The Anduril 250 at the San Diego Street Course in the final laps became a battle between two 23XI Racing drivers. Championship leader Tyler Reddick and race-winner Corey Heim tussled hard against each other, with the former ultimately suffering a flat tire. But Reddick decided not to blame his young teammate for it.

Jeff Gluck posted on X about Reddick speaking to the media about his jeopardy after the race. When asked if he was responsible for the flat tire, the No. 45 driver said: "Correct, yeah."

He followed up with, "Didn't do anything wrong, no. I definitely did (overdo), I certainly did it and ran him in the wall, and initiated contact, and everything. Yeah, just not the way to race teammates."

Having started the race from 17th place, Tyler Reddick was penalized for making unapproved adjustments to the No. 45 Toyota Camry XSE's splitters, which got damaged during qualifying.

As a result, Reddick had to move to the back of the pack. However, with his superior driving skills, Reddick returned to the race lead, and this was when he banged doors with Corey Heim.

After slipping in Turn 2 on Lap 73, Heim finally took the winning pass over him. Reddick still fought hard, made contact with him, but ultimately gave up position as he suffered a flat tire, finishing 25th.

The flat tire took away the opportunity for a good finish and extending the championship lead from Denny Hamlin. However, after the race, he now has just an eight-point buffer over Hamlin, who finished 14th.

Tyler Reddick's teammate Heim let his feelings be known on the San Diego incident

Sharing his version with the media after the race, as tweeted by Sports on Prime on X, Heim added,

"For a while there, I thought (Reddick) was kind of playing with me, but he’s able to set the pace being the lead car, but I was kind of able to stick with it. I’m not really burning my stuff up. So five to go came, and it’s just kind of time to put some pressure on him, see if I could get him to make a mistake. And sure enough, he did."

After Reddick's mistake, Heim held his nerve and crossed the finish line with 10.365 seconds to spare. Bubba Wallace and Kyle Larson finished the race in second and third positions, respectively.

"I guess he ended up breaking or something. I don’t know what happened to him. But a lot of respect for him, though. He doored me down there in 5 and gave it back to me. That’s something I’ll say every day. Great teammates," Heim further added.

This was Corey Heim's first-ever Cup Series win in 13 attempts. With the victory, he became the second 23XI Racing driver to win a race this season, keeping Bubba Wallace and Riley Herbst behind.

Read more at the RFK Racing Digest!

Written by

Sabyasachi Biswas

Edited by

Suyashdeep Sason