Inside The Garage: What to Make of Tyler Reddick's Historic Start

Here's what's happening this week Inside The Garage: Tyler Reddick knows how difficult it is to win one race, let alone three in a season. But three in a row? That's hard for even him to fathom. And he just accomplished it. "What I see out of our competitors, it's really hard to, week in and week out, be in contention to win," Reddick said in the news conference Sunday following his victory at Circuit of the Americas. "So to be able to put it together like we have these first three is just pretty unreal." [NASCAR HISTORY: 4 Takeaways From Tyler Reddick's COTA Win] Reddick became the first driver in NASCAR Cup Series history to win three consecutive races to open the season as he followed his Daytona 500 victory with wins at Atlanta and Austin. Not only did Reddick set a new standard for wins to open the season, no organization has won three races to open the season since Petty Enterprises in 1963. For 23XI, which was formed late in the 2020 season and started competing in 2021, it is another sign of growth for the organization co-owned by Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin and basketball legend Michael Jordan. "When I started kicking around trying to find a race team that would let me buy in, none of them were going to give me the control that I wanted," Hamlin said during his post-race news conference as the winning owner. "I don't know what the word is for that, but I wanted to make sure if it failed, it was because of something I did, not someone else." Reddick had just eight wins in 218 career starts before the streak. Those eight victories came at different tracks, as did the first two of 2026. He won at COTA in 2023, his fourth career win and his first victory for 23XI Racing. The year prior, he won the pole at COTA driving for Richard Childress Racing. And his first career victory, for RCR, came on a road course at Road America. So it’s no surprise that he won Sunday, but the odds of him doing it after back-to-back drafting-track victories were slim. "[I’m] just trying to soak it all in, honestly," Reddick said. "I think it's so fitting that it had to happen coming into here, a place where I got my first pole years ago. A place that, road-course wise, is a great fit for me." The victories have come, thanks to better race craft. Reddick hit the hole at the right time to win at Daytona. He put himself in position to make a move for the win at Atlanta, where he led the final two laps. And he didn’t panic when it appeared Shane van Gisbergen and Ryan Blaney would be the class of the field at COTA after Reddick won the pole and faded a little in the opening stage. "Whether it was at the Roval or a number of these other [road-course] races, I kind of just burn up a little too quick and I ended up on the other side of it at the start of the race," Reddick said. If he continues to show this type of race craft, who knows what 2026 could bring? But even those who do win three consecutive races know how hard it is to continue that dominance. The last time a driver won four consecutive races came in 2007, when Jimmie Johnson did it late in his championship run. Christopher Bell won three consecutive races last year — Atlanta, Austin and Phoenix — and then went on a 24-race winless streak before winning the playoff race at Bristol. Hamlin has confidence that his driver has more wins coming (although maybe not in a row). "He's complete," Hamlin said. "The one area that we continue to work on with him is on the short tracks. I think that's where he can still improve a little bit. But we're working pretty hard on improving him at those types of tracks. "But he's complete. Certainly more complete than I am at this stage, where I've got a handful of races where it's like, it would be tough for us to go out there and compete for a win. There's less of those for him." Gabehart-JGR Swing In Court Chris Gabehart can continue working as the Spire Motorsports Chief Motorsports Officer as long as his duties aren't the same as they were when he was Joe Gibbs Racing's director of Cup Series competition, according to a ruling Monday afternoon as reported by The Associated Press. Joe Gibbs Racing has sued Gabehart and Spire over allegedly stealing confidential information and over possible non-compete clauses in Gabehart's contract. JGR has requested a temporary restraining order to keep Gabehart from working at Spire and an injunction to keep him from working there for 18 months. A hearing Friday in federal court in Charlotte centered on the non-compete clauses. With North Carolina being a right-to-work state, Gabehart indicated he had a non-tenable situation at JGR. Spire argues that his role — overseeing operations in Cup, trucks, sprint cars and late model programs — is different than his Cup Series director of competition role at JGR. Gabehart, in an email to a JGR executive and in court filings, said that his relationship with team co-owner Heather Gibbs, and her son, Ty, who drives for the team, was so strained that he didn’t think it could be repaired. Gabehart alleges that Gibbs is not held to the same accountability standards as the other drivers on the team. Attending the St. Petersburg Grand Prix truck and INDYCAR weekend (Spire parent company is TWG Motorsports, which also owns Andretti Global) Gabehart chose his words carefully when speaking to me and to the Associated Press. He said he felt bad that this is putting a cloud over NASCAR. And he also said that he doesn’t dislike Ty Gibbs, who won the O’Reilly Series title in 2022 and then whose father (Coy) unexpectedly died in his sleep that same night. Gabehart gave up his role as Denny Hamlin's crew chief to become the team competition director and believed his role was to help strengthen the entire organization. "Deep down, I believe Ty is a really good person who has been dealt a really tough hand the last three years. Him and his family and all of that, and I feel really bad about that," Gabehart said. "I share a ton of sympathy because of where I’ve been in trying to help, in a small way, to get through that and am thankful for all the family has done for me. "But unfortunately the 54 car [of Gibbs] and everything that went on last year, starting early in October of ’24 to where we are now, is an important part of my story. It's an important part of how I've gotten here. And if this is something that we're going to continue to have to talk about publicly, then I've got to continue to tell my story so it is understood. This is not about Ty personally, this is not about the family personally. " TWG Motorsports CEO Dan Towriss backed his organization and said JGR was upset that Gabehart didn’t go to one of the blue blood teams in NASCAR. "I guess, apparently, there's a caste system in NASCAR that I was unaware of," Towriss told me and other reporters, later adding: "Do you want your employer telling you what you can and can't do? This is Spire sticking it to the man. That’s what the story is about, or should say, Chris Gabehart." In The News — INDYCAR's officiating board confirmed that Kyle Novak will continue as the race director, Kevin "Rocket" Blanch remains overseeing tech and Arie Luyendyk and Max Papis will remain as chief stewards. Former Andretti crew chief Nick Allen added as a technical inspection manager. — JR Motorsports announced that long-time short-track standout Lee Pulliam will drive for the team in the O’Reilly Series race at Martinsville later this month. — The Indianapolis 500 test dates have been set for April 28-29. — Richard Childress Racing announced that Austin Hill would do a partial Cup schedule this year with his first Cup race this weekend at Phoenix. — Kyle Busch and Pacific Life Insurance (and all parties) have agreed to a settlement in Busch's lawsuit against the company alleging misrepresentations in policies issued. Busch had sought more than $8 million in damages. Under The Radar It was a great opening INDYCAR weekend for Dale Coyne Racing in St. Petersburg, as Romain Grosjean finished eighth and rookie Dennis Hauger placed 10th. "This weekend is a dream come true," Hauger said in a team news release. "I have been dreaming of this for a long time, ... I know we have more we can find in ourselves to finish even better going forward. "We can build off of this performance, and I'm excited to go out and do this all again next week." Social Spotlight Maybe it was NFL quarterback Jameis Winston’s pep talk that helped boost Hauger? Sweet Ride For you Tom Petty fans out there, the Felix Rosenqvist paint scheme for the INDYCAR season opener: They Said It "[Michael Jordan] reminded me early this week, he does things in threes. He expected no less today. I was really glad to be able to live up to the standards that he has for us and be able to deliver three in a row. That was really cool to share that moment with him." —Tyler Reddick In Inside The Garage, Bob Pockrass takes us behind the scenes of the motorsports world the way only he can.