Bob Pockrass
FOX NASCAR Insider
TALLADEGA, Ala. — Ricky Stenhouse Jr. he continued to show that he can run well on draft tracks as he added to the growing list of non-playing drivers who salvaged their season with at least a win.
Stenhouse edged out Brad Keselowski at the finish line Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway to earn his first Cup win since the 2023 Daytona 500.
“It was hard work this season trying to find the pace, but we knew this track was ours to take,” said Stenhouse, who drives the one-car team JTG Daugherty Racing. -owned by former NBA star Brad Daugherty.
Stenhouse was at the front when the 28-car pile-up — the largest (by number of cars) in NASCAR Cup Series history — took out many cars that could have won and hurt or eliminated several playoff drivers.
By finishing in third place, William Byron earned points in the NASCAR semifinal round (Round 8) and 11 drivers will fight for the final seven spots next Sunday at the Charlotte road course.
Taken at Talladega, where the only playoff drivers to finish in the top 10 were Byron, Kyle Larson (fourth), Christopher Bell (sixth) and Denny Hamlin (10th).
A big, big wreck
A 28-car pile-up with four laps to go was started when Joey Logano got behind Brad Keselowski, who spun Austin Cindric in front of the rest of the field as he raced down the bottom lane.
Keselowski said that when they tried to pat down Todd Gilliland, who lost the draft due to a speeding penalty in the pit, they stretched a little and then the frame pulled them quickly.
“When [Gilliland] it blocked the bottom lane with all the Fords in it, causing us all to react – stretch the rubber band and it went backwards,” Keselowski said. “I caught 2 cars. [of Cindric] and checked [off the throttle] less and 22 [of Logano] he came and hit me and the three of us collided.
“I really don’t think Austin or Joey did anything wrong. I don’t know what I could have done differently.”
Cindric and Logano, the two drivers of the championship who came out of the accident, cried as they seemed to be in a strong position as all the Fords worked together.
“It’s just a push outside the center and that’s the easiest thing to get a guy out…. [of Keselowski] and 6 pushed me,” said Cindric. “Was it annoying? Yes. I wouldn’t be as upset as I am, but nothing will change anything.”
Both Cindric and Logano will need to perform well in Charlotte next week and need help to improve.
“The 2 got out there a little slower than he was, and the 21 [of Harrison Burton] he shoved me and passed to 6 and got to 2 with a little fumes,” Logano said. “It’s nobody’s fault. It’s not Brad’s fault.”
Blaney Is Angry With Bowman
Defending Cup Champion Ryan Blaney dropped out of the race at the end of the second stage as Alex Bowman tried to push him and ended up throwing him.
“They are 48 [of Bowman] he just drove right at me on the tri-oval,” Blaney said. “He just killed the oval [expletive] come out of me. I don’t know what you are thinking. I thought he would have more sense than that, but apparently he didn’t.
“I see him dragging his ass to me and you think, ‘You’ve got to pick it up a bit. You can’t just run open to someone on the three oval.’ But he did.”
Ryan Blaney in frustration after a failed push from Alex Bowman
Bowman said it was his fault.
“It was a bad thing,” Bowman said. “I lifted as I rolled towards him but it wasn’t enough. I had been pushed there a few times and if I’d got to him after 100 metres, he would have been fine.
“He was still turning enough, obviously you connected him. … I was just trying to push him forward, obviously it was a bad push.”
But with the biggest crash in the race, Blaney left the track in the same place he started – 25 points above the cut line.
NASCAR Amends Wrecked Car Rules
NASCAR did not announce a change in the definition of its damaged car policy before the race but made some obvious changes to it following the crash.
NASCAR has previously ruled that if a car cannot enter a pit under its own power after contact with another car or a wall, the driver must exit the car and exit the race.
But after Josh Berry didn’t appear to have major damage and was pulled from the race last week at the opener in Kansas, NASCAR reconsidered that strict interpretation and pulled some cars back to the track on Sunday.
These two cars – Chase Briscoe and Chase Elliott – are both playoff drivers.
“Our goal is to never take good cars out of the race,” said NASCAR Executive Vice President Elton Sawyer. “Based on our experience last week in Kansas and what happened there with the 4 car [of Berry]we felt that maybe we could have made a different call there.
“We had a good car that probably just needed tires. Going into this, we wanted to get away from the competition.”
After a major crash, NASCAR finally raised the red flag (which stops the race without any work allowed to be done on the cars) to yellow with the expectation that the safety car would start leading the cars back onto the road around and the race restarted.
But after NASCAR went from red to yellow, officials realized they needed to do more cleanup, leaving some cars on the road waiting to roll over and hit repair road while the cars were already on pit road when the race was stopped. start working on them.
“We still have security equipment that was still running, so for everyone’s safety, we held the patrol car for a while,” said Sawyer. “They completely understand the opponents [arguing] that we have cars on pit road that have had more opportunity to do some work.”
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He spent decades covering motorsports, including more than 30 Daytona 500s, working for ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.
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