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

In the midst of a season of dominance by Tyler Reddick, the NASCAR Cup Series has seen two first-time race winners, Ty Gibbs and Carson Hocevar, over the last three races.

Could we be seeing a turning of the guard in the series, where Reddick is the new dominant force, and drivers who weren't previously expected to reach victory lane on a week-in and week-out basis are suddenly contenders?

The jury is still out on that one, as it's fully expected that guys like William Byron, Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, and Chase Briscoe will wake up from their winless starts to the season, but you can't help but wonder who could break through for their first NASCAR Cup Series points-paying win next.

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

Zane Smith

Don't look now, but Zane Smith broke into 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.

While most people don't regard the driver of the No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford Mustang as a driver who will reach victory lane soon, I feel like he's hovered a little closer to the sun than most realize.

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

Additionally, Smith has shown the ability to finish races near the front. The driver has 13 top-10 finishes over his last 82 starts, and four of those he was able to convert into top-five results. An interesting note about Smith's four top-five finishes in the NASCAR Cup Series is that they have come at four totally different styles of track.

Smith's career best finish came at Nashville Superspeedway a 1.333-mile intermediate oval, while he also finished third at Bristol Motor Speedway, a high-banked short track, in 2025, and he has fifth-place finishes at Watkins Glen International, a road course, and Talladega Superspeedway, a drafting track.

I love that level of diversity in his results, and I feel like a driver as well-rounded as Smith can find victory lane if the planets align one of these Sundays.

Connor Zilisch

Based on how the opening 10 races of Connor Zilisch's NASCAR Cup Series rookie campaign have gone, I'm sure most will be snickering about this selection. But I feel I won't look silly in the end.

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

As Zilisch gains more experience in this car, and Trackhouse Racing begins to fill the gaps on 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 present state, Zilisch is a threat to score his first win in the NASCAR Cup Series as the circuit heads to a heaping helping of road course events in the Summer. Zilisch, who was spun out twice at Circuit of the Americas earlier in the season, battled back every time and was still able to get a top-15 finish in that race.

He'll have some opportunity to flash his brillance on road courses before the season is over, and he may just get a win in the process.

Ryan Preece

While Smith and Zilisch are on this list, I think it would be crazy to expect any currently winless driver to reach victory lane before Ryan Preece does.

Since moving to RFK Racing a season ago, Preece has become a much more consistent driver than we ever saw him as at JTG Daugherty Racing (now Hyak Motorsports) or Stewart-Haas Racing. He has fast cars, and RFK Racing seems to be trending in a positive direction.

10 races into the season, all three RFK Racing drivers -- Preece, Chris Buescher, and Brad Keselowski -- find themselves well above the Chase for the Championship cutline.

If I had to select a track for Preece to breakthrough at, short tracks would be the obvious, 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 not a one-trick pony.

Preece did get 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. Over the years, the 1.5-mile track in Fort Worth, Texas, has served as the host venue to a couple of first-time race winners in the NASCAR Cup Series.

Jeff Burton (1997) and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (2000) each pulled off their first Cup Series wins at the track. Can Preece, Zilisch, or Smith join them on that list this weekend? We'll find out on Sunday, May 3.

Add us as a preferred source on Google