Second Thoughts: Just How Many Races Will Tyler Reddick Win?

Tyler Reddick already has five wins in nine NASCAR Cup Series races this year. Considering there are 29 races left, just how many more wins can he get? If he continues at this current pace, he’d finish with 20 wins in the 36 races. He won’t continue at this pace. But are 10 wins out of the question? Not at all. That’s because with the exception of short tracks, the driver of the No. 45 car for 23XI Racing has excelled at the others from intermediates to drafting tracks to road courses. And there are only five races on tracks shorter than 1 mile and one at a 1-mile track. The one thing not in Reddick’s favor is that Reddick has not been all that dominant. He sits third overall in miles led and fifth overall in laps led this year. Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson sit ahead of him in both categories. They have combined for one win (Larson doesn’t have any this year). The Next Gen car, introduced in 2022, hasn’t been seen as conducive for a driver to rattle off wins because the cars are so even and it is difficult to pass. The top winners in each of those seasons were five or six (Chase Elliott had five in 2022, William Byron six in 2023, Kyle Larson six in 2024 and Denny Hamlin six in 2025). Even before the Next Gen car, drivers don’t historically win 55.56 percent — where Reddick is at right now — of the races during the year. The best winning percentage in the modern era: Richard Petty winning 43 percent by capturing 13 of 30 races in 1975. Darrell Waltrip won 12 of 30 (40 percent) in 1982 while Jeff Gordon (13 of 33 in 1998) and Bill Elliott (11 of 28 in 1985) won 39 percent. Even 39 percent would be 14 wins for Reddick. That still seems like a big stretch. Just remember, this is a driver who didn’t win in 2025 and had three wins the year he won the regular-season title in 2024. Reddick, coming into the season, had eight wins in 218 career starts. No driver in the modern era has earned more than 13 wins. Petty and Gordon have the most at 13 victories. Kyle Larson earned 10 wins in 2021 and the last driver before him to earn that many in a year was Jimmie Johnson in 2007. If he gets a big enough lead on the second place driver in points during the summer, it also wouldn’t be out of the question for the team to try a few things during races they think they can apply to tracks during the Chase. That likely won’t lead to wins, but it could lead to the championship. And that’s the other thing when looking at the final 10 races of the year. Reddick very well could have the points lead but even if he does, it will just be a 25-point lead to start the Chase. [POWER RANKINGS: Tyler Reddick Too Hot & Can’t Be Stopped] Depending on how the Chase plays out, Reddick might need to race for points at some time, not taking any chances that could result in a big loss in points. That also could be the case in August if he needs to nurse a regular-season points lead. Yes, Reddick is having a somewhat historic season with the most wins of any driver in the first nine races since Dale Earnhardt won six of the first nine in 1987. In that season, Earnhardt won five of the final 20 races (it was a 29-race schedule). Reddick has 29 races left. How many will he win? The educated guess here is he will win three to five more races. Yeah, 10 overall wins is possible and it would signify a great feat to do it. Maybe even more great than winning five of the first nine because it would show the consistency in finding Victory Lane over even a longer period of time.