While Tyler Reddick hasn't been the only star of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season so far, a season which has seen two first-time winners in Ty Gibbs and Carson Hocevar, a resurgent Chase Elliott after a few lackluster years, and a hungry Denny Hamlin after the bitter way in which 2025 ended, he is the star who has shown brightest the most, and he's done so early and often.
After becoming the first driver in the 78-year history of the series to open up the season with three consecutive wins, he has since added two more victories, giving him five even before the halfway mark of the regular season. Through the first four seasons of the Next Gen era, no driver has ever won more than six races in an entire season.
Not as much is made of it in NASCAR as it is in a series such as IndyCar, but Reddick also boasts the series' best worst finish. He has collected 11 top 15 finishes in 11 starts this year.
That consistent success, coupled with the 15-point bonus NASCAR now awards for wins following the offseason overhaul of the postseason format, has Reddick sitting 109 points ahead of Hamlin in second place in the point standings.
With 75 points on the table each weekend (85 for the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway), the 23XI Racing driver is already guaranteed the lead through the Watkins Glen Internationl race (and, by default, the non-points All-Star Race at Dover Motor Speedway the following weekend).
Even a few disastrous weekends after that probably won't knock him from the top spot. However, over the long haul, the gap really doesn't matter.
Tyler Reddick's advantage is not what it seems
NASCAR's decision to get rid of the "win and in" elimination-style playoff format was met with mostly praise, and that praise was justified after that format produced several champions over the years whom NASCAR fans may have considered "undeserving".
However, whatever new system was decided upon was always going to have its drawbacks, and this is certainly one of them.
One of the benefits of the old system was the fact that drivers could effectively build up their postseason points lead depending on how much regular season success they achieved.
Bonus playoff points were given to race winners (five each) and stage winners (one each), and the top 10 drivers in the point standings were awarded extra playoff points on a 15-10-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 scale.
Under the new format, the starting point tallies for the "Chase" playoffs are all totally predetermined. The regular season champion is set to be awarded 100 bonus points, while the runner-up is set to be awarded 75 and the third place finisher is set to be awarded 65. Those numbers are set to decrease by five points down to the 16th place driver, who is set to be awarded none.
In theory, it's a great concept. But when you have a driver who is having the season Reddick is having, you could make a strong case that, while ditching the old format, in and of itself, was the right call, NASCAR could have done more to ensure that regular season success truly scales to a driver's starting postseason advantage.
Under the new rules, the regular season is the regular season champion, the runner-up is the runner-up, and so on. As such, a 200-point regular season championship is worth just as much as a regular season title won on a tiebreaker, since the lead to start the postseason is locked in at 25 points regardless.
In other words, Reddick's 109-point lead is really more of a nice buffer, rather than an actual lead.
Perhaps NASCAR should consider bringing back playoff points when it comes to rewarded regular season race wins or even stage wins.
Heck, the bonus points awarded now are basically what would have been considered "playoff points" under the old format, so it's not like NASCAR has totally ditched everything that the old format provided. Perhaps they can be simply scaled to the driver's actual regular season success, rather than scaled based on a predetermined list of point values.
Because right now, Reddick's massive advantage is somewhat of an illusion, and while playoff success should absolutely be what makes the biggest difference between a championship run or a run that falls short, the focus on regular season success that NASCAR aimed to elevate by moving to this new format isn't quite being elevated enough.
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