One day, it's going to dawn on Beau Reddick that he was held up in the arms of one of the most famous men in the world in a moment of triumph.
As his father Tyler Reddick celebrated in Victory Lane after winning at Talladega, four-year-old Beau was brought to his father by 23XI Racing co-owner, NBA legend, and international sports icon Michael Jordan, who was seen and heard asking the happy toddler if he was ready to celebrate his Dad's victory.
"You going to celebrate?"
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) April 21, 2024
"Yeah!"
😊😊😊 pic.twitter.com/1UCsrWOeGI
Speaking to the press afterward, Reddick said that his son has a concept of who Michael Jordan is and that he knows that he's famous. The question is exactly how Beau understands what Jordan is famous for.
"I feel like probably with as young as he is, (he knows him) more as the guy with the shoes for sure," Reddick said. "I haven't done a great job ... I've gotta probably play some highlights, some (NBA) Finals matchups and educate Beau a little bit better."
After taking the Jordan Brand Toyota to Victory Lane and also climbing the catchfence in celebration, Tyler Reddick has moved up into the top five in the CBS Sports NASCAR Power Rankings, slotting in fourth and taking over as the top Toyota driver 10 races into the 2024 season.
Here's a look at CBS Sports' updated NASCAR Power Rankings following Talladega:
| Rank | Driver | Change | Comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | William Byron | -- | William Byron wasn't credited with leading any laps at Talladega, but he avoided the big wreck coming to the checkered flag to finish eighth and also earned some valuable stage points with a third in Stage 1. That's the sort of run that championship seasons are made of. | |
| 2 | Chase Elliott | A multi-car accident took place off the bumper of Chase Elliott, as he turned Justin Haley into Christopher Bell to trigger a multi-car pileup entering turn 3. Elliott was lucky not to get caught up in it himself, as he had to take evasive action in order to not get swept up in it. | ||
| 3 | Joey Logano | A good points day for Joey Logano at Talladega, as he led a total of 22 laps and also won stage 2. But he and the rest of the Ford drivers are still looking for their first win of the season. | ||
| 4 | Tyler Reddick | Fox Sports cameras captured Michael Jordan holding Tyler Reddick's young son Beau and asking him if he was ready to celebrate his Dad's win. Reddick says his son knows who MJ is, but he said he knows him mostly as a shoe guy as opposed to the most famous basketball player to ever walk the Earth. | ||
| 5 | Martin Truex Jr. | Martin Truex Jr. is at the top of the list of contenders for next week's race at Dover. Truex got his very first Cup win there back in 2007, and he now has four Dover wins in total including last year. | ||
| 6 | Denny Hamlin | Denny Hamlin had to put on his owner's hat after getting taken out in the crash among the Toyotas. Hamlin went to Victory Lane at Talladega as the winning car owner, his second such victory there since forming 23XI. | ||
| 7 | Brad Keselowski | Brad Keselowski got his very first Cup win at Talladega in 2009 when Carl Edwards tried to block him entering the trioval and turned himself off his bumper. On Sunday, Keselowski's winless drought almost ended in very similar fashion in almost the very same part of Talladega's trioval. | ||
| 8 | Chase Briscoe | Chase Briscoe keeps piecing together solid finishes, and it has him in a position to contend for the playoffs on points. Briscoe finished 12th at Talladega and currently sits in the same position in the regular season standings. | ||
| 9 | Ross Chastain | Dover feels like a good place for Ross Chastain to break through and get his first win of the 2024 season. He was third at Dover in 2022 and second there last year, which bodes very well if you believe in patterns. | ||
| 10 | Alex Bowman | Speaking of drivers who should be looking forward to Dover, Alex Bowman belongs in that group as well. Since 2019, he has five top fives there including a win in 2021. | ||
| 11 | Kyle Larson | Kyle Larson had a very funny tweet prior to Sunday's race given the amount of crewmembers he had either suspended or otherwise in trouble. He posted a picture of Morgan Shepherd pitting the very same truck he was driving during a Craftsman Truck Series race at Kentucky in 2001. | ||
| 12 | Bubba Wallace | Prior to the Cup race at Talladega, Bubba Wallace spent Sunday morning doing a uniform swap with astronauts that included him putting on a space helmet for the media. He exclaimed, "A helmet that actually fits my head for once!" | ||
| 13 | Kyle Busch | Kyle Busch was frustrated after finishing 27th at Talladega, posting afterward that you finish where you are if you stay in line but finish "last" if you try and race for the win on superspeedways in the Next Gen car. "I hate these [expletive emoji] cars", he wrote. | ||
