NASCAR Results: Major (and historic) crashes leave drivers frustrated at Talladega

Bob Pockrass

FOX NASCAR Insiders

TALLADEGA, Ala. – Ricky Stenhouse Jr. once again showed he can race well on the draft circuit by joining the growing list of non-playoff drivers who salvaged their season with at least one win.

Stenhouse got the better of Brad Keselowski on Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway to claim his first Cup win since the 2023 Daytona 500.

“It’s been a lot of hard work this season just to find a little bit of speed, but we knew this track was going to be one of ours,” said Stenhouse, who drives for the single-car team owned by JTG Daugherty Racing former NBA star Brad Daugherty.

Stenhouse was in the lead when a 28-car pileup – the largest (in terms of car count) in NASCAR Cup Series history – destroyed many potential winning cars and either injured or eliminated several playoff drivers.

With a third-place finish, William Byron secured a spot on points in NASCAR’s semifinal round (Round of 8), while 11 drivers will battle it out for the final seven spots at the Charlotte road course next Sunday.

Insights from Talladega, where Byron, Kyle Larson (fourth), Christopher Bell (sixth) and Denny Hamlin (tenth) were the only playoff drivers to finish in the top 10.

Big, big wreck

The 28-car pileup with four laps to go was caused when Joey Logano drove into the rear of Brad Keselowski, who flipped Austin Cindric in front of the entire field as they ran in the bottom lane.

Keselowski said that when they tried to lap Todd Gilliland, who lost the draft due to a speeding penalty on pit road, they got dragged out a little too much and then the draft pulled them in too quickly.

“When (Gilliland) blocked the bottom lane with all the Fords in it, it caused a reaction from all of us – we pulled the rubber band and it snapped back on the backstretch,” Keselowski said. “I caught up with the 2nd car (of Cindric) and gave it a little gas, and the 22nd (of Logano) came and hit me and all three of us ran into each other.”

“I don’t really think Austin or Joey did anything wrong. I don’t know what I could do differently.”

Joey Logano on the big wreck and why he didn’t have fun at Talladega

Cindric and Logano, the two playoff drivers thrown from the wreck, complained that with all the Fords working together they seemed to be in a solid position.

“It’s just an off-center jab and that’s the easiest way to take a guy out. … I don’t see anything wrong with Joey – he wasn’t tied to the 6 (of Keselowski) while the 6 gave way.” “Give me the kickoff,” Cindric said. “Was it frustrating? Yes. I couldn’t be angrier than I am, but it won’t change anything.”

Both Cindric and Logano will need to excel next week in Charlotte and will need help moving forward.

“The 2 came out a little more than he did, and the 21 (by Harrison Burton) gave me a push and transferred that to the 6, and he came out to the 2 with quite a bit of steam,” Logano said. “It’s nobody’s fault. It’s not Brad’s fault.”

Blaney angry at Bowman

Defending champion Ryan Blaney was out of the race at the end of the second stage when Alex Bowman tried to push him and ended up spinning him.

“The 48 (from Bowman) just went right through me in the trioval,” Blaney said. “He just broke my (expletive). I don’t know what he’s thinking. I thought he had more sense than that, but obviously he didn’t.”

“I see him dragging his butt toward me and you think, ‘You kind of have to make a little effort. You can’t just run wide open through someone in the tri-oval.’ But he did it.

Ryan Blaney on the frustration after a failed attempt by Alex Bowman

Bowman said it was his mistake.

“It was a bad push,” Bowman said. “As I rolled toward him, I lifted the ball, but certainly not enough. I got pushed there a few times and if I had gotten to him 100 feet later he would have been fine.”

“He was still twisting to the point where it was obviously tying him up. … I just tried to push him forward and obviously it was a bad push.”

But after the serious accident in the race, Blaney left the track in the same position he started in – 25 points above the cutline.

NASCAR adjusts car wreck rules

NASCAR announced no change in the interpretation of its damaged vehicle policy before the race, but made an apparent adjustment after the major accident.

NASCAR previously stipulated that if a car is unable to enter pit road under its own power after coming into contact with another car or the wall, the driver must exit the car and retire from the race.

But after Josh Berry appeared to suffer no major damage and was knocked out of the race on the first lap at Kansas last week, NASCAR reconsidered that strict interpretation and towed some vehicles back to pit road on Sunday.

The two vehicles – Chase Briscoe and Chase Elliott – were both playoff drivers.

“Our goal is to never put good cars out of the race,” said Elton Sawyer, NASCAR senior vice president. “Based on our experience last week in Kansas and what happened there with the fourth car (of Berry), we felt we probably could have made a different decision there.”

“We had a good car that probably just needed tires. When we went into this, we wanted to side with the competitor.”

After the major accident, NASCAR eventually raised the red flag (which stops the race without allowing work to be done on the cars) to yellow, anticipating that the caution car would then begin repatriating the cars that were on the track The racing resumed.

But after NASCAR went from red to yellow, officials realized they needed to do more cleanup, leaving some cars still on the track waiting to roll and enter pit road for repairs while the cars were at the time were already in the pit lane during the race stop. Start working on it.

“We still had safety equipment that was still moving, so we kept the safety vehicle a little longer for everyone’s safety,” Sawyer said. “I completely understand the arguments of the competitors that we had cars in the pit lane that had a little more opportunity to do some work.”

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has covered motorsports for decades, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene Magazine and the (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @Bobpock breed.

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