A non-playoff driver has won a NASCAR Cup Series race for the second week in a row.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. beat Brad Keselowski in an overtime photo finish after the biggest crash in NASCAR history.
Stenhouse got a push from William Byron to get past Keselowski in the trioval. Keselowski, a six-time winner at Talladega, didn’t get enough momentum from Kyle Larson behind him to get past Stenhouse before the finish line.
A massive crash took out nearly everyone at the front of the field with less than five scheduled laps to go. Austin Cindric was leading the bottom line race when he got turned ahead of everyone else ahead of Turn 3 when Joey Logano gave Brad Keselowski a shove into Cindric.
Keselowski and Stenhouse escaped unscathed as they were able to avoid the wreck.
The wreck was simply the byproduct of what happens at the end of superspeedway races in the Cup Series these days. Drivers know they have to push each other to make passes. And when a push isn’t square on a driver’s bumper, chaos can ensue.
“I don’t think we could have done anything much different,” Logano said about the pushing among the drivers in the low line.
Officially, 28 drivers were involved in the crash.
It’s the first win for Stenhouse since he won the 2023 Daytona 500. All four of Stenhouse’s career Cup Series wins have come at either Daytona or Talladega and it’s his second win for the single-car JTG-Daugherty Racing team.
Next week’s race at the Charlotte Roval (2 p.m. ET, NBC) is the last race in the second round of the playoffs. Four of the 12 playoff drivers will be eliminated after the race, and Byron is the only driver who has already clinched a spot in the round of eight.
Yellawood 500 results
1. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
2. Brad Keselowski
3. William Byron
4. Kyle Larson
5. Erik Jones
6. Christopher Bell
7. Justin Haley
8. Austin Dillon
9. Bubba Wallace
10. Denny Hamlin
11. Martin Truex Jr.
12. Cody Ware
13. Ty Gibbs
14. Carson However
15. Shane van Gisbergen
16. Alex Bowman
17. Chris Buescher
18. Corey LaJoie
19. Kyle Busch
20. Tyler Reddick
21. Zane Smith
22. BJ McLeod
23. Todd Gilliland
24. Anthony Alfredo
25. Noah Gragson
26. Daniel Suarez
27. JJ Yeley
28. AJ Allmendinger
29. Chase Elliott
30. Chase Briscoe
31. John Hunter Nemechek
32. Austin Cindric
33. Joey Logano
34. Harrison Burton
35. Ryan Preece
36. Josh Berry
37. Michael McDowell
38. Daniel Hemric
39. Ryan Blaney
40. Ross Chastain
