This season has already produced several fresh faces in Victory Lane, with Team Penske’s Austin Cindric, Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain and Stewart-Haas Racing’s Chase Briscoe all winning for the first time at the Cup Series level. In fact, Chastain has gone to Victory Lane twice in his No. 1 Chevrolet after going winless in his first 120 starts in NASCAR’s premier division.
So who will be the next Cup driver to break through? All signs suggest it will be two-time NASCAR Xfinity Series champion Tyler Reddick, who comes to Kansas fresh off a second-place finish at Darlington that came three races after a second-place finish on the dirt track at Bristol where he led going into the final turn before getting knocked out of the way by the Ford of Briscoe. Reddick is in his third season as a full-time Cup driver and has already amassed more top-five finishes — four — this season than he did in each of his first two years.
Reddick owns two top-10 finishes in five Cup starts at Kansas, so it’s well within the realm of possibility that Sunday could be his big breakthrough. This much is certain: The Richard Childress Racing driver is pleased with the overall speed in his No. 8 Chevrolet these days. He just needs a little luck to get over the hump and into Victory Lane for the first time. Even if he ultimately falls short of that goal in Sunday’s race at Kansas, it seems that a win is just around the corner for Reddick.