Posted on by Cameron Richardson

After an intense race at the midpoint in the Round of 12 of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, only one race remains that will determine who advances to the Round of 8 after next Sunday’s race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course. Take a look at where the playoff field stands after Talladega.

WINNER

Chase Elliott is through to the Round of 8 with his second victory at Talladega Superspeedway. Leading just 10 laps, the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet got a push from Erik Jones on the final lap coming off Turn 4 and beat the field to the finish line. Elliott ended the streak of non-championship-eligible drivers winning playoff races and can go for the win at a favorable track for him in Charlotte next week.

RELATED: Official results | Cup schedule

WHO’S HOT?

Ryan Blaney. Blaney came runner-up to Elliott at Talladega, losing by a mere .046 seconds at the finish line. While still winless in 2022, the driver of the No. 12 Team Penske Ford has moved into second in the playoff standings, 32 points above the Round of 8 elimination line and now heads to a track where he’s finished no worse than ninth and won the inaugural event in 2018.

WHO’S NOT?

Christopher Bell. Bell’s stellar runs in the Round of 16 have done a complete 180-degree flip in the Round of 12 with finishes of 34th and 17th at Texas and Talladega, respectively. He does have a pair of top-10 finishes at road courses this season but as he sits 33 points below the elimination line, Bell will need to maximize stage points and likely need to win in order to secure a spot in the Round of 8.

BUBBLE WATCH

Rank Driver Cutoff
5. Joey Logano  +18
6. Kyle Larson  +18
7. William Byron  +14
8. Daniel Suárez  +12
——– ELIMINATION LINE ———-
9. Chase Briscoe  -12
10. Austin Cindric  -12
11. Christopher Bell  -45
12. Alex Bowman  -66

NEXT RACE

The Round of 12 comes to an end and the Round of 8 will be set next Sunday with the Bank of America ROVAL 400 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course (2 p.m. ET, NBC, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio)

WHO IT FAVORS

Chase Elliott. While finishing outside the top 10 in last year’s edition at the Roval, Elliott is the only driver to own two victories on the oval/road course hybrid and is already locked into the Round of 8 after scoring the win at Talladega. His average finish of fifth is also the best of any active driver at the track and has scored four top 10s in five road-course races this season.

WHO IT HURTS

Chase Briscoe. Briscoe only has one start at the Charlotte road course and that ended in a 22nd-place run. His road course stats this season haven’t turned any heads either with a best finish of 13th at Sonoma Raceway. Briscoe is tied with Austin Cindric for the spot directly below the elimination line. With no advantage over fellow Ford driver Austin Cindric, Briscoe will not only have to focus on his race but will need to be aware of the No. 2 Team Penske entry’s position throughout all of next Sunday as they battle to get on the good side of the bubble.

Posted on by Holly Cain

TALLADEGA, Ala. — Always the unquestionable fan favorite at NASCAR’s famed Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway, Georgia-native Chase Elliott made a last-lap pass to claim the NASCAR Cup Series YellaWood 500 victory Sunday afternoon — having to better one of his best friends, Ryan Blaney, to earn the first automatic bid into the next round of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.

With two laps to go, Elliott pulled his No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet from the bottom lane to the top lane and got a huge push from behind by Petty GMS Racing driver Erik Jones — the momentum enough to edge fellow playoff competitor Blaney by a slight 0.046 seconds at the line and give him a chance to hoist his series-best fifth trophy of the season; 18th of his seven-year NASCAR Cup Series career.

RELATED: Race Rewind | Race results

“Moments like that, you have to really cherish and you guys are what makes this special to me,” Elliott, 26, told the cheering fans. “So, thank you sincerely, I really appreciate it.”

“It was a wild last couple laps. I wasn’t super crazy about being on the bottom and fortunately I got just clear enough off of [Turn] 2 to slide up in front of Erik [Jones] and he gave me some great shoves, obviously a Team Chevy partner there. Just had a good enough run to get out front and then was able to stay far enough in front of Ryan [Blaney] at the line to get it done.

“These things are so so hard to win, you gotta enjoy them and just appreciate everyone’s effort today.”

Former Daytona 500 winner Michael McDowell was third, followed by two more playoff drivers, Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain and Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin.

