s Throwback Weekend back in May, but this new design transcended just one sport’s greatness and made him look again. On the hood, thanks to a new partnership with Upper Deck, were images of 23XI team co-owner and NBA legend Michael Jordan, golf superstar Tiger Woods and hockey immortal Wayne Gretzky.

“I got to the shop at like 6:30 or something, I walk in the door and I’m looking at the car like, what? Like, wow, OK,” Reddick said. “I thought I was hallucinating. I mean, it was early in the morning, right, like I hadn’t had enough coffee yet. I’m looking at the car, like, ‘Am I seeing something?’ “

When a 23XI colleague working the shop floor assured him that his Darlington ride was the real deal, Reddick said he’d take it. The “no pressure” expectations, however, are in another realm.

“What the hell did I do to deserve that?” Reddick cracked. “I’m going to have to go out there and do something spectacular.”

There may not be a direct comparison to knocking down the winning shot in the NBA Finals, donning the green jacket at The Masters, or hoisting the Stanley Cup, but Reddick has title aspirations all the same in this weekend’s regular-season finale at the historic Darlington oval. He’ll be chasing the Cup Series’ Regular Season Championship and the trophy that comes with it, but he’s also after the bonus of 15 playoff points that could aid his bid for the heavier hardware at stake at season’s end — the Bill France Cup that’s awarded to the overall champ.

Reddick enters Sunday’s Cook Out Southern 500 (6 p.m. ET, USA, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App), the last of 26 regular-season events, as the Cup Series points leader. He clings to a narrow advantage over Hendrick Motorsports teammates Kyle Larson, who sits 17 points back, and Chase Elliott, just 18 points off the top. The 28-year-old driver says the team’s tack isn’t focused on playing “prevent defense” to protect his points lead, but in staying focused on the challenge presented by the 1.366-mile grinder of a track, one that’s lured cars into its outer barriers on an annual basis since the 1950s.

“If we take care of our points, we do that by having a solid run at Darlington. I mean, from that aspect, those goals are kind of one and the same, what our approach is,” Reddick said. “When you go to some of these other tracks, you have to think about it a little differently. But Darlington’s a race, it’s you versus yourself and the race track. Obviously, we’re competing with other drivers out there, but you can make mistakes pretty easily there by getting too caught up in what your competitors are doing. So it’s just a good mindset to have.”

His last time out at Darlington was a split decision, with one of those types of miscues snaring him in the late going. Reddick put his No. 45 Toyota on the pole and led a race-best 174 of the 293 laps in the Goodyear 400 back in May, but a late-race squeeze and contact with Chris Buescher’s No. 17 RFK Racing Ford dropped both from victory contention. That on-track altercation — which cleared the way for RFK’s Brad Keselowski to vault to the win — sparked a post-race confrontation, and Reddick took ownership of the mistake in an effort to explain his side and calm Buescher’s anger.

That 32nd-place Darlington finish still stands as Reddick’s worst of the season, and it’s stuck with him as the 2024 campaign has played out.

“Yeah, I really wish I could have looked into the future and saw where I’d be points. I would have taken that second place right about now, because I’d be just going into Darlington and not worrying about racing the 5 (Larson) or the 9 (Elliott) at all,” Reddick said. “You know, hindsight is always 20/20, but certainly it’s a learning moment, I feel like, as the year went on from that moment forward. There’s a lot of reflection for me after that race. Obviously, everything’s out there and been talked about between me and Chris, but beyond how I affected his race, for us and our team personally, I think …”

At this moment, Reddick paused to do some quick math, and his on-the-fly calculations were eerily close to accurate without the benefit of the results sheet in front of him. He’d gathered 17 points by finishing fourth and first at the stages, and a runner-up result would have meant a 52-point total payout. His haul instead was just 22 points — a shortfall that indeed has kept the regular-season title hunt closer than desired.

“So I learned a lot from that moment, and it’s benefited me ever since,” Reddick says, “but certainly it’s tough when I go there, because I’ve never won there. I feel like I’ve had a car and an opportunity and a day … I’ve had a number of days where I’ve been capable of winning there.”

Some of that confidence stems from Reddick’s experience there. His Darlington lap total goes beyond what the record book shows, owing to a handful of rookie tests as his Xfinity Series career transitioned from Chip Ganassi’s operation to JR Motorsports, where he won his first series title. “Got pretty familiar with it,” he says now. “Found the Darlington stripe really early on.”

A guide for those earliest tests was Larson, then with Ganassi on the Cup Series side. And while Reddick said he wondered why his teams kept going back to Darlington for testing instead of branching off to other venues, he says now that the experience has been a boon to his career.

“I don’t know, ever since I’ve stepped into a Cup car at that place, it’s just always seemed to have clicked,” Reddick says. “And on top of it also, we were doing the NASCAR Next Gen testing, they had me do the test at Darlington in that car as well. So again, just been fortunate to do so many tests there, do some tests for NASCAR there, and just have a good understanding of what you need to be feeling to go faster.”

Which makes it all the more surprising that Reddick has yet to visit Victory Lane at the rugged raceway. He’s come close, with three runner-up finishes there — two in Cup and one in Xfinity — in his career. The most recent came in last year’s Southern 500, where he led 90 laps and ran second to Larson.

“Had some painful second-place finishes there and third-place finishes,” Reddick says, “but it’s been nice to know that we’ve been super, super strong at Darlington.”

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