DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Tyler Reddick had trouble corralling his young son on a Disney cruise and then inside a cramped motorhome in the days leading into the Daytona 500.
Rookie Reddick turns 9 months old later this month and he's ready to stretch his hands and legs and start crawling.
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Tyler Reddick, (45) and his son Beau celebrate with the team after winning the NASCAR Daytona 500 auto race at Daytona International Speedway, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026, in Daytona Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Tyler Reddick, (45) and his son Beau celebrate with the team after winning the NASCAR Daytona 500 auto race at Daytona International Speedway, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026, in Daytona Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Nigel Cook)
Tyler Reddick, (45) and his son Beau celebrate with the team after winning the NASCAR Daytona 500 auto race at Daytona International Speedway, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026, in Daytona Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Tyler Reddick, (45) celebrates winning the NASCAR Daytona 500 auto race at Daytona International Speedway, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026, in Daytona Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
“He's been like a speedster,” Tyler Reddick said.
Kind of like dad.
Reddick had his entire family with him in victory lane — oh, and team owner and basketball Hall of Famer Michael Jordan, too — once he burst through a last-lap wreck Sunday at Daytona International Speedway for 23XI Racing to shake a 38-race winless streak and celebrate his first Daytona 500 victory.
Reddick's 6-year-old son jumped on the roof of the No. 45 Toyota and was soon swooped in the air by his joyous father as confetti fluttered around them. Reddick's wife quickly joined them and plopped Rookie in his father's lap as they all posed for a victorious photo opp in front of the Harley J. Earl trophy.
Reddick gave Rookie an extra squeeze lest he try and crawl away from all the festivities.
“You start crawling really fast and we have to keep up with that,” Reddick said. “Keep away from the stairs and the bus.”
An emotional victory for any driver who win's NASCAR's version of the Super Bowl, Reddick had a tinge more reason to soak in the milestone. Yes, he only needed one race to rebound from a winless 2025 season that prompted some hard conversations inside the 23XI team. But his family also got to share the joy with Rookie, who suffered serious health complications l ast year.
Rookie was diagnosed with a tumor in his chest that affected his heart.
Alexa Reddick posted a social media update last October that said Rookie had a “tumor that’s ‘choking’ the renal vein & renal artery. Telling the heart ‘Hey I’m not getting enough blood … pump harder.’”
She said it has caused an enlarged heart, and Rookie needed a kidney removed because doctors determined it was no longer functioning.
Four months later, Rookie's health had improved, and he is now the son of a Daytona 500 champion.
“I just remember getting out of the car, and typically I’ve just been able to focus on Beau and my wife, and it’s like Rookie is getting to experience this for the first time, too,” Reddick said. “Rookie is a trooper, whether it’s been the Thunderbirds blasting over the track, just super loud, stuff I love.”
Waiting for him once the family reunion subsided was Jordan. The Chicago Bulls legend — who co-owns the team with three-time Daytona 500 champion Denny Hamlin — bear-hugged Reddick in victory lane and then jointly hoisted the trophy with Reddick.
“I have someone like Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin saying, ‘you’re our first pick, you’re the guy that we want most ... it’s just crazy," Reddick said. "But they believe in what I bring to the table. It’s just nice to be able to deliver on those things for people like that.”
Reddick signed with Jordan's team ahead of the 2023 season after spending the first three-plus years with Richard Childress Racing. Reddick made NASCAR's playoff in his first two seasons driving for Jordan, winning twice in 2023 and three more times in 2024, when he advanced to the championship-deciding finale.
Last season brought professional and personal hardships that were so intertwined that Reddick, a 30-year-old from Corning, California, found the season difficult at times to navigate.
“You've got all these expectations to win multiple races, championships, and we didn't really live up to those last year,” Reddick said. “We had a lot of hard conversations in the offseason on top of everything else that was going on.”
The early results were promising for 23XI and Reddick. Reddick led only one lap Sunday and that was the one to the checkered flag. He was the 25th different driver to lead a lap for a new Daytona 500 record.
“It was never a frustration of discouragement or disappointment or blame or anything else,” crew chief Billy Scott said. “It was collectively how do we get better, how do we work on the things that we can improve ourselves. And he has been all in on everything that’s come up, from ownership, from within our team, and he’s entered the season with a new, I think, rejuvenated outlook on things.”
Reddick certainly feels rejuvenated in 2026 — already a Daytona 500 champ with Beau in his arms, and Rookie in tow.
“Rookie loves this stuff. The crazier it is, he just starts laughing and loves it,” Reddick said. “He’s wild, like his dad.”
AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing
Tyler Reddick, (45) and his son Beau celebrate with the team after winning the NASCAR Daytona 500 auto race at Daytona International Speedway, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026, in Daytona Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Tyler Reddick, (45) and his son Beau celebrate with the team after winning the NASCAR Daytona 500 auto race at Daytona International Speedway, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026, in Daytona Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Nigel Cook)
Tyler Reddick, (45) and his son Beau celebrate with the team after winning the NASCAR Daytona 500 auto race at Daytona International Speedway, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026, in Daytona Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Tyler Reddick, (45) celebrates winning the NASCAR Daytona 500 auto race at Daytona International Speedway, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026, in Daytona Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
ATLANTA (AP) — Lots of candidates pitch themselves as political outsiders. Derek Dooley goes a step further. Not only is the former football coach running for the first time, he says he did not vote for nearly two decades.
He did not vote when Republican Donald Trump was first elected president in 2016. Nor did he vote in 2020, when Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
But Dooley does not worry about that as he seeks the Republican nomination to face Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in Georgia. He insists Washington needs someone with a fresh outlook, someone who is not focused on “their own political career or their political ambitions.”