Chastain and Stewart-Haas Racing’s Aric Almirola led the most laps on the day — each out front 36 laps — in an afternoon that featured the most lead changes of the season (57) set by 17 different drivers.

Although it was a typically dramatic superspeedway ending, the action was tame by Talladega standards. Only one of the six caution periods was for a multi-car accident. Two were scheduled stage breaks and the other two for single-car incidents. The final caution — which set up the two-lap shootout ending — came for Daniel Hemric’s stalled car on pit road.

That bunched up the field again and ultimately positioned Elliott (who restarted on the inside of the third row) to make his run forward. Blaney, who led 31 laps in the No. 12 Penske Racing Ford, had been trading the lead with Jones in the laps immediately before that final caution flag.

“I thought about it,” Blaney said of making a different move for the lead. “The second lane was kind of the strongest, definitely the second half of the race. And I thought about (throwing a block on Elliott) but when you go to the middle without a Ford or teammate behind you, the chances of getting split are so high.

“As much as I trust Chase, I don’t trust him enough for him not to take me three-wide and leave me in the middle so I chose to stay down in front of (fellow Ford driver) Michael (McDowell). He was awesome at pushing me on the last restart and giving me great shots. Just a little bit too late.

“Maybe I could have faked the top and gone to the bottom there on the frontstretch, but I don’t know if I could have gotten there anyway, but overall, not a bad day. Just probably going to replay in my head five different things I could have done different.”

RELATED: Best photos from Talladega | Sunday’s race in GIFs

Each of the stage finishes came down to the moves made in the tri-oval. Blaney snatched the Stage 1 victory by just .009 seconds over Hamlin with a charge through the outside lane, while Elliott snookered Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kyle Larson exiting the tri-oval for the Stage 2 win.

It was a big boost for Elliott, who had a rough outing last week in the opening race  of this playoff round in Texas. Elliott crashed out and finished 32nd and came into Talladega ranked eighth – after earning the regular season championship and leading the standings for a season-best 23 weeks prior to Sunday.

The opening four 2022 playoff races were won by non-playoff drivers — an unprecedented occurrence. So Elliott’s advancement to the next round is the first “automatic” advancement by a playoff-eligible driver.

Beyond Elliott, Blaney now leads the points standings — 34 points ahead of Sunoco Rookie of the Year candidate Austin Cindric in ninth place with the top eight drivers advancing to the Round of 8 next playoff round.

Chastain is ranked third, followed by Hamlin and Team Penske’s Joey Logano, who finished 27th on Sunday. Reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Larson — who finished 18th at Talladega — is ranked sixth in the standings, followed by Trackhouse Racing’s Daniel Suárez and Stewart-Haas Racing’s Chase Briscoe in that final eighth place.

Cindric is tied with Briscoe in points. William Byron (-11), Christopher Bell (-33) and Alex Bowman (-54) complete the current playoff 12.

The Hendrick Motorsports driver Bowman did not race this week as he is recovering from concussion-like symptoms after an accident in Texas last week. Team owner Rick Hendrick said Bowman would be re-examined by doctors this week in hopes of getting clearance to return to competition.

Bell and Byron, who both entered Sunday’s race beneath the elimination line, failed to score stage points at Talladega. Byron charged to the lead in Stage 1 but ultimately finished the respective stages in 11th and 13th, taking the checkered flag 12th. Bell, who finished 20th in Stage 1, spun entering pit road at Lap 100 and lost a lap before the conclusion of Stage 2, taking the green-checkered flag in 30th before ending the race 17th.

The next race, the Bank of America ROVAL 400, is Sunday at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval (2 p.m. ET, NBC, NBC Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) — the final road-course event of the season. Larson is the defending race winner. Blaney won the inaugural race at the Charlotte Roval and Elliott is a two-time winner there as well (2019 and 2020).

NOTE: Post-race inspection is clear, confirming Elliott as the race winner. The Nos. 4 and 19 cars will be brought back to the NASCAR R&D Center for teardown.

Posted on by Staff Report

Which channels have NASCAR programming this week? We answer that and give the weekly NASCAR television listings here in the NASCAR TV schedule.

Note: All times are ET.

