Ricky Stenhouse Jr. held off the field in overtime to claim the victory in a dramatic NASCAR Cup Series YellaWood 500 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway – edging Brad Keselowski and William Byron by a mere 0.006s in a thrilling three-wide finish.
That heart-stopping finish was indicative of the afternoon of competition at NASCAR’s biggest track (2.66-mile), which once again lived up to its reputation and provided a thrilling Playoff race that has major implications for the championship contenders.
THE FULL FINAL LAP AT TALLADEGA!
ANOTHER WILD FINISH. ANOTHER PHOTO FINISH! #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/lvJVbhj3ST
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) October 6, 2024
A massive 27-car accident with five laps remaining brought out a red flag and stopped the race for nearly 10 minutes. The incident affected eight of the 12 Playoff cars in varying degrees. There is only one more race remaining in this round to settle which eight drivers advance to the next round of championship competition.
Stenhouse, the 36-year-old Mississippi native who is not Playoff-eligible, hoisted his fourth career trophy – all coming at superspeedway tracks – and first in 65 races. His No. 47 JTG-Daugherty Chevrolet led 19 of the 195 laps, including the all-important last one after a side-to-battle with six-time Talladega winner Keselowski and this year’s Daytona 500 winner Byron.
This marks the third time in the five Play off races that a non-Playoff driver has hoisted the race trophy.
“Felt really good. We had our Chevy teammates behind us and I was hoping Kyle wouldn’t push the No. 6 that hard, I knew the No. 24 was going to try to get to the line,’’ said Stenhouse, who scored his first career NASCAR Cup Series win at Talladega in 2017.
“Man, this team has put a lot of hard work in and obviously we haven’t won since the Daytona 500 in ’23. It’s been an up and down season, a lot of hard work this season trying to find a little bit of speed, but we knew this track is one of ours to come get it.’’
The finish was set-up after the vast incident that took out several front-running cars and affected all but four Playoff drivers. Team Penske’s Austin Cindric – who essentially needed a victory to earn an automatic berth in the next Playoff round – was leading the race, having exchanged the top spot multiple time with Stenhouse in the closing 20 laps.
With five laps remaining, Cindric’s leading No. 2 Ford was hit from behind on the backstretch by Keselowski’s No. 6 Roush Fenway Keselowski Ford which triggered an accordion-style accident from three rows behind the leader. Harrison Burton’s No. 21 Ford struck Joey Logano’s No. 22 Ford that then pushed Keselowski’s car forward and into Cindric.
The aftermath collected 28 cars in all, completely sidelining Cindric, who was credited with a 32nd place finish, his Penske teammate Logano (33rd), and Stewart-Haas Racing’s Chase Briscoe (30th).
“Obviously incredibly frustrated,’’ Cindric said. “Just really proud of my team and the full execution of the day. We got that stage win (second stage) and put ourselves at the front of that green flag pit cycle and had another shot .