Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Narrowly Wins Thrilling YellaWood 500 At Talladega

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. emerged victorious in a dramatic overtime finish at the NASCAR Cup Series YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday. The JTG-Daugherty Chevrolet driver held off Brad Keselowski and William Byron by a mere 0.006-second in a thrilling three-wide finish, claiming his fourth career trophy and first since winning the 2023 Daytona 500.

The race, which had significant implications for the 12 championship contenders, was marred by a massive 23-car accident with five laps remaining, affecting eight of the playoff cars. The incident brought out a red flag and stopped the race for nearly 10 minutes.

Stenhouse, who is not playoff-eligible, led 19 of the 195 laps, including the crucial final lap after a side-to-battle with six-time Talladega winner Keselowski and this year’s Daytona 500 winner Byron.

“Felt really good, we had our Chevy teammates behind us and I was hoping Kyle [Busch] wouldn’t push the six [Keselowski] that hard, I knew the 24 was going to try to get to the line,” said Stenhouse. “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 race-defining accident was triggered when Team Penske’s Austin Cindric, who was leading the race, was hit from behind by Keselowski’s car on the backstretch with five laps remaining. The aftermath collected 23 cars in total, completely sidelining playoff drivers Cindric (32nd), Joey Logano (33rd), and Chase Briscoe (30th).

Cindric expressed his frustration, saying, “Obviously incredibly frustrated. 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 [to win]. I don’t feel like complaining right now. I’m too pissed off and it won’t do anything. But proud of the team. We’ve brought really fast race cars to every single race of the playoffs and we’re going to have to bring another one next week and I need to go out and do my job.”

Other playoff drivers affected by the accident included Chase Elliott (29th), Tyler Reddick (20th), and Alex Bowman (16th). Defending race winner and reigning champion Ryan Blaney’s day ended early after a push from Bowman sent his car out of shape and wrecking into Ross Chastain, Denny Hamlin, and Joey Logano on the final lap of Stage 2.

With the results, William Byron becomes the first and only playoff contender to secure a position in the next round. The final race of the Round of 12 is next Sunday at the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course, where the playoff field will shrink from 12 to eight drivers.