Tyler Reddick Heads to Phoenix Chasing a Fourth Straight Win NASCAR History

Tyler Reddick has already done something NASCAR never saw in more than seven decades of Cup racing: win the first three races of a season. Now he’s pulling into Phoenix Raceway with a chance to do the one thing that still isn’t in the history books,start a year with four straight victories.

Reddick’s 2026 start has been a mix of survival and control. He won the Daytona 500, followed it with a win at Atlanta, then took the checkered flag at Circuit of the Americas in Austin. That made him the first driver to win the first three races of a Cup Series season, and it set up Sunday’s Straight Talk Wireless 500 at Phoenix as a record attempt by default: no one has ever won the first four.

There’s a reason the record has held this long that has nothing to do with the Next Gen car or modern parity. For the first 13 years of Daytona 500 history (1959 through 1971), the dual qualifying races were treated as points paying regular season events, and they often landed inside the first three races of the season. That made a “win the first three” start effectively impossible in several years, because the schedule structure itself got in the way.

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Even with that quirk, the streak Reddick is carrying is rare. Over NASCAR’s modern era (generally dated from 1972, when schedules tightened and the series shifted to all asphalt speedways), only eight drivers have won four straight Cup races — and every one of them is now in the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

That group spans multiple decades: Cale Yarborough did it in 1976, Darrell Waltrip in 1981, Dale Earnhardt in 1987, Bill Elliott in 1992, Mark Martin in 1993, Harry Gant in 1991, Jeff Gordon during his 13 win 1998 title season, and Jimmie Johnson in 2007, when Johnson won four of the final five races to edge Gordon for the championship.

Reddick’s case comes with a twist: Phoenix hasn’t exactly been his personal playground. In 12 Cup starts at the one mile desert track, he has two top fives, four top 10s, and an average finish of 17.8. That’s not the kind of stat line that screams “historic streak incoming,” but neither did his pre 2026 averages at Daytona and Atlanta,  tracks he just won on anyway.

And this weekend has already provided a reminder of how fast things can go sideways. In Saturday’s Phoenix session, Reddick spun in practice and still qualified eighth. Joey Logano won the pole with Kyle Larson alongside on the front row.

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The streak itself has also been hard to extend in recent years, even when drivers look unstoppable for a month. Last season, Christopher Bell won three straight (Atlanta, Austin, Phoenix ) before finishing 12th at Las Vegas. That’s the part Reddick keeps circling back to: the long season. He has described the start as more than finishes, pointing to the team’s internal rhythm as well.

“It truly has been a perfect start,” Reddick said. “It’s the finishes, but it’s also the vibes. The way that we’ve been addressing and pushing things in the right direction, and I’m just extremely pleased with all of it. I never won back to back in NASCAR, and I obviously never won three in a row.”

The bigger picture comes with its own historical nudge. Of the eight drivers who have won four straight races in the modern era, five ended the year with the Cup championship. Reddick has been clear about the priority order.

“Our No. 1 goal is to win races,” he said. “If you do that, that other stuff, what people say about your career, that takes care of itself.”

For 23XI Racing, the No. 45 Toyota co owned by Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan, Phoenix is a chance to turn a hot start into something bigger. For everyone else, it’s the simple setup NASCAR doesn’t get often: one driver, one race, one record that has survived since Cup racing began in 1949.

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