AUSTIN, Texas — Shane van Gisbergen was so dominant on road courses last season, it didn’t seem unreasonable to consider the first such race on the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series schedule settled heading into this weekend: SVG in a runaway win in the Trackhouse Racing No. 97 Chevrolet.
Hold on. Tyler Reddick’s pursuit of Cup Series history may yet have a say in that.
Reddick earned pole position in the 23XI Racing No. 45 Toyota for Sunday’s race at Circuit of the Americas, putting him up front in the starting lineup on Austin’s permanent road course as he bids to become the first driver to win the first three races of any Cup Series regular season. A year after fellow Toyota driver Christopher Bell of Joe Gibbs Racing won the second through fourth races on the schedule, Reddick is going for a similar streak even earlier, having won the season-opening Daytona 500 before taking the checkered flag again last weekend at EchoPark Speedway near Atlanta.
Van Gisbergen won five of six road races last season on his way to becoming the 2025 Cup Series rookie of the year, and Sunday’s race has been teed up as a fight between the 36-year-old road wizard and former Supercars Championship star from New Zealand and his 19-year-old rookie teammate, Connor Zilisch.
Maybe it will turn out that way, but Van Gisbergen qualified 13th and Zilisch 25th, with Trackhouse’s most experience Cup Series driver, Ross Chastain, set to start second.