AUSTIN, Texas — There may have been something to Tyler Reddick crossing paths with the self-ordained “Best in the World” as Reddick and WWE wrestler CM Punk both climbed out of the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota on last Monday’s taping of “Monday Night Raw” in Atlanta.
Reddick can march to a similar, prideful drum as he’s NASCAR’s best with three consecutive victories to start the 2026 Cup Series season.
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It’s a daunting enough task for drivers to win just one race at the Cup level.
That task only becomes greater when it’s the Daytona 500. Reddick delivered to earn his first Harley J. Earl Trophy.
The adrenaline-snatching EchoPark Speedway demands the utmost mental focus with its close-quartered, handling-dependent drafting action. Reddick made it two in a row, despite a missing right-front fender.
Then, there’s the 2.4-mile, 17-turn road course of Circuit of The Americas that presents one of NASCAR’s great challenges to get your car to handle at its best for both left and right turns.
Reddick entered the weekend as one of the best on road courses, but beating Shane van Gisbergen in this discipline is an enormous challenge. After all, the New Zealander had won five consecutive races on such tracks and was one victory away from matching Jeff Gordon for the longest road-course win streak in the sport.
How did Reddick’s weekend go?
He soared to pole position on Saturday and led a race-high 58 laps to become the first driver ever to score three wins to open a season — all while holding off the man to beat in van Gisbergen throughout the closing laps.
“I think it’s so fitting that it had to happen coming here,” Reddick said in his race-winning press conference. “The Daytona 500 is so hard to win. It’s so hard to survive at EchoPark Speedway. 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, seems just very fitting that we had to go through the hurdles we did, especially these last two weeks, to pull this off.”
At the drop of the green flag, Reddick’s advantage leading the field was swiftly taken as he fell outside the top five with van Gisbergen ahead of him. As the race went on, Reddick put himself back in front with a constant challenge of 2023 series champion Ryan Blaney on his rear bumper. One mistake and Blaney was going to pounce to the lead.
Reddick was perfect and was well on his way to a dominant win, but a Lap 75 caution re-racked the field. And suddenly, Reddick had the dilemma of van Gisbergen in his mirror for a restart into the Turn 1 climb, where the Kiwi is stellar in his braking and making passes.
Reddick held serve on van Gisbergen, but the No. 97 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet wasn’t going away.
Van Gisbergen stayed within striking distance for most of the final run to the checkered flag, but a perfect performance from Reddick ultimately saw van Gisbergen fade, and the afterburners of the No. 45 Toyota kicked in to take the win by a near four-second margin.
Did Reddick think about what he was about to accomplish in the final laps?
MORE: Recap Reddick’s victory
“I think for me in the heat of the battle, it’s like, ‘alright, I’ve got to find a way to hold off Shane,’ ” Reddick said. “As I started to pull away, certainly, it’s like, ‘alright, there’s a lot on the line here.’ Hit your marks. Don’t be a hero. You don’t have to win by eight seconds. So important to just not make mistakes. Shane could have been playing games, right? Like back off a bit, see if I burn my stuff up, and I back up to him at the end of the race. I just didn’t let myself think it was over until it was truly over. So certainly used the pressure of what’s on the line to motivate myself to hit my marks and close it out.”
Not only is Reddick’s individual feat historic, but for 23XI Racing, it became the first organization to win the first three races of a season since 1963 (Petty Enterprises).
Accolades like that are what 23XI co-owner Denny Hamlin envisioned when he made the surprise signing of Reddick in the summer of 2022.
But what does Hamlin believe the most impressive part of Reddick is?
“He’s complete,” Hamlin said. “I mean, the one area that we continue to work on with him is the short tracks. I think that’s where he can still improve a little bit, but we’re working pretty hard on improving him at those types of tracks. But he’s complete and certainly more complete than I am at this stage. He’s got really good things going on. I think we’re steadily seeing him continue to get better. What I love to see is that the work he puts in and things that we provide him for information, he’s soaking it all in and he’s using it and executing it. What I’ve seen out of him over the last few years, where he had some weaknesses, our team has helped him shore those up, and it’s amazing to see how well he’s doing.”
And of course, there’s Hamlin’s 23XI ownership partner in NBA Hall of Famer Michael Jordan, who’s been front and center at each race to witness Reddick’s historic start.
Jordan may know a thing or two about “three-peats” as he was the star of two different three-peat championship runs with the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s.
But one could argue that Jordan may be relishing his accomplishments as a racing owner almost as much as his untouchable greatness on the hardwood.
“Tyler came in with the most pressure,” Jordan said to FOX Sports after the race. “Everybody expected him … or he had a chance to win three in a row, and that’s the hardest one to win. He kept to his strategy, and man, the guys put together a great car. I think [crew chief] Billy [Scott] did an unbelievable job in calling the race, and Tyler did a good job. He beat some good competition. You see SVG coming back there, you get a little nervous, but I think he had him covered pretty much the whole day.”
Now, Reddick embarks on territory that could put him among the untouchables.
Four wins in a row haven’t been accomplished since seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson did so in 2007.
With additional points paid to race winners in the new Chase championship format, Reddick’s lead has ballooned to 70 points over teammate Bubba Wallace. To put Reddick’s lead into context, the next largest difference in points is between Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney (14), who are third and fourth, respectively.
As it stands, Reddick is NASCAR’s best, and as the weeks go by, that will come with chasing history yet maintaining his margin as he pursues his first Cup Series championship.
“We’ll just manage it lap after lap, corner after corner,” Reddick said. “Certainly, I’ll just have to be mindful, understand what I’m racing for in those moments. Is it worth the risk or is it not? But certainly, I think to an extent, if we just continue to bring really fast race cars, we won’t have to put ourselves in tricky spots in the race. We’re able to kind of race a little bit smarter. For me, I enjoy this. I know it’s ironic I’m saying that with a 70-point lead, but just to be able to execute in the first two races that are just hard to have clean days, to get the points that we did there, and then come in here and be able to grab stage points in Stage 2 and then obviously win the race is real special.”
