close
close

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. wins the NASCAR Cup Series YellaWood 500 at Talladega

Posted on by Kennedy
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. wins the NASCAR Cup Series YellaWood 500 at Talladega

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. edged Brad Keselowski in NASCAR overtime at Talladega Superspeedway to win the Cup Series YellaWood 500 in a photo finish Sunday in Lincoln, Alabama.

After a lengthy red flag period, Stenhouse led Keselowski on the restart, but on the final lap Keselowski broke through into Turn 3.

However, William Byron's hard push gave Stenhouse the momentum he needed in his No. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing car to beat Keselowski by 0.006 seconds and score his fourth career win and first since the 2023 Daytona 500.

Byron's third place placed him in the Round of 8. Kyle Larson and Erik Jones rounded out the top five.

After manufacturer-oriented pit stops with 20 laps to go, Austin Cindric and Stenhouse led the field, but on lap 184 the big thing happened with the fourth caution and a red flag.

Race leader Cindric, who opened the day last among the dozens of title chasers, was pushed by Keselowski's Ford, which had been tapped by Joey Logano in a chain reaction of several cars colliding to trigger chaos on the backstretch.

The 28-car accident, the largest ever at Talladega in Cup history, also involved championship contenders Chase Elliott, Chase Briscoe, Alex Bowman, Tyler Reddick and Daniel Suarez.

Reigning series champion Ryan Blaney failed at the end of stage two, finishing 39th, with his seventh DNF of 2024.

In the second race of the postseason Round of 12, Suarez was lapped early and quickly lost positions in the draft. The #99 driver tried to squeeze into the main lane, was hit by BJ McLeod's #78 and spun unscathed on the backstretch.

With 10 laps of the 2.66-mile superspeedway remaining in the 60-lap first stage, Chris Buescher's No. 17 Ford grabbed the lead, edging out Stenhouse, Byron and Larson for the top bonus points as the field finished the race clean held.

As Cindric's No. 2 Penske Ford team won the 10 bonus points in the second stage, a significant development occurred on lap 122 for his two teammates, Blaney and Logano.

After being bumped by Bowman, Blaney's No. 12 bounced off the inside of Shane van Gisbergen, veered right and crashed nose-first into the front wall in a hard impact.

Blaney's accident was fatal and Chastain was collected, whose No. 1 Chevrolet caught fire in Turn 1. Logano, Denny Hamlin and Reddick were also damaged.

Related Posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *