‘3 Peat Baby’: NASCAR’s Tyler Reddick celebrates historic start to season with team co-owner Michael Jordan
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- Tyler Reddick is the first NASCAR Cup Series driver to win the first three races of a season.
- Michael Jordan, the co-owner of 23XI Racing who had two NBA championship three-peats with the Chicago Bulls, said the third in a row is ‘the hardest one to win.’
- The unprecedented winning streak puts Reddick atop the NASCAR Cup standings with a 70-point lead heading into Phoenix.
Tyler Reddick isn’t exactly the Michael Jordan of NASCAR.
Not yet anyway.
Still, Reddick seems to be at the start of something special as the driver of a team co-owned by the NBA legend who led the Chicago Bulls to two championship three-peats in the 1990s.
Less than a month into the Cup Series season, Reddick has established his own three-peat of sorts, the likes of which never has been seen in NASCAR.
The antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR by two of its racing teams — including one co-owned by NBA legend Michael Jordan — was settled Thursday, with permanent charters granted to all teams.
After winning the Daytona 500 on Feb. 16 and the race at EchoPark Speedway in Atlanta last week, Reddick held off Shane van Gisbergen over the final 20 laps at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, on Sunday to become the first Cup driver to win the first three races of the season.
“It’s incredible. NASCAR’s always been super competitive but in this day and age where the field is so close, for us to be able to pull this off is true testament of teamwork, hard work in the offseason by everyone on this team, everyone at 23XI,” Reddick told KXAN-TV in Austin after the race.
“It’s super special to be on this kind of a run. We’re just gonna try to keep it going as long as we can. We’re kind of just in the right headspace throughout the week, and it’s been really sweet to just grab these wins like we have.”
Jordan, who co-owns 23XI Racing with veteran Cup driver Denny Hamlin, was with Reddick’s pit crew at the end of the race. As Reddick climbed out of the car, Jordan gave him a high-five and exclaimed, “Three, baby, three!”
Reddick posted video of that exchange with Jordan on social media and wrote, “3 PEAT BABY.”
Reddick also posted a photo of Jordan holding up three fingers after the Bulls’ first three-peat in 1993 next to a photo of himself making the same gesture while holding his trophy Sunday.
“Tyler came in with the most pressure,” Jordan told Fox Sports. “He had a chance to win three in a row. That’s the hardest one to win, you know. And he kept to his strategy. ... Tyler did a good job. He beat good competition.”
NBA legend Michael Jordan took the stand in a Charlotte, N.C., courtroom Friday afternoon during an antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR.
In December, an antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR filed by 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports was settled nine days into the trial, with NASCAR agreeing to grant all of its teams the permanent charters they had been seeking.
Started in 2020, 23XI Racing has three full-time cars — driven by Reddick, Bubba Wallace and Riley Herbst — as well as a part-time car driven by Corey Heim. Entering next week’s race in Phoenix, Reddick leads the Cup standings by 70 points, followed by Wallace in second place.
Jordan credited Hamlin, who still drives for Joe Gibbs Racing, as the “mastermind” who put together a team that is having such great success early this season.
“I just put up the money,” Jordan said.
