It’s no secret just how competitive Michael Jordan is. The stories range from willing himself to victory in the NBA Finals despite having the flu to an obsession with dominating golf opponents on the green.

Now, in his latest endeavor as a sports owner, Jordan is on another historic run. Tyler Reddick, a driver with Jordan’s 23XI Racing, is the first driver in NASCAR's 77-year history to win the first three races of its Cup Series in a season. Reddick, who drives the number 45 Toyota Camry from 23XI, opened the 2026 series with wins at the Daytona 500, the Autotrader 400, and the DuraMAX Texas Grand Prix last month.

If Reddick wins Sunday’s Straight Talk Wireless 500, he and 23XI will be the first driver and team to win four straight Cup Series races.

For non-NASCAR fans or casuals, it might be hard to imagine just how difficult that is. NASCAR is often playfully derided as racing around four left turns since all its tracks are almost identically oval. That oversimplification ignores everything that goes into winning one race, let alone three or four in a row. Every car has a team of mechanics and engineers doing their best to lessen a car’s weight and tune its engine to extract maximum performance. Pit crews ignore the small fires that often break out around them and other hazards as they refuel a car and change tires in seconds. Fractions of that span of time can cost a driver a race or cause a major crash.

To win four in a row is in the vicinity of an NBA or MLB team winning every game for the first month of their season, by 25 points or five runs each.

What makes Reddick’s streak more impressive is 23XI’s unique position in NASCAR. The team was founded in 2020, just six years ago. Jordan is NASCAR’s only Black majority owner. His co-owner Denny Hamlin, is himself a NASCAR driver, just not for his own team. Instead, Hamlin drives the number 11 Toyota Camry XSE for Joe Gibbs Racing, where he’s under contract as a driver until 2027. While it would be obviously against Hamlin’s best financial interest to do anything that would undercut Reddick–and Jordan has credited Hamlin for making the win streak possible–the arrangement effectively means that every time Reddick races, it's against his boss.

Reddick’s streak also comes on the heels of a major court victory for Jordan and 23XI against NASCAR. In December 2025, NASCAR, 23XI, and Front Row Motorsports, another team owned by Jordan, settled an antitrust lawsuit that had dragged on since 2024. Financial details weren’t disclosed, but Jordan said during the case that losing could have shut down both teams. Front Office Sports reported that one economist who testified in the case said NASCAR could own the teams for more than $300 million.

Now, 23XI is on a historic run and raking in the cash. NASCAR stopped publishing its race purses, but Yahoo Sports reported the total for the first three wins at about $53 million, about $31 million for the Daytona 500, and roughly $11 million each for the Autotrader and DuraMAX races.

Not bad for the third three-peat of Jordan’s sporting career.