MORE: How to find USA Network | How to find FS1 | Get FOX Sports App | Watch on USA Network | Get the NBC Sports App | Watch on Peacock | FloRacing | How to watch NASCAR International

Monday, Oct. 3
6 a.m., NASCAR Camping World Truck Series: Chevy Silverado 250 at Talladega (re-air), FS2
6 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub, FS1
6 p.m., NASCAR America Motormouths, Peacock
7 p.m., NASCAR Camping World Truck Series: Chevy Silverado 250 at Talladega (re-air), FS1
11:01 p.m., Race for the Championship: Hometown Glory (re-air), USA Network

Tuesday, Oct. 4
1 a.m., NASCAR Camping World Truck Series: Chevy Silverado 250 at Talladega (re-air), FS2
12:30 p.m., NASCAR Camping World Truck Series: Chevy Silverado 250 at Talladega (re-air), FS2
6 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub, FS1

Wednesday, Oct. 5
1 p.m., NASCAR Auto Racing Classics: 2011 Coca-Cola 600 (re-air), FS2
6 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub, FS1
6 p.m., NASCAR America Motormouths, Peacock
7 p.m., NASCAR Auto Racing Classics: 2011 Coca-Cola 600 (re-air), FS1

Thursday, Oct. 6
2 a.m., NASCAR Auto Racing Classics: 2011 Coca-Cola 600 (re-air), FS1
5 a.m., NASCAR Race Hub Best of Radioactive: Charlotte (re-air), FS1
6 a.m., NASCAR Auto Racing Classics: 2011 Coca-Cola 600 (re-air), FS2
9 a.m., NASCAR Race Hub Best of Radioactive: Charlotte (re-air), FS2
6 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub, FS1
6 p.m., Dale Jr. Download, Peacock
10 p.m., Race for the Championship: All or Nothing, USA Network

Friday, Oct. 7
12 a.m., NASCAR Auto Racing Classics: 2011 Coca-Cola 600 (re-air), FS2
1:01 a.m., Race for the Championship: All or Nothing (re-air), USA Network
6 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub, FS1
9 p.m., NASCAR Auto Racing Classics: 2011 Coca-Cola 600 (re-air), FS2

Saturday, Oct. 8
6 a.m., NASCAR Auto Racing Classics: 2011 Coca-Cola 600 (re-air), FS2
9 a.m., NASCAR Race Hub Best of Radioactive: Charlotte (re-air), FS2
9:30 a.m., Unrivaled: Earnhardt vs. Gordon (re-air), FS2
10 a.m., NASCAR Xfinity Series practice at Charlotte Motor Speedway road course, NBC Sports App
10:30 a.m., NASCAR Xfinity Series qualifying at Charlotte Motor Speedway road course, NBC Sports App
Noon, NASCAR Cup Series qualifying at Charlotte Motor Speedway road course, NBC Sports App
12:30 p.m., NASCAR Cup Series qualifying at Charlotte Motor Speedway road course (in-progress), USA Network
3 p.m., Countdown to Green: Charlotte, NBC
3:30 p.m., NASCAR Xfinity Series: Drive for the Cure 250 at Charlotte Motor Speedway road course, NBC (simulcast on Peacock)

On PRN:
2:30 p.m., NASCAR Xfinity Series: Drive for the Cure 250 at Charlotte Motor Speedway road course

Sunday, Oct. 9
10:30 a.m., NASCAR Race Hub Best of Radioactive: Charlotte (re-air), FS1
11:30 a.m., NASCAR RaceDay: Charlotte, FS1
1 p.m., Countdown to Green: Charlotte, NBC
2 p.m., NASCAR Cup Series: Bank of America ROVAL 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway road course, NBC

On PRN:
1 p.m., NASCAR Cup Series: Bank of America ROVAL 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway road course

Posted on by Nick Giffen

The Action Network specializes in providing sports betting  insights/analytics and is a content partner with NASCAR. Check out more NASCAR betting  analysis here.

The last superspeedway race of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season is here.

Sunday’s YellaWood 500 (2 p.m. ET, NBC) at Talladega Superspeedway has plenty of playoff implications — no playoff driver is safe.

Expect playoff drivers to go for stage points while at the same time not being overly risky.