| 14 | Noah Gragson | After coming very close to winning Talladega in 2023 only to get wrecked in the closing laps, Noah Gragson was able to redeem himself in 2024. His third-place finish marks a new best of his Cup career so far. | ||
| 15 | Todd Gilliland | I felt like I was quite bold in picking Todd Gilliland to win at Talladega, knowing that he had a fast car and had led many laps at Daytona and Atlanta. He didn't lead any laps at Talladega, but he still sort of validated my prediction he'd contend with an eighth-place finish. | ||
| 16 | Michael McDowell | Remember what I wrote last week when I said a DNF might be easier for Michael McDowell to swallow since he crashed racing for the lead? Well, crashing out of the lead with the checkered flag in sight is a really, really tough way to not finish a race. | ||
| 17 | Ryan Preece | Ryan Preece didn't cross the finish line at Talladega in one piece, but a 14th-place finish did mark his third-straight top 15 finish. He's had four such finishes in his last six races dating back to Bristol. | ||
| 18 | Chris Buescher | Chris Buescher exhibited some nifty driving at Talladega, as he daring weaved his way around both Austin Cindric and Joey Logano as he went for the lead. Buescher couldn't make it back to the front despite trying to make the top work in the closing laps and wound up 25th. | ||
| 19 | Ryan Blaney | Ryan Blaney was another driver who got stuck in midpack when it mattered, and he wound up finishing 20th. It broke a streak of three-straight finishes of second or first at Talladega and was his worst finish overall at the track since the fall of 2020. | ||
| 20 | Ty Gibbs | Along with Martin Truex Jr., Ty Gibbs received great credit from Tyler Reddick for helping push him to the win. It didn't work out for Gibbs, however, as he was part of the trioval melee and finished 22nd. | ||
| 21 | Christopher Bell | If you stock portfolio looks like Christopher Bell's, I don't know how you stay sane. Bell has a win, three top 5s and 5 top 10s -- and now four finishes of 33rd or worse with two DNFs. | ||
| 22 | Daniel Suarez | A statistical oddity at the end of Sunday's race: NASCAR issued a revision to the final results some time after the race, but it was only a position swap between Kyle Busch and Daniel Suarez. Suarez was bumped up to 26th after initially being scored 27th. | ||
| 23 | Carson Hocevar | In the garage area after the race, I was floored by the almost flat angle of Carson Hocevar's right front and made a joke about how the toe link was knocked out. No wonder: His teammate Corey LaJoie was up on top of it and about flattening it. | ||
| 24 | Austin Cindric | Austin Cindric wound up with a wrecked racecar after leading 16 laps and winning a stage at Talladega, but it was no worse than what happened to him on the golf course on Saturday. After winning the outside pole in qualifying, Cindric went golfing with Harrison Burton and Todd Gilliland and gave himself a bloody nose by bonking a golf ball off it on the very first hole. | ||
| 25 | Ricky Stenhouse Jr. | With a fourth-place finish at Talladega, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. earned his first top five finish in over a year. He's also had a top five recently at Dover, as he finished second there in 2022. | ||
| 26 | Josh Berry | Lost in Corey LaJoie's highlight reel moment on the final lap was the fact that Josh Berry also went for a wild ride as LaJoie went under him and lifted the No. 4 up in the air. It reminded me of another big wreck in the Talladega trioval back in 1998, when Bill Elliott flipped over and flipped Dale Earnhardt onto his side along with him. | ||
| 27 | Corey LaJoie | -- | So, thanks to Corey LaJoie, we now have "Crossed the finish line on his side" to go along with "Crossed the finish line upside down" like we saw Clint Bowyer do in the 2007 Daytona 500. I guess the next frontier is to cross the finish line in mid-air? | |
| 28 | John Hunter Nemechek | A cool visual in the Talladega Garage Experience this weekend was Joe Nemechek's Oakwood Homes Chevrolet from 2001 being parked right alongside his son's present-day Cup car. John Hunter Nemechek's 20 laps led ended up being the most a Nemechek had led in a Cup race since Joe led 30 from the pole at Michigan in 2005. | ||
| 29 | Harrison Burton | When I spoke to him on Saturday before qualifying, Harrison Burton talked about his run at Texas giving him and his team some positive momentum entering the weekend. A top 10 finish, his first since Pocono last year, should generate even more of that. | ||
| 30 | Justin Haley | The first draft of this week's Power Rankings had Erik Jones in this spot, but he's dropped off the list now as he'll miss time due to a back injury suffered at Talladega. I'll instead give a nod to Justin Haley, who led four laps at Talladega before being caught up in a crash. |
