Tyler Reddick's start to the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season continues to be one for the record books after his latest win in Sunday's AdventHealth 400 at Kansas Speedway.
Even after losing the lead to Denny Hamlin in the closing laps, after his No. 45 Toyota sputtered out of fuel and he hit the wall, Reddick took advantage of the race's only caution for an incident, a Cody Ware spin in turn four coming to the white flag, to pick up his fifth win in the season's first nine races.
The overtime win was not without a little adversity, either, after Reddick got together with Hamlin and Christopher Bell shortly after the restart. He ultimately recovered and mounted one last charge to get around Kyle Larson in turns three and four before pulling out another win to continue to destroy a common Next Gen complaint among fans.
Reddick is simply in a league of his own right now, and his latest feat is yet another rare one which proves how special his start to the season has been. As the Fox broadcast noted, he is the first driver since Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt in 1987 to win five of the first nine races in a season, something he was asked about in his post-race media availability.
Tyler Reddick reacts to latest feat following Kansas win
"That's a guy [Dale Earnhardt] on the Mount Rushmore of drivers, and to be able to accomplish things that someone like he did is truly incredible," Reddick said, per NASCAR.com.
Reddick now holds a commanding 105-point lead over his 23XI Racing co-owner Hamlin, and he has accomplished so much success despite not having a single stage win this season. No driver has won more than six races in a single season since the inception of the Next Gen car in 2022, but Reddick is showing no signs of slowing down with five wins to his credit already.
As Reddick made sure to give credit to everyone at 23XI Racing for the sustained success up to this point, he expressed high praise for crew chief Billy Scott and his call for two tires when the race went into overtime.
"Yeah, Billy, may seem like a lot of cars went with right-side tires there, but the right call," Reddick continued. "It felt like I was in a good spot going into one and Christopher crept up and I knew he was gonna get there, so I'm like, 'Well, I kind of blew that one.'
"Yeah, just Denny coming up into me and into Christopher, it kind of just, unfortunately, three Toyotas getting together created the opportunity for me to make sure that a Toyota won the race. ... It would have been a real shame if a Toyota didn't win today, so I'm glad we were able to get that done."
With wins at drafting-style tracks in Daytona International Speedway and EchoPark Speedway (Atlanta), a road course in Circuit of the Americas (COTA), a 1.366-mile oval in Darlington Raceway, and a 1.5-mile oval in Kansas Speedway, Reddick's versatility has been on full display.
He is still searching for his first short track win, but he qualified second and finished fourth at Bristol Motor Speedway with a car that was capable of winning if he could have got some clean air.
As NASCAR Insights notes, it has simply been a historic season on multiple accounts for Reddick. In addition to the Earnhardt feat, Reddick became the first driver to win the first three races of a season and the first driver with three poles and five wins in a season's first nine races. His points lead is so big that it is greater than the gap from second to 11th in the standings.
Furthermore, five of his seven most recent wins have come with a pass for the win in the final two laps. As for this coming weekend's race at Talladega Superspeedway, Reddick is the only repeat winner in the 13 most recent drafting track races (three wins), so a sixth win could certainly be on the table.
A look at Tyler Reddick's recent success and historic start to the 2026 Cup Series season pic.twitter.com/4RCnpIZWtE
— NASCAR Insights (@NASCARInsights) April 21, 2026
At some point, you would expect the rest of the field to catch up and the results to go the other way. But after the season's first nine races, there is no immediate sign that is going to happen, as Reddick continues to put everyone on notice each week and strengthen his grip atop the standings.
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