3 Drivers Who Could Be The Next NASCAR Cup Race First Time Winner

Tyler Reddick has been dominant in the NASCAR Cup Series this season but the last three races have featured two first-time race winners in Ty Gibbs and Carson Hocevar

Reddick is the new powerhouse and drivers who weren't expected to find victory lane on a week in and week out basis are suddenly contenders. Are we seeing a changing of the guard in the series?

We don’t know about that one yet, as William Byron, Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell and Chase Briscoe are all expected to eventually break through after winless starts to the season, but you have to wonder who might break through with their first NASCAR Cup Series points-paying win next.

Here are three drivers that I feel like are trending to a potential visit to victory lane in the NASCAR Cup Series sooner, rather than later.

Zane Smith

Don’t look now but Zane Smith cracked the top 20 of the NASCAR Cup Series point standings this past weekend with a fifth place finish in the Jack Link’s 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.

Most people don't think of the driver of the No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford Mustang as someone who's going to be visiting victory lane anytime soon but I think he's been orbiting a little closer to the sun than most people realize.

Smith has improved his performance steadily in the past three seasons despite driving for two different organizations Trackhouse Racing in 2024 and Front Row in 2025 and 2026. Smith has climbed from a 30th place driver in the standings in his rookie season to a top-20 contender 10 races into his third campaign.

Smith has also demonstrated the ability to finish races near the front. The driver has 13 top 10 finishes in his last 82 starts and turned four of those into top five results. One interesting note about Smith's four top five finishes in the NASCAR Cup Series is that they’ve come at four totally different styles of tracks.

He posted a career best finish at Nashville Superspeedway a 1.333-mile intermediate oval but also has a third place finish at Bristol Motor Speedway a high banked short track in 2025 and a pair of fifth-place finishes at Watkins Glen International a road course and Talladega Superspeedway a drafting track.

I love that kind of diversity in his results and I think a driver as well rounded as Smith can find victory lane if the planets align one of these Sundays.

Connor Zilisch

If you look at the first 10 races of Connor Zilisch’s rookie campaign in the NASCAR Cup Series, I’m sure most will be laughing at this pick. But I feel I won’t look stupid in the end.

The 19-year-old is still adjusting to the Next Gen car, which is a whole different animal from the NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series car he dominated a season ago, and he's going through the learning curve with a team, Trackhouse Racing, that has admitted they are in a rebuilding year from a competition standpoint.

As Zilisch gains more and more experience in this car and Trackhouse Racing begins to fill the gaps in their areas of need in the race shop, expect the driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet to get closer and closer to the front at short tracks and intermediates.

But even in his current state, Zilisch can be a threat to get his first win in the NASCAR Cup Series as the circuit heads to a heaping helping of road course events in the Summer. Zilisch had already been spun out twice earlier in the season at Circuit of the Americas, but fought back each time to still grab a top-15 finish in that race.

He will get a chance to show his brillance a little bit on the road courses before the season is over, and he might just get a win in the process.

Ryan Preece

Smith and Zilisch are on this list, but it would be nuts to think any currently winless driver will reach victory lane before Ryan Preece does.

Preece has been a much more consistent driver than we ever saw him as at JTG Daugherty Racing (now Hyak Motorsports) or Stewart-Haas Racing since moving to RFK Racing a season ago. He has fast cars and RFK Racing is heading in the right direction.

All three RFK Racing drivers Preece Chris Buescher and Brad Keselowski are above the Chase for the Championship cutline through the first 10 races of the season.

Short tracks would be the obvious choice if I had to pick a track for Preece to break through but the driver showed last season that he is capable of contending at intermediate ovals and he also finished fourth in the Brickyard 400 after leading 12 laps in that event.

The driver of the No. 60 Ford Mustang Dark Horse is no one-trick pony.

Preece did notch his first unofficial NASCAR Cup Series win of his career in the Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium NASCAR's annual preseason exhibition event earlier this season but I don't think it'll be long before we're calling the Connecticut native who cut his racing teeth in modifieds in the Northeast a Cup Series race winner.

This weekend the NASCAR Cup Series heads to Texas Motor Speedway for the Wurth 400. The 1.5 mile track in Fort Worth Texas has been the host venue for a couple of first-time race winners through the years in the NASCAR Cup Series.

Jeff Burton (1997) and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (2000) each scored their first Cup Series victory at the track. Will Preece Zilisch or Smith join them on that list this weekend? We’ll find out on Sunday May 3.