Tyler Reddick won his fifth race of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season at Kansas Speedway on Sunday, becoming the first driver to win five of the first nine races of a season since 1987. With 27 races remaining, the conversation has moved to “will he match” Jeff Gordon’s 1998 title-winning season tally of 13 wins.
Gordon’s 1998 season set the benchmark for NASCAR’s modern era (1972 onwards). He arrived at that campaign as a two-time champion who had already won 10 races each in 1996 and 1997. What he produced in 1998 was something beyond even those years – 13 wins in 33 races, a 5.7 average finish, 26 top-5s, and a championship margin of 364 points over Mark Martin.
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Nobody in the sport’s modern era has come close until Reddick. The 23XI Racing driver has won at five different track types – Daytona, Atlanta, COTA, Darlington, and Kansas and has a 105-point lead over Denny Hamlin in the standings. He is almost halfway to Gordon’s win total with 75 percent of the season still to run. Can he get there? The styles are different. The results, so far, are comparably historic.
Tyler Reddick in 2026 vs Jeff Gordon in 1998
Tyler Reddick has had a record-breaking start to his 2026 NASCAR Cup Series campaign. He became the first driver to win the opening three races of a season. Adding to that, only two other drivers had won four times in the first six races of a season in the modern era – Dale Earnhardt Sr. in 1987 and Bill Elliott in 1992.
Reddick surpassed both with five wins in nine, while posting greater consistency in his non-winning races than either of those precedents showed. His worst finish so far this year is 15th at Martinsville – a result that, given the circumstances of a short track where 23XI Racing has acknowledged room to grow, reads as a damage-limitation rather than a disaster.
Two drivers hold the record for most wins in a single season. In 1975, Richard Petty won 13 times in 30 races on his way to his sixth title. He remains the undisputed king of the sport’s win lists, holding the record of 27 victories in a single season during the 1967 campaign across a 48-race schedule. In 1998, Jeff Gordon matched Petty’s modern-era 13-win mark.
Gordon nearly improved on Petty, producing a better average finish of 5.7 to Petty’s 6.6, which shows his dominance. The most relevant comparison to both of those seasons is Tyler Reddick’s 2026. The 23XI driver holds an advantage over both with a 36-race season, giving him three additional opportunities.
Tyler Reddick has also started hotter. Jeff Gordon won twice in his first six races of 1998 and had three finishes of 16th or worse, sitting third in the standings after six races. Reddick has not finished worse than 15th in nine races. However, Gordon ran away from the field in the back half of the season, winning seven races between Races 16 and 24 to build an insurmountable points lead.
Gordon’s No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet won 13 of 33 races. No other Hendrick car won more than one. Chevrolet, as a manufacturer, won two more. Mark Martin won seven times and still lost the title by 364 points. That is how Gordon steamrolled through the 1998 season, and nobody else was close.
Can Tyler Reddick break Jeff Gordon’s 1998 record?
The honest answer is that it is unlikely but no longer dismissible. Tyler Reddick needs eight more wins from 27 remaining races to tie Jeff Gordon and Richard Petty’s modern-era record of 13. That is a win rate of just under 30 percent for the remainder of the season, less than the rate he has produced through nine races.
The difference is that the first nine races of a season typically contain the most favorable conditions for a dominant team. Limited data from opponents, early-season uncertainty, and momentum built before rivals catch up. As the year progresses, teams adjust, weak spots get exposed, and the field closes in.
The Next Gen era has demonstrated higher parity than the car Gordon drove in 1998. Tyler Reddick winning five times in that environment is more impressive in terms of the competition level, even if the absolute numbers remain lower. Therefore, Petty and Gordon have shared that record ever since.
Few have come close in the 21st century. Jimmie Johnson won 10 races in 2007 on his way to his second consecutive championship. Kyle Larson matched that in his first title season of 2021. Darrell Waltrip won 12 times in 1981 and again in 1982. But none of them cleared 13.
What works in Tyler Reddick‘s favor is the breadth of his wins. He has already won across superspeedways, intermediate tracks, and road courses. He has started from the front row five times this season with four poles, giving him a positional advantage before racing even begins. Gordon managed seven poles in his 1998 season. Reddick is on a comparable trajectory.
Looking ahead, the 2026 NASCAR schedule suits the No. 45 team. Talladega is next, where Reddick is a former winner. Texas and Watkins Glen follow before the All-Star break. By Race 12 of the 1998 season, Gordon had three wins – a number Reddick has already exceeded.
The summer stretch offers Charlotte, Nashville, Pocono, Naval Base Coronado, and Sonoma before the series returns to Atlanta, Daytona, and Darlington – three tracks where Tyler Reddick has already won this season. The opportunity is genuine.
Edited by Hitesh Nigam
