Tyler Reddick Makes History At COTA With Third Straight Win Of 2026 NASCAR Season
By Neha Dwivedi, Staff Writer
After winning the pole at the Circuit of the Americas, Tyler Reddick turned it into his third straight win of the season, adding to triumphs in the Daytona 500 and Atlanta. A week ago at EchoPark Speedway near Atlanta, Reddick became only the sixth driver to sweep the first two races of a Cup season and now he‘s etched his name as the only driver to win the first three.
It’s an accomplishment that even his team owner, Denny Hamlin, said wouldn’t be accomplished again in his lifetime.
“Yeah, it’s unbelievable,” Hamlin told NASCAR media members before his driver entered the room after victory lane celebrations. “I’m not going to see it again in my lifetime, someone to go out there and win three races in a row to start the season. Yeah, what a dream start for those guys. All kinds of — got Atlanta and Daytona and here. It’s just different tracks. It’s not necessarily one type. Atlanta is quite a bit different than Daytona in how you drive there, so it’s just getting it done in all kinds of different ways.”
Reddick broke new ground by taking the first three but the road was anything but a Sunday drive on a literal Sunday drive. He lost the lead to Chase Briscoe in Turn 1 on Lap 1, slid to eighth by Lap 8 and closed Stage 1 in 18th. But then, by Lap 25, he’d clawed back into the hunt and by the end of Stage 2, he was knocking on the door of the top five.
After trading blows with Ryan Blaney, Reddick seized control on a Lap 79 restart, led 58 laps in all, and kept Shane van Gisbergen at arm’s length by 3.944 seconds to mount the knockout blow in the closing laps.
The hat trick handed Reddick a 70-point cushion over 23XI teammate Bubba Wallace, who finished 11th. Chase Elliott sits third, 72 points off the pace. In victory lane, Reddick reflected on the weight of the moment.
“It means the world. Yeah, it’s so fitting,” Reddick said. “We get going at the end there, and I’m leading and there’s SVG, the guy I’ve been trying to beat for a while now. Just to be able to outlast him there and hold on for the win is just incredible. We worked really hard. We did not like getting beat like that at road courses. It’s one race, but it was so important, so fitting that we were able to get three in a row and make history.”
Team co-owner Michael Jordan showed his appreciation to the pit box crew and his driver, pointing to calls made by crew chief Billy Scott and Reddick’s execution on the track. He also lauded Denny Hamlin for spotting Reddick’s upside and bringing him into the fold.
SVG, who had the last say at many road courses, accepted the runner-up finish with grace.
“We lacked a little bit of turn and a little bit of drive. Tyler was just amazing,” van Gisbergen said. “The way he was driving was really good, and his car was good. We just didn’t quite have enough, but it was a great points day for this No. 97 Safety Culture Chevrolet team, which is what we need for getting into The Chase. It was still an amazing result, but you’re always disappointed with second when the expectations are so high. But overall, it was a really good day.”
With the runner-up finish at COTA, following a sixth at Atlanta, the Trackhouse Racing driver moved to fifth in the standings. He was also racing for the record books, hoping to notch his sixth straight win at a road course and end the tie he currently holds for five wins with NASCAR Hall of Fame driver Jeff Gordon.
Defending race winner Christopher Bell finished third, followed by Ty Gibbs and Michael McDowell, while Hendrick Motorsports drivers Kyle Larson and Elliott came home P6 and P7. Blaney, in the thick of the scrap all afternoon, slipped to eighth after a late stop for tires and fuel. AJ Allmendinger and Hamlin rounded out the top 10.
The race also turned into a war of attrition inside the cockpit. Several drivers battled heat as cooling systems faltered. Larson was heard over the radio, wrestling with a failed cooling shirt and scrambling for fluids. Briscoe, strong in the early going, pulled the plug with 20 laps left, saying he felt too ill to continue. Allmendinger required medical attention after the finish, following a cooling failure in the Texas heat, with track temperatures reported at 109 degrees at the start. Myatt Snyder, who primarily serves as a TV spotter for FOX Sports, was called to the No. 48 car of Alex Bowman as the driver exited for health issues mid-race.
Next week, the Cup Series heads to Phoenix Raceway, where Reddick goes for four straight. It’s an accomplishment, he doesn’t think is unreachable, he said.
“I think dating back to even the start of this car, we’ve been able to go there and be knocking on the door. Last year, we had the power steering failure that kind of knocked us out of it,” Reddick said. “Two years ago, I remember me and Denny got together, the caution came out in the middle of the cycle. In my opinion, we go to the spring Phoenix race, we’re typically, like, right there. For whatever reason, when we go in the fall, we’re a little bit off. But I feel like we’ve, again, kind of like we’ve done here — I’m really excited to see what we have for speed and pace over the next two weekends because we’ve worked really hard to improve things here.
“We’ve worked hard to kind of rethink how we get around Phoenix, and we’ve just kind of doubled down on the things that we’ve been improving at Vegas. Honestly, I’m very excited to see what kind of pace we have at Phoenix and Vegas as it comes up.”