The YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway Sunday (10/6) had minimal cautions. However, the “Big One” did happen and sent the NASCAR Playoff race into overtime and allowed a second spoiler winner in a row.
The YellaWood 500 was the second race in the three-race Round of 12 in the 2024 NASCAR Playoffs. The 12 remaining championship hopefuls started the race with two plans. Plan one, earn as many points as possible through the first two stages of the race to help advance to the next round in the playoffs. Plan two, be there at the end of the race to have a chance to win and earn the automatic advance to the next round in the playoffs.
Chris Buescher, a non-playoff driver, won the first stage of the race preventing any of the playoff drivers from earning maximum points in that stage. Austin Cindric started the race at the bottom of the list of remaining playoff drivers. Austin was able to win stage two and gain the valuable 10 bonus points for doing so.
Stage one had one caution flag early in the race for a two-car incident. The caution then flew at the end of the stage.
Stage two also had a single on track incident that brought out the yellow flag. It involved six cars and caused stage two to end under caution.
The limited number of caution periods did not make it a boring race. There were 24 drivers that exchanged the lead 66 times during the race. There was two-wide, three-wide and even four-wide pack racing at nearly 200 mph. It was amazing that there were not more caution periods throughout the race.
The biggest worry on a driver’s mind when racing at super speedways in big packs is being caught up in the “Big One.” That is a wreck that happens and collects double digit numbers of cars. The “Big One” finally happened with five laps to go in the race. Austin Cindric was leading when his car got bumped from behind. He lost control and spun. The resulting wreck involved a total of 23 cars, more than half of the field.
The race was put under a Red Flag for nearly nine minutes to clean up the crash. When it got rolling again, they had to go to NASCAR Overtime of a Green-White-Checkered finish.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was in the pole position for the re-start of the race. Ricky battled side-by-side with Brad Keselowski through the final two laps of the race. Brad got a push from Kyle Larson to get the lead going down the backstretch for the final time. However, William Byron pushed Ricky back to the lead heading into the tri-oval part of the track heading to the finish line. William pulled to the outside of Ricky while Brad was to his inside and the three had a drag race to the finish line.
Ricky was able to cross the finish line first by just a matter of just 0.006 seconds. That equates to just mere feet if not inches for the victory. This was Ricky’s first win of the 2024 season. It was his second win at Talladega Superspeedway and fourth career win in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Ricky’s other two wins came at Daytona International Speedway.
Brad Keselowski (who was eliminated from the Playoffs after the Round of 16) took home the second-place finish. William Byron remains as a post-season contender and claimed third-place. See the complete race results for the YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway here.
Since a non-playoff driver won again for the second week in a row (third time in the 2024 Playoffs), no playoff driver earned the automatic advance to the Round of Eight. However, William Byron earned enough points in the race to lock himself for the next round. He is also at the top of the post-season standings as well. Christopher Bell leaves Talladega in second-place and Kyle Larson in third. See the complete NASCAR Playoff Standings here.
The drivers and teams are heading to the Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course for the Round of 12 elimination race. The Bank of America ROVAL 400 will take place Sunday, October 13th. The four playoff drivers at the bottom of the Round of 12 standings after the race will be eliminated from the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.
By: Buck Stevens
