This NASCAR Cup Series season has been doted by dazzling endings all year long, and Sunday’s Round of 12 playoff race at Talladega Superspeedway also delivered.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. surged to the win in a three-wide photo finish by just 0.006 seconds over Brad Keselowski, with William Byron’s No. 24 Chevrolet third, just 0.027 seconds shy of Stenhouse. The dramatic visual of 13 cars flashing across the finish line within half a second of the leader was thrilling and exhilarating, just how any Talladega charge to the checkers should.
MORE: Talladega results | Playoff standings | Closest finishes in history
And yet that wasn’t even the closest finish this season. It wasn’t the first photo finish of the year. Heck, it wasn’t even the first three-wide photo finish this year. Sunday’s Stenhouse storm to Victory Lane marked the third-closest finish of 2024, behind Kyle Larson’s 0.001-second shocker over Chris Buescher at Kansas Speedway (the closest finish in Cup Series history) and Daniel Suárez’s triple-barrel thriller at Atlanta, besting Ryan Blaney by 0.003 seconds and Kyle Busch by 0.007 seconds.
Those three margins of victory are within the eight closest finishes in Cup history, all within a span of 30 races. How lucky we are to bear witness to some of the most exciting dashes to the stripe in the sport’s 76-year history.
On Sunday evening, that exhilaration was all over the face of Stenhouse, who grew up in Olive Branch, Mississippi, some 300 miles northwest of Talladega.
“Obviously like with the Atlanta race earlier in the year (and) the first Kansas, you know, my spotter Tab (Boyd) was pumped as soon as we crossed the line,” Stenhouse said. “I’m just sitting there waiting to celebrate and make sure. It was way too close for me to call from the seat.
“When the 24 jumped out to the outside, it was like a parachute hit my car. I was just hoping that we would get to the start/finish line before them. It was a drag race at that point. When I got probably to the backstretch, they were pretty confident that we had won, and a big sigh of relief for sure.”
On the other side of it was the No. 6 RFK Racing Ford of Keselowski, whose push from Chevrolet driver Kyle Larson was ultimately not enough to fend off Stenhouse’s No. 47 JTG-Daugherty Chevy.
“He gave me a good push down the frontstretch,” Keselowski said of Larson. “But the 24 was able to really stick with the 47 there and just needed a tiny bit. It’s a good finish for us. We’ve been knocking on the door of these plate tracks. I hate that we didn’t bust through with a win, but I’m happy to be right there in contention.”
There was a moment exiting Turn 4 where Keselowski was clear high and could have blocked Stenhouse’s lane, but he ultimately decided the bottom lane provided his best shot at the win.
“I knew they were gonna have a really big run and that the 24 was really tight to him and I was just gonna get split,” Keselowski explained. “So I felt like I made the right move, but there’s only so much you can do when you’re outnumbered.
“I just needed a half a foot, I guess. I got a really good push from the 5 down the frontstretch, but just wasn’t quite enough.”