Besides, lots of people do not vote, and Dooley told The Associated Press that he wants to inspire more people to do so.
“If you’re not vigilant in exercising that right, things can go pretty sideways in our country,” he said.
Dooley’s opponents in the May 19 primary include two congressmen, Mike Collins and Buddy Carter. Although Dooley supports Trump, Collins and Carter are more closely identified with Trump’s “Make America Great Again” brand. With support from the more establishment Gov. Brian Kemp, Dooley will test whether his outsider narrative is compelling at a time when Trump’s antiestablishment movement already dominates the nation's capital.
The primary winner will be among the most important Republican candidates in this year’s midterm elections, with a chance to help the party preserve its thin Senate majority by ousting Ossoff.
Dooley is the son of legendary University of Georgia football coach Vince Dooley. Derek Dooley worked as a lawyer before he started coaching. He led the University of Tennessee but was fired after a losing record. He then worked as an assistant coach for other colleges as well as professional teams.
He stepped away from the sidelines after the 2023 season, and Dooley said coaching people from a range of backgrounds will help him connect with Georgia’s diverse voting population.
“In my 30-plus years professional career, it’s never been about me in anything I was doing,” he said. “It’s about people.”
Dooley said he got interested in politics during Biden’s presidency, when he was upset about lax border enforcement, economic policies and support for transgender athletes. He has criticized Ossoff over the same issues. Dooley said he resumed voting in 2022, when he backed Kemp for governor, and he voted for Trump in 2024.
Republican strategist Brian Robinson said “you can tell this wasn’t a guy who spent his life in politics or around politics or consumed by politics.”
Kemp was close with Dooley’s family growing up, and he endorsed Dooley for Senate, putting establishment heft behind the political novice.
“I was looking for a political outsider, and it just happened to be a guy that I’ve known for, you know, 50-plus years,” Kemp said on stage with Dooley during an event with the Atlanta Young Republicans on Thursday.
Kemp and Dooley drew cheers from many in the crowd. Several people at the event said they had not decided on their primary choice but appreciated Dooley’s outsider perspective.
The relationship between Dooley and Kemp does not impress others.
“Completely siloing yourself with the old, establishment governor is not a way to say you’re an outsider,” said Courtlyn Cook, chair of the Glynn County Republicans in southeast Georgia. She said voters will remember that Kemp and Trump have not always gotten along, a key issue when the president enjoys deep support from the party's base.
Dooley’s ties with Kemp are a target for political opponents.
Devon Cruz, senior communications adviser for the Democratic Party of Georgia, described Dooley as someone with “access to the Governor’s political machine.” Harley Adsit, a spokesperson for Carter’s campaign, called Dooley the “ultimate insider.”
Canton voter Vanessa Artigas, 53, likes Kemp and understands why some of her friends used to not vote, so she will likely support Dooley.
“I think we need to get career politicians out and get the voice of the people in,” said Artigas, who attended a local event for the conservative organization Turning Point Action.
University of West Georgia student Timothy Jackson, 19, is planning to vote for Collins because of his close ties to Trump, but is open to Carter.
“Both of them have been in Congress and so they know what it takes,” Jackson said. “Dooley is going to be hard because he’s never been in that position before.”
A Kemp-linked group funded an advertisement for Dooley last fall blaming Collins and Carter for the government shutdown, lumping them in with Ossoff.
Carter, a pharmacist, has been a political fixture along Georgia’s coast for nearly three decades. Collins is a trucking company co-owner and the son of a former congressman.
“Republicans are going to face an uphill battle, but Dooley doesn’t bring the baggage that other candidates could possibly bring and can speak not only to voters on the right and Republicans, but the voters in the center who will make the decision,” said longtime Republican consultant Jason Shepherd. “Jon Ossoff has a voting record that Dooley can run on and pick apart. Dooley does not.”
Dooley said he wants to boost workforce training and reduce home prices by cutting back government regulation. He also praised the Trump administration’s capture of Nicolás Maduro, who was ousted as Venezuela's president by the U.S. military in January, and blamed immigrants for reducing the number of available homes for U.S. citizens. Dooley promised to introduce legislation to prevent lawmakers from using taxpayer money to send campaign-related materials, which he accused Collins of doing improperly.
A spokesperson for Collins said his actions were approved by the House Communications Standards Commission, and he criticized Dooley as “a washed-up lawyer and failed coach.”
Robinson, the GOP strategist, said Dooley will need to explain to Georgians why being an outsider matters enough to earn their votes.
“It’s a well-worn path. The saliency of that message probably depends on the mood of the country and the cycle that we’re in,” Robinson said. “I don’t think we know just yet if that outsider message is what people are looking for.”
This version has been updated to correct the spelling Vanessa Artigas' first name.
FILE - Tennessee head coach Derek Dooley, right, congratulates Tauren Poole (28) after he scored in the first quarter of an NCAA college football game against Middle Tennessee, Nov. 5, 2011, in Knoxville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Wade Payne, File)
Derek Dooley, left, a Republican candidate for Senate in Georgia, listens as Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp speaks during an Atlanta Young Republicans campaign event Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Alyssa Pointer)
A political campaign sign for Derek Dooley, a Republican candidate for Senate in Georgia, is displayed during an Atlanta Young Republicans campaign event Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Alyssa Pointer)
Derek Dooley, a Republican candidate for Senate in Georgia, listens to questions during an Atlanta Young Republicans campaign event Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Alyssa Pointer)
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, right, listens as Derek Dooley, left, a Republican candidate for Senate in Georgia, speaks during an Atlanta Young Republicans campaign event Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Alyssa Pointer)
Derek Dooley, a Republican candidate for Senate in Georgia, listens to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, not pictured, speak during an Atlanta Young Republicans campaign event Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Alyssa Pointer)
