Can Tyler Reddick make NASCAR history this weekend at COTA?

Tyler Reddick could accomplish something this weekend that has yet to be done in NASCAR.

A Reddick victory Sunday at Circuit of the Americas would mark the first time in NASCAR Cup Series history a driver opened the first three races of the season with a win.

“If at any point during this week I’m running out of reasons to be motivated to go win, I’ll keep that in my back pocket, for sure,” Reddick said about the possibility of winning three consecutive Cup races.

“You know, it’s cool to be able, or have the opportunity to potentially do things like that, but for me, with where this season started and what I need to do as a driver, it’s all about just doing everything I can and showing up every week being as prepared as I can. 

“So, yeah, I’ll try and make that a reality.”

In the series’ 78-year history, a driver has won the opening two races six times. Reddick was the first driver since Matt Kenseth in 2009 to accomplish the feat.

The highest a back-to-back winner has finished in race No. 3 was Marvin Panch with a third-place finish in 1959.

Reddick, a prior winner at COTA in 2023, enters with a 40-point lead over his 23XI Racing teammate Bubba Wallace entering the race weekend.

The race at COTA is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. ET on FOX.

A Look Back in History

The first driver to achieve back-to-back season-opening victories was Marvin Panch in the 1957 season, winning at Lancaster and Concord. In the third contest of the season, finished third on the Titusville-Cocoa Speedway road course in Florida.

That season, Panch won a career-high six races across 42 starts, finishing second in points to Buck Baker.

Two years later, Bob Welborn won the first two races of the 1959 seasons with wins at Fayetteville and Daytona to open the year.

Welborn started on the pole for the third race of the year, the Daytona 500, before an engine issue sidelined him to a 41st-place finish. Welborn won one more race in 1959 and ultimately finished 17th in points.

David Pearson became the third driver to do so, winning at Riverside and Daytona in 1976. In the third race at Rockingham, Pearson started fourth, led 9 laps, but fell out of the race with an oil pump issue, finishing 29th.

Pearson’s limited schedule in 1976 produced 10 victories in 22 starts and an overall ninth-place finish in points despite missing eight races.

It took 21 years, but Jeff Gordon was the next driver to win back-to-back season opening races, winning at Daytona and Rockingham in 1997.

In race No. 3, Gordon started second at Richmond, leading 65 laps before a fourth-place finish. Gordon won 10 races in 1997 en route to his second Cup Series championship.

Gordon is the only driver on this back-to-back season opening winners list to finish as the champion in the same season.

Matt Kenseth, the 2003 series champion, most recently did it in 2009 prior to Reddick, winning at Daytona and Fontana. In the third race of the year at Las Vegas, Kenseth’s quest for three-in-a-row was halted by an engine issue after six laps, where he finished 43rd.

The two wins ended up as Kenseth’s only victories on the season, as he missed the Chase for the first time since its inception and finished 14th in points.

All drivers who have accomplished the feat have either been nominated (Panch and Welborn) or inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame (Pearson, Gordon, and Kenseth).