Tyler Reddick made history as first driver in NASCAR Cup Series history to win three consecutive races to start the season after claiming victory on Sunday in Austin.
NASCAR
Reddick, who started on the pole at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) on Sunday, battled for the win in his No. 45 Toyota Camry XSE with road course ace Shane Van Gisbergen coming down the stretch en route to victory lane. Reddick is the first driver in Cup Series history to win the first three races of the season after notching victories at the season-opening Daytona 500 and last Sunday at EchoPark Speedway.
“It means the world,” said Reddick. “Yeah, it's so fitting. We get going at the end there and I'm leading and there's SVG (Shane Van Gisbergen), the guy I've been trying to beat for a while now. Just to be able to outlast him there and hold on for the win is just incredible. Just really proud of this Chumba Casino Toyota Camry XSE, everyone at 23XI. We worked really hard. We did not like getting beat like that at road courses. It's one race, but it was so important, so fitting that we were able to get three in-a-row and make history.”
- Tyler Reddick
Christopher Bell (third) and Ty Gibbs (fourth) brought Toyota three out of the top four finishers Sunday afternoon with Gibbs winning the second stage and leading five laps. Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) also posted three cars inside the top-10 with Denny Hamlin coming home with a 10th-place finish.
With the strong start to the season, Reddick and 23XI Racing teammate Bubba Wallace remain 1-2 in the Cup Series point standings.
Saturday featured the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series at COTA and Truck Series making their debut at the St. Petersburg Street Course. In Truck Series action, Kaden Honeycutt brought home a fifth-place finish to lead Toyota and his first top five result of the 2026 season.
“We had an awesome Tundra,” said Honeycutt. “Thanks to Safelite, Toyota and TRICON Garage -- everyone did a great job. I felt like we were okay. I don’t think we were a winning truck. I felt like the front row trucks had a little bit better drive. Just have to come back next year and improve on it. I’m really happy with how the weekend went. Just too many mistakes and had to bounce back from it, but thankfully it was a top five. I want to win. I want to win every week. This group deserves it. I’ve just got to clean it up. We’ve got a couple weeks off and we’ll go to Darlington and hit it hard there.”
- Kaden Honeycutt
Dario Franchitti ran among the top 10 for most of the race in the TRICON Garage No. 1 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro, but damage down the stretch forced him to make a late-race pit stop and he went on to finish 27th.
Meanwhile in the O’Reilly Series at COTA, JGR drivers Brent Crews (sixth) and William Sawalich (seventh) earned top 10 finishes Saturday afternoon at COTA.
Seventeen-year-old Crews dazzled in his O’Reilly Series debut, taking the lead on an early race restart with an impressive move in turn one and led five total laps. With his time in the lead, Crews became the youngest driver to lead laps in the O'Reilly Series since Casey Atwood did so in 1998 at the Nashville Fairgrounds.
“Felt like today was just a big learning day,” said Crews. “My first start obviously. Overall, I just wanted to finish and keep the car in one piece and we did that. There are some things I felt like I could have done better. There at the end not thinking about it, I took the outside. I’ve been here so many times where you gain a row or two rows taking the outside and then they all get wiped out. It was a tough day, it was a long hot day and we survived. I just want to thank everyone at Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota, and we were also happy to represent Young Life.”
- Brent Crews
ARCA WEST
Taylor Mayhew (third) and Sean Hingorani (fifth) both posted top-five finishes in Saturday night’s ARCA West Series race at Kevin Harvick’s Kern County Speedway in California. Jade Avedisian (eighth), who started from the pole position, and Gavin Ray (ninth) also finished inside the top 10. Mason Massey was the race winner.
WHAT’S NEXT
NASCAR heads out West for two consecutive weeks starting at Phoenix Raceway.
The ARCA Menards Series kick off the Phoenix weekend on Thursday, March 5. FS1 will have the coverage starting at 6:00 p.m. ET.
On Saturday, March 7, the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts takes center stage from Phoenix at 7:30 p.m. ET on CW. The NASCAR Cup Series closes the weekend from Phoenix with their race on Sunday, March 8, at 3:30 p.m. ET on FS1.