Tyler Reddick\u2019s unprecedented start to the 2026 season is not only a strong competitive message to the NASCAR Cup Series garage but something the other drivers also genuinely acknowledge as special. While there is much admiration for Reddick\u2019s historical three-peat\u00a0 \u2013 victories in the DAYTONA 500, at Atlanta\u2019s EchoPark Speedway and last week at the Circuit of The Americas road course \u2013 it also naturally creates huge motivation for those he\u2019s racing against.<\/p>\n
They give him props for his work, but remind, we\u2019re only three races into a 36-race schedule.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s early still,\u201d three-time series champion Joey Logano said of Reddick\u2019s No. 45 23XI Racing team. \u201cBut what they\u2019ve done is impressive. It\u2019s not surprising. I think Tyler is a really good driver and I\u2019ve always thought that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think by the time we get back from Vegas we\u2019ll have a pretty good idea of strengths and weaknesses of where the teams are at. I don\u2019t think we have the full report card yet,\u201d he added. \u201cEventually when you average it out over the first 10 to 15 races I think things clear out quite a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Logano\u2019s Team Penske teammate Ryan Blaney agreed that as good as Reddick has been, it\u2019s just too early to hand him the big trophy quite yet. Sunday\u2019s Straight Talk Wireless 500 (3:30 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at the Phoenix one-miler is followed by a race at Las Vegas, the first of the many 1.5-milers the series races on. After that looms the unique 1.366-mile Darlington (S.C.) Raceway and the half-mile Martinsville, Va. short track.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe least surprising victory was last weekend,\u201d Blaney said of Reddick. \u201cHe\u2019s always run good at COTA, so that was not a surprise. Daytona, I saw him as a pretty decent drafter but not the guy leading a bunch of laps. He\u2019s set himself up to race ahead of everybody three races in, that\u2019s pretty impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re close,\u201d he added. \u201cThey\u2019ve been doing an amazing job. You can\u2019t take anything away from that group. But the competitor in me is like, dang, they\u2019re kicking our butt every week, but the same competitor in me says, \u2018you have to respect what they\u2019re doing and the run they\u2019ve been on.\u2019 But I think we\u2019re close and I look forward to this weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tyler Reddick\u2019s unprecedented start to the 2026 season is not only a strong competitive message to the NASCAR…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,925,19546,13157,5793,634,582,15224,721,722,82,5794],"class_list":["post-519624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-daytona","tag-daytona-500","tag-group","tag-joey-logano","tag-nascar","tag-racing","tag-ryan-blaney","tag-series","tag-speedway","tag-sports","tag-team-penske"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}