Welcome to Talladega! Where it’s more than a race, it’s Talladega!
Let’s run down this crazy race, shall we?
Our Pole winner was Micheal McDowell (34). Following him, the rest of the Top 10 was as follows: Austin Cindric (2), Todd Gilliland (38), Kyle Busch (8), Ryan Blaney (12), Joey Logano (22), Austin Dillon (7), Denny Hamlin (11), Harrison Burton (21), and Daniel Hemric (31).
Our first caution of this beautiful Sunday afternoon comes on lap 10 for Daniel Saurez who spins after clipping BJ McLeod (78) trying to blend with the rest of the field after going three wide. Most of this race was three, four, and five wide.
Stage One ends with the Top 5 of Chris Buescher (17), Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (47), WIlliam Byron (24), Kyle Larson, and Christopher Bell (20). All cars pit for the stage for tires and fuel, and the green drops again on lap 67. The rest of the stage runs smoothly.
Stage Two ends with a caution for Alex Bowman who makes contact with Ryan Blaney, who spins into the outside wall with a hard hit. Joey Logano, Denny Hamlin, Tyler Reddick (45), Corey LaJoie (51), Ross Chastain (1), and Shane Van Gisbergen (16) were all collected in the crash, which ended Blaney and Chastain’s days. Austin Cindric won stage 2. Top 5 at the end of Stage 2 is as follows: Cindric, Chase Elliott (9), Busch, Van Gisbergen, and Byron. Alex Bowman has a penalty at the end of Stage 2 for his gasoline can being moved out of his pit box during his pit stop, and must go to the rear.
Stage 3. Are we ready? Stage 3 runs smoothly until lap 183. With only four to go, we have a combination of caution and red flag for the Big One. The 6 of Brad Keselowski shoves the 2, and collects the whole back field. Only 7 cars made it through this crash, meaning 28 cars were involved, which is the most in Talladega SuperSpeedway history. This pushes us into NASCAR OverTime for the 13th time this season, which is the most in Cup Series history. After the track gets cleared, we have a smooth rest of the race.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. wins! Top-10 at the finish was Stenhouse Jr., Keselowski, Byron, Larson, Erik Jones (43), Bell, Justin Haley (7), Austin Dillon (3), Bubba Wallace (23), and Hamlin.
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