The big one came late, but it lived up to its name.
With five laps to go in the YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, Austin Cindric was running up front on the inside line when he was hit from behind by Brad Keselowski, who had been bumped by Cindric’s teammate Joey Logano.
That sent Cindric up the track and into traffic and caused a record 28-car pileup that sent the race into a lengthy clean-up period before an overtime finish.
On the bright side, as with Daniel Suarez’s spin early in the race, all of the cars that got turned sideways during the wreck, including Cindric’s, stayed on the ground, suggesting changes made to the cars prior to the race to prevent them from flipping were successful.
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NASCAR added a side skirt extension and taller roof rail on the right side along with a fabric air deflector within the right side roof flap to reduce the amount of lift created when the car is sliding at a 90-degree angle to the direction of travel
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Brad Keselowski lined on the front row for overtime with William Byron and Kyle Larson behind them and that’s how it finished, with Stenhouse. 006 seconds ahead of Keselowski at the line.
The win was Stenhouse’s first of the season and first since the 2023 Daytona 500. As a non-playoff driver, he stole the opportunity for someone to get a guaranteed spot in the Round of 8.
The series now heads to the redesigned Charlotte Roval on Oct. 13 for the Round of 12 knockout race with the remaining drivers lined up like this:
- William Byron +34
- Ryan Blaney +28
- Christopher Bell +28
- Kyle Larson +18
- Denny Hamlin +11
- 6. Alex Bowman +8
- Chase Elliott +4
- Joey Logano +4
- Tyler Reddick -4
- Daniel Suarez -14
- Chase Briscoe – 25
- Austin Cindric -29
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