After his fourth win in six races to open 2026, a lot of race fans have Tyler Reddick at the top of the list of championship favorites. After all, Reddick holds a 95-point advantage over the competition — any of the competition — and his worst day still yielded a 13th-place result.
But is his hot streak indicative of what’s to come?
There are plenty of reasons for fans of other drivers to be optimistic and for Reddick and his fans to sweat it out for the next 30 weeks. Leading the points after six weeks is great, but it’s not necessarily a reason to start thinking too far down the road.
The Big 6: Questions Answered After Tyler Reddick Does It Again at Darlington
A closer look at drivers who have been leading the points after six races and the eventual champion in those seasons produces two distinct lists. Reddick has joined some elite company so far this year, first by joining a short list of drivers to open the season with back-to-back wins (his three in a row was a NASCAR Cup Series first). Then most recently he won his fourth of the first six events, something that’s only been accomplished by two other drivers: Hall of Famers Dale Earnhardt and Bill Elliott.
If Reddick does win the title this year, he’ll also put his name on a short list.
A deep dive into the first six races of the year shows that the points leader after six races has gone on to win a Chase format title three times, but only one driver has pulled it off. Jimmie Johnson, another Hall of Fame driver, made it happen in 2006, 2010, and 2013.
A few things before diving in: even narrowing the pool to the 10 titles won under a Chase format similar to 2026, a straight comparison isn’t an exact science. For one thing, the 2004-2010 versions used the old Latford system to calculate points, allowing for larger points gaps in some instances than the current one-point-per-position system that was used in the 2011-2013 title hunts.
The first three Chase titles had a 10-driver field; it expanded to 12 in 2007. Chase 2.0 will feature 16 title hopefuls but offers a larger winner bonus as well as stage points, which were not a factor in the previous iteration. Reddick’s 95-point advantage at this point in the season is much larger than any of the point leaders had at this point from 2011-2013.
Here’s a look at the previous 10 Chase championship battles after the first six races:
2004
Champion: Kurt Busch
Busch was second in the standings after race six, 21 points behind Matt Kenseth. Busch would drop as low as ninth on week 18 of the regular season, and he started the Chase in seventh after the reset. Kenseth, meanwhile, finished eighth on the season, 437 points behind Busch. Busch won by eight points over Johnson, the slimmest margin in a Latford system Chase.
2005
Champion: Tony Stewart
At the six-race mark, Stewart was in fifth place, 203 points behind Johnson on the season, and two weeks later he dropped to his season-low 14th. However, Stewart heated up in the summer months while Johnson cooled off; Stewart won five races between June and August while Johnson was winless during the same stretch. That gave Stewart the top spot in the Chase at the reset, and he went on to secure the title by 35 points over both Greg Biffle and Carl Edwards. Johnson won twice in the final 10 races but finished fifth on the year.
2006
Champion: Jimmie Johnson
Johnson was rock solid in the regular season en route to his first championship. He won two of the first three races and had a 59-point advantage over Mark Martin after race six. He never fell below third during the first 26 races, though a rough start to the Chase after starting in the top spot dropped him to ninth after the first Chase race. He recovered to win the big trophy by 56 points over runner-up Kenseth.
2007
Champion: Johnson
Despite winning three times in the first six races, Johnson was second to teammate Jeff Gordon by 60 points after that stretch, thanks to a 39th-place result in the Daytona 500. Gordon, though without a win in those races, had an average finish of 5.2 to Johnson’s 10.2. Johnson’s season-low points position was ninth after week 21, but he was back in the lead entering the Chase thanks to the reset. Johnson won the championship by 77 over Gordon.
2008
Champion: Johnson
Johnson stumbled into ’08, with three finishes of 18th or worse and zero wins in the first six weeks. His 15.5 average in that time left him 10th in the standings, 169 behind Jeff Burton. His first win of the year didn’t come until the eighth race; he only won twice in the first 20 weeks. Thanks to wins in the last two regular-season events, Johnson started the Chase in the third spot and with momentum. He finished the year with three Chase wins, 10 top 15s and a 5.7 average finish in that stretch to win by 69 points over Edwards. Burton finished sixth.
2009
Champion: Johnson
Finishes of 31st and 24th during the first three races gave fans who were sick of Johnson winning a glimmer of hope. Then he had his first win in the sixth race, which put him in fourth at that mark, 142 behind leader Gordon (who had opened the year with five finishes of sixth or better in six starts). Johnson went into the Chase second to Martin and then won four times, securing title No. 4. He beat Martin by 141 points while Gordon wound up third with just one win to Johnson’s seven and Martin’s five.
2010
Champion: Johnson
Even after finishing 35th in the Daytona 500 thanks to a mechanical failure, Johnson held the points lead by 14 over Biffle after six weeks thanks to three wins in the five races after Daytona. He won twice more in the summer to take the second seed in the Chase, won once in the last 10 and won the title again despite entering the final race in a points deficit to Denny Hamlin.
2011
Champion: Stewart
2011 brought a change in how points were awarded for races and with that, a closer points battle during both the regular season and the Chase. Kyle Busch was the point leader after the sixth race by a slim five-point margin over Edwards. A one-race suspension during the Chase took Busch out of any title conversation, while Stewart was just heating up.
After just getting by in the regular season, sitting 11th six weeks in and entering the Chase in ninth after the reset with zero wins, Stewart won five of the final 10, including three of the last four, to tie Edwards in the final tally. Stewart won the championship on a tiebreaker, the only time in Cup history the season has ended in a tie.
2012
Champion: Brad Keselowski
Keselowski holds the distinction of being the lowest in points after six races and going on to win the championship. He was 12th at that point in ’12, 51 points behind Biffle. After finishing 36th in week seven, Keselowski fell to 15th before putting on a clinic in consistency for the remainder of the regular season, finishing in the top 15 in 17 of the next 19 races with 12 top 10s and two wins in the same span. That was good enough to start the Chase in second, and 10 top 15s and two wins was enough to seal the championship for Keselowski over Clint Bowyer by 39 points. Biffle, meanwhile, wound up fifth in the standings by season’s end.
2013
Champion: Johnson
Johnson won the Daytona 500 and backed it up with a second win at Martinsville Speedway to hold the lead at the six-week mark by six points over Keselowski. Johnson won twice more in the regular season and led the points for all but three of the first 26 weeks but started the Chase in second after a 40th-place run in race 26. He won twice and scored seven top fives in the final 10 races to win his sixth title by 19 points over Kenseth.
Waid’s World: In 1979, Buddy Baker Wins on a Short Track & This Time, It’s No Gift
Fast forward to 2026, and Reddick is looking to become the second driver to win a title after leading at the six-week mark. There’s a long season in front of him that ends with a points reset, so Reddick has his work cut out for him. Still, he has a much bigger lead than any of the week six leaders under the one-point system.
What matters under this title format? Wins, yes, but consistency in the regular season will be key as well, and stage points will play a role that was missing from previous Chase years. Once drivers get to the Chase, they still have to race the entire field, and history says wins in the final 10 races are what sets a driver up for titles, which will be even more true in 2026 thanks to the inflated win bonus.
Reddick has already put himself on some elite lists this year. Should he hoist the Bill France Cup in November, he’ll add his name to another one, bringing the list of drivers to win a Chase championship after leading in week six to two.
