Despite being shuffled in the pack late in the going last week, Denny Hamlin’s heroics over the final 14 laps earned him an emotional 60th career Cup Series win and solidified his spot in the championship race at Phoenix next month.
Today. seven drivers walk into the state of Alabama to face their biggest and baddest test of all, Talladega Superspeedway.
A 2.66-mile behemoth, cars used to go so fast here that it played host to the sport’s first 200-mph lap when Buddy Baker streaked around the Alabama high banks all the way back in 1970, and 17 years later, Bill Elliott set a NASCAR record by running a lap where he averaged over 212 mph.
Through many years and awful crashes, NASCAR decided to restrict the engines at these facilities, which ultimately kept the entire field together at once in the pack.
Where you are in the pack could determine your fate. Riding in the back to avoid the Big One could leave you without enough time to rebound at the end. Blocking like your life depends on it at the front of the field could see you turned around, facing nearly 40 cars stampeding toward you.
Worst of all, you could be stuck somewhere in between with nowhere to go. The in between is where you’re most liable to be caught up in somebody else’s mess due to the cars only being an arm length’s apart on all sides.
Though Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, and Chase Briscoe remain above the cutline going into the race, Talladega is known for shuffling the championship deck even more than Las Vegas, meaning everyone is vulnerable until the checkered flag flies.
Are William Byron and Chase Elliott able to rebound from the odds beating them in Vegas? Are Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney poised to return to championship form in the nick of time? Or, will a wild card come through in the final moments to score a much-needed win?
Find out today at Talladega.
This Week in NASCAR
Spire Motorsports announced that they’ll be going in a new direction for 2026 in their flagship No. 7 Chevy Camaro as they will be parting ways with driver Justin Haley at season’s end after a trying 2025 campaign. Here is the team’s statement:
Tyler Reddick’s wife Alexa updated the public on the status of their ailing infant son, Rookie, on Instagram:
In the ongoing antitrust lawsuit between 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports against the France family and NASCAR, the teams dropped a few text messages between current NASCAR president Steve O’Donnell and NASCAR vice president Ben Kennedy that indicate a broad plan to take full control of the sport:
With crew chief Randall Burnett’s departure from Kyle Busch’s No. 8 team, Richard Childress Racing revealed that they’re poaching Xfinity Series champion crew chief Jim Pohlman from JR Motorsports to lead Busch’s crew for 2026.
In the Craftsman Truck Series, Tricon Garage rookie Gio Ruggiero claimed his maiden NASCAR victory by holding off teammate Corey Heim. As for the Xfinity Series, Austin Hill extended his Xfinity record for superspeedway wins by claiming his fourth win of the season.
As for Cup Series qualifying, 2021 Daytona 500 winner Michael McDowell claimed the pole for today’s YellaWood 500 with Southern 500 winner Chase Briscoe starting alongside him on the front row. For a full lineup, click here.
The Race
Today’s YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway will be broadcast today on NBC starting at 2pm Eastern time with commentators Leigh Diffey, Steve Letarte, and Jeff Burton on the call.
The 500 in the race title represents the amount of miles to be run around Talladega, which equates to 188 laps run at a break-neck pace that will be split into three stages ending on the following laps: 60-120-188.
As for the average fall race at Talladega, it looks something like this: 7 cautions for 31 caution laps, 44 lead changes, an average duration of 3 hours and 25 minutes, the lap of final caution waves around lap 184 (or around five laps to go), and a staggering seven overtime finishes over the last 11 fall events.
Writer’s Pick
Last week’s writer’s pick at Las Vegas was pole sitter Denny Hamlin, and he went on a spirited charge at the end of the South Point 400 to claim his sixth win of the season.
This week, I’m selecting two-time Cup Series champion and 63-time race winner Kyle Busch to win today’s YellaWood 500.
These races rely less and less on skill and more and more on luck and execution, and Kyle Busch has been truly unlucky for much of the past two seasons.
Eventually, your luck has to turn around, and there are few places in the sport where you can reverse your luck easier than Talladega Superspeedway.
As we saw in Daytona, the NextGen car seems to no longer be allergic to the concept of the third groove in these superspeedway races, and the guy that drives the No. 8 car loves to get the outside line going at these kinds of tracks. Hopefully, Rowdy can bring home that elusive 64th career victory.
(Top Photo Credit: Meg Oliphant/Getty Images)
pitboxpress.com 