If you've been paying attention to the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season, you'll know that Michael Jordan's 23XI Racing has been particularly dominant so far.

Tyler Reddick has won four of the opening seven races of the campaign, including the Daytona 500, and sits at the top of the points standings at present. One of his teammates, Bubba Wallace, meanwhile, only dropped out of the top three after a DNF at Martinsville on Sunday.

Winning in NASCAR for a young team like 23XI is no easy feat, particularly up against the established might of the likes of Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske. However, having 'won' against NASCAR in court in December (the parties settled, but it was clear who the real winners were), Jordan and his team are now dealing with the establishment on track.

Of course, anybody who paid attention to Jordan's basketball career would have seen this coming. You don't become a six-time champion and widely regarded as the greatest of all time unless you have a deep spirit to win burning inside.

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Michael Jordan loving life as NASCAR team owner

With his NBA days behind him, Jordan now channels that desire into NASCAR, with stock car racing filling the basketball-shaped void left in the 63-year-old's life.

"I'm excited," Jordan told Gayle King on CBS Mornings when asked how he is around the NASCAR garage. "I'm excited that I'm connected to this sport.

"I feel like when I watch the sport, I watch it with the lens of my father, my family, and that matters to me, and that brings back a lot of things that we used to do, and the joy of competition, right, I'm a very competitive person."

Jordan 'cursed' with competitive gene

"Still?" King replied. "100 percent," Jordan continued. "I think I'm cursed.

"I'm cursed with this competitive gene that anything that I do, it's from a competitive lens. In some ways, that keeps me young; it keeps me aggressively thinking, positively, it helps me understand everything that I'm involved with, I'm connected with.

"[Even] if it's getting dressed, I gotta get dressed before my wife gets dressed, you know, those types of things.

"I'm cursed," Jordan concluded. "That's just the way I am, and I try to use it in the best positive way that I can."

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