For the first time since November 2025, when Ryan Blaney won the NASCAR Cup Series season finale at Phoenix Raceway, a driver not named Tyler Reddick won a points race on Sunday.
It also happened at the four-turn, 1.022-mile (1.645-kilometer) Avondale, Arizona, and it also happened with the driver of the No. 12 Ford driving to victory lane.
Blaney's victory vaulted him up to second place in the point standings behind Reddick, who became the first driver in the 78-year history of the Cup Series to win the first three races of a season by winning at Daytona International Speedway, EchoPark Speedway (Atlanta Motor Speedway), and Circuit of the Americas (COTA).
However, it did not lock Blaney into the NASCAR playoffs.
We are just four races into the 26-race regular season, so nobody is locked into the new 10-race "Chase" postseason, as the 16 playoff spots go to the drivers who finish the regular season in the top 16 in the point standings, regardless of how many wins anybody has.
Interestingly, though, Blaney wouldn't have been locked in with his Phoenix win in previous years, either. While the Championship 4 knockout format that was used from 2014 to 2025 was widely considered a "win and in" format, that technically wasn't 100% true, since there were still 16 playoff spots and there were still 26 regular season races.
The playoff spots were awarded to the regular season champion, even if he didn't win any races, and the 15 drivers who ranked next highest in wins, with the tiebreaker, if needed, among single-race winners (or non-winners) becoming points.
This early in the season, winning twice would have been the only way to truly secure a playoff berth, as no more than 13 drivers could win more than one regular season race.
On that note, Reddick would have been locked in three races ago now, but that is not the case this time around. However, he is still in a really good position, sitting 60 points ahead of Blaney for the points lead as he aims for the 100-point bonus (25 points over second place) to start the postseason.
Perhaps more notably, however, he is 127 points above the cut line, which resides between RFK Racing's Brad Keselowski in 16th place and Spire Motorsports' Daniel Suarez in 17th. Blaney is 67 points ahead of that cutoff.
Consistency seems to have been rewarded as intended so far this season, as not only are Reddick and Blaney the only winners so far in 2026, but they are the only two drivers to have record three top 10 finishes over the past three races. Reddick, of course, has yet to finish lower than eighth this year.
Race number five on the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series calendar is the Pennzoil 400, which is set to be shown live on Fox Sports 1 from Las Vegas Motor Speedway beginning at 4:00 p.m. ET this Sunday, March 15. If you have yet to start a free trial of FuboTV, do so today and catch all of the action from the four-turn, 1.5-mile (2.414-kilometer) oval!