Ricky Stenhouse Jr. ends his 65-race losing streak and wins at Talladega

TALLADEGA, Ala. – Ricky Stenhouse Jr. ended a 65-race losing streak with an overtime win at Talladega Superspeedway after a late crash claimed more than half the field, including eight of the 12 championship contenders.

Stenhouse is not in the playoffs and his win Sunday marked the second straight week won by a driver not competing for the Cup Series title.

The win was the first for Stenhouse and his JTG Daugherty Racing team since winning the season-opening Daytona 500 at the start of 2023.

“It felt really good. This team has put in a lot of hard work, obviously we haven’t won since the 500m in 1923. “It’s been a season of ups and downs,” Stenhouse said. “It’s been a lot of hard work this season just finding some speed, but we knew this track was one of our next ones.”

Stenhouse’s first career win came at Talladega in 2017 and his four Cup Series victories have come at either Alabama Superspeedway or Daytona International Speedway.

Stenhouse won in a three-way finish between Brad Keselowski and William Byron, whose third-place finish made him the only driver to advance to the third round of the playoffs.

Four drivers will be eliminated from the playoffs next Sunday at the hybrid road course/oval in Charlotte. Joey Logano, Daniel Suarez, Austin Cindric and Chase Briscoe are all below the cutline.

Cindric was in the lead with five laps to go when Logano, who was two rows behind him, gave Keselowski a hard shove right into Cindric. This caused Cindric to spin and 24 of the 40 cars in the field sustained some form of damage in the melee.

Even Stenhouse had a piece of metal missing from the driver’s door area when he drove his car into victory.

The race was halted for nearly nine minutes of cleanup, and 22 cars remained on the lead lap for the two-lap sprint to the finish. Many of these 22 cars were damaged.

Keselowski finished second in a Ford for RFK Racing, followed by Byron in a Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. Byron is the league leader ahead of Charlotte and his cushion is big enough to secure him an automatic spot in the last eight.

Kyle Larson of Hendrick was fourth, followed by Erik Jones of Legacy Motor Club in a Toyota. Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell finished sixth in a Toyota, followed by Spire Motorsports’ Justin Haley. Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Dillon finished eighth, Bubba Wallace was ninth in the presence of 23XI Racing co-owner Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin, the team’s other co-owner, rounded out the top 10.

Only four drivers still active in the playoffs finished in the top 10.

Late Crash Saves Blaney’s Day Ryan Blaney, who used his win at Talladega a year ago to launch his run to his first Cup Series title, was involved in a points-scoring accident on the final lap of Stage 2 .

Blaney was pushed too hard from behind by fellow playoff driver Alex Bowman and the push forced Blaney’s Ford to turn sharply left and then crash up the track into the wall and Ross Chastain.

Blaney tried to keep his stricken car on the track, but the engine eventually failed and his race ended. He was second in the playoff standings entering the race and feared his career-best seventh DNF of the season would put him on the brink of elimination.

“I don’t know if (Bowman) ever picked me up and just drilled me back three car lengths. The worst place you can go, so that’s pretty stupid on his part and you assume he’ll get away scot-free. “It’s usual,” Blaney said.

And what are his chances of advancing in the playoffs?

“We’ll just see where we are at the end of the race in terms of points and go from there.”

Because so many drivers broke down late, Blaney only fell to sixth place in the playoff standings.

Suarez fights all day. Daniel Suarez was already trying to work his way past the elimination zone when his race failed right at the start.

NASCAR penalized Trackhouse Racing for making a modification to the No. 99 after inspection, forcing Suarez to serve a drive-through penalty early in the race, which pushed him off the lead lap. When the pack overtook him on the 11th lap and dropped him a second lap, Suarez tried to maintain his position and ended up colliding with another car.

This caused him to spin into the grass and the Chevrolet had to pit for repairs. He tried throughout the race to get back on the lead lap but couldn’t and was then one of the drivers involved in the late accident.

He somehow finished 26th and moved up one place in the overall standings to 10th. Suarez is just 20 points below the elimination limit.

Next

The playoff field will be reduced from 12 to eight drivers when four are eliminated next Sunday at The Roval at Charlotte Motor Speedway. AJ Allmendinger won the race a year ago.