Talladega produces largest crash in NASCAR history, surprise winner and playoff shake-up
The Yellawood 500 on Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway featured the largest crash in the history of the NASCAR Cup Series, featured a 0.006 second margin of victory for an underdog team, and changed the course of several championship pursuits
In other words, Talladega performed to its intended role as the true wild card race of the chase for the championship.
By the end, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in the JTG Daugherty No. 47 won the race in just the eighth closest finish in Cup history over Brad Keselowski in his RFK Racing No. 6 with a push from William Byron. Remarkably, the eighth finish in history is only good for third closest finish of this year, with Kansas I and Atlanta I producing the first and third closest.
It’s been the season of photo finishes.
Byron actually bailed on Stenhouse, hoping to beat them both to the line, but Kyle Larson appeared to lay off Keselowski enough to stall out everyone’s momentum and allow Stenhouse to hold on.
When the 24 jumped out to the outside, it was like a parachute hit my car,” Stenhouse said. “I was just hoping that we would get to the start-finish line before them. It was a drag race at that point. When I got probably to the back stretch, they were pretty confident that we had won, and a big sigh of relief for sure.”
Stenhouse had a variety of emotions when he realized a fellow Chevrolet driven by Larson was going to line up behind Keselowski.
“So, I was pumped to see Kyle line up behind the 6, but he pushed him a lot harder than I was hoping he would push him,” Stenhouse said. “So, yeah, it was three-wide there at the end coming across the line. We’ve lost a couple here by inches, so it was cool to win one.”
Keselowski didn’t fault Larson and even credited him for giving him a chance.
“I just needed a half a foot, I guess,” Keselowski said. “I got a really good push from the 5 down the frontstretch, but just wasn’t quite enough.
The largest crash in Cup Series history involved 27 cars but also collected seven championship contenders in the process.
That included two-time champion Joey Logano, Chase Briscoe, Daniel Suarez and Austin Cindric, who are the four drivers below the cut line going into the second-round elimination race next weekend at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval.
Cindric was leading with five laps to go when Cindric backed up to Keselowski, causing him to spin nose first into Stenhouse’s door. Cindric was then sideways in front of the whole field and nearly everyone collided into it.
It started with the field lapping Todd Gilliland, who had just served a pass-through penalty for speeding on pit road
When we had to pass (Gilliland) in 1 and 2, it stretched the whole bottom lane out,” Keselowski said. “The bottom had to move to the middle, the middle had to move to the top, and it just broke everybody up. It was a giant rubber band and the rubber band snapped back.”
Playoff drivers involved included Cindric, Briscoe, Logano, Suarez, Tyler Reddick, Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman.
Leave a Reply