In a NASCAR built for parity, Tyler Reddick has started 2026 with an unprecedented win streak

Tyler Reddick became the first driver to win the first three races of a NASCAR Cup Series season, and he did so on Sunday by beating one of the greatest road course racers in modern NASCAR history.

Reddick scored the win at the Circuit of the Americas when he held off Shane van Gisbergen on Sunday. After winning the Daytona 500 and a week ago at Atlanta, Reddick became the sixth driver in NASCAR history and the first since Matt Kenseth in 2009 to win the first two Cup races of a given season.

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Now he’s got the record all to himself.

“In this day and age of Cup racing, the Daytona 500 is so hard to win. It’s so hard to survive at [Atlanta] and we were able to do that. And to be able to hold off Shane at the end of that race to make it three in a row, yeah, it seems just very fitting that we had to go through the hurdles we did, especially the last two weeks, to pull this off.

Reddick won the Daytona 500 by leading only the last lap of the race as 37 of the race’s 41 cars were officially involved in a wreck. Over the last two races, Reddick has led 111 of a possible 366.

He won at Atlanta even though he was missing his entire right front fender following a crash with less than 50 laps to go. But he worked his way back to the front of the field and took the lead with two laps to remaining from teammate Bubba Wallace ahead of a green-white-checkered finish after a late caution flag.

Michael Jordan celebrates with Tyler Reddick after Reddick won his third straight race to open the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season. (Photo by James Gilbert/Getty Images)James Gilbert via Getty Images

Sunday, he started from the pole as van Gisbergen started 13th. The former Australian Supercars champion has been incredibly dominant since moving to NASCAR. He won in his first start at the Chicago road course in 2023 and then won five of the six road course races on the Cup Series schedule in 2025 and many of those victories came in dominating fashion.

The road course race he didn’t win? The COTA race that Reddick started from the pole.

As the laps ticked down on Sunday, Reddick said he had to remind himself that he didn’t need to win by a blowout margin. He just simply needed to be ahead of van Gisbergen at the finish line.

“It’s so important to just not make mistakes because who knows, Shane could have been playing games, right? Like back off a bit, see if I burn myself up and I back up to him at the end of the race,” Reddick said.

“There’s just so much going on there. He’s just so good on the road courses. Even when I was pulling way, right, it’s like, alright, I just didn’t let myself think it was over until it was truly over.”

Reddick entered the season with eight career wins and was tied with Alex Bowman and Kyle Petty on NASCAR’s career Cup Series wins list. With the victory at COTA, Reddick now has more wins than drivers like Sterling Marlin, Clint Bowyer and NASCAR Hall of Famer Donnie Allison in just 221 starts.

It’s a win percentage that’s among the best across all active drivers despite a winless 2025 season. After scoring three wins and making the championship race in 2024, Reddick was one of just two drivers to make the 16-driver playoff field in 2025 without a win.

Yet that lack of a win was an anomaly given Reddick’s underlying statistics. And it looks even more out of place now. Only seven drivers had more top-five finishes and a better average finish than Reddick did a season ago and no driver completed more laps.

In 2026, Reddick is piling up wins in a NASCAR era designed for no one to dominate. The current Cup Series car is built with spec parts that every team buys from the same suppliers. The margins for advantages are thinner than they’ve ever been.

That may make Reddick’s streak even more impressive. And it’s a streak that his 23XI Racing team co-owner Michael Jordan made clear that he wanted him to continue before Sunday’s race. Like he was in Daytona and Atlanta, Jordan was in attendance in Austin on Sunday.

“He reminded me early this week, he does things in threes. He expected no less today,” Reddick said of Jordan’s two runs of three consecutive NBA Finals wins. “I was really glad to be able to live up to the standards that he has for us and be able to deliver three in a row. That was really cool to share that moment with him.”

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