This style of racing may keep things a bit more tame through the first two stages, meaning true performance is more likely to come through. As a result, I’m going with the best performer in 2022 among the six Toyotas for today’s best bet.

NASCAR betting: Odds for 2022 Talladega playoff race

NASCAR Pick for Talladega

* Odds as of Sunday morning

That top-performing Toyota driver at superspeedways is Martin Truex Jr.

In the three combined races at Talladega and Daytona, Truex has the highest driver rating among not only the Toyotas, but the whole field. Luckily for him, it has also translated into solid finishes.

He picked up a 13th-place finish at the Daytona 500, followed by fifth- and eighth-place results at the other two superspeedway races.

Those finishes translate to a third, second and first among the Toyota clan.

It’s safe to say only rookie Ty Gibbs should be in a tier below the rest of the Toyotas. However, Truex is +600 at BetMGM to take home top honors.

With his performance at superspeedways in the Next Gen car, he shouldn’t be the driver with the second-longest odds among the Joe Gibbs Racing and 23XI stable. My model says Truex finishes as the top Toyota at an 18.2% rate, which translates to +450 as fair odds.

If you can’t get him at +600 at BetMGM, +550 at Caesars Sportsbook or +500 at DraftKings will suffice.

The Bet: Martin Truex Jr., Top Toyota +600 | Bet to: +500

Posted on by Zack Albert

TALLADEGA, Ala. – Sam Mayer can hang his hat on what was a career-best finish Saturday in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, but narrowly missed out on a victorious day by about the length of a ballcap’s brim.

The range of emotions hit Mayer in the form of a may-as-well-laugh gut punch after Saturday’s Sparks 300 at Talladega Superspeedway, where he came up a scant .015 seconds short of his first Xfinity win. Instead, he was unable to stave off the final-lap charge of AJ Allmendinger, who drove his No. 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet past the No. 1 JR Motorsports Camaro of Mayer in the tri-oval with the checkered flag in sight.

RELATED: Official results | Weekend schedule

“Nothing probably to laugh about, but I just can’t help but laugh. It’s weird,” Mayer said. “But I will say finishing second place like this puts a weird feeling in your stomach. I had a lot of confidence going into today that the car was gonna be fast. Our Accelerate Camaro is always fast when they come to the superspeedways, and today was no different. Obviously we were leading with the white flag. So, proud of my guys, they kicked ass today, did everything right, pit-strategy wise and everything else. But we were obviously three feet short. You can’t do anything about that, really.”

Mayer had taken control late, after race-long dominator Austin Hill was shuffled back in the running order. With Hill fading from contention, the 19-year-old driver traded the lead with Allmendinger three times in the last five laps, but held the advantage at the drop of the white flag.

Mayer kept his challengers in check on the backstretch and actually stretched out his lead through Turns 3 and 4. But that left almost too much of a gap for Allmendinger, Ryan Sieg and others to mount a final surge.

“It was my first time experiencing something like that, so I didn’t know what to expect or how to protect it or predict it,” Mayer said. “I did a decent job of it, I think the move on the backstretch to kind of keep the lead there was good, but I just needed to do it one more time on the front.”

Mayer’s feat has an even more remarkable context. No. 1 crew chief Taylor Moyer said that the team made an 11th-hour substitution at spotter after Brandon McReynolds left to be with family after a Camping World Truck Series crash that sent his brother-in-law, Jordan Anderson, to a local hospital for evaluation. The No. 1 team swapped in Wood Brothers Racing spotter Tyler Green, who has some experience with Mayer but not with the JRM operation.

“Sam did a great job. Tyler did an absolutely fabulous job,” Moyer told NASCAR.com. “I think he did everything right. I don’t know what he could have done better in the tri-oval, because honestly, I put my head down and prayed. But off of (turn) three, probably got a little far out, but sometimes you got a win one like that to come back and dominate.”

The result gave Mayer a 12-point cushion over the cutoff line in the Xfinity Series Playoffs, with the Round of 12’s elimination race coming next Saturday (3 p.m. ET, NBC, Peacock, PRN, SiriusXM) at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval. Only Allmendinger and Noah Gragson – winner of the playoff opener at Bristol – are locked into the next round.

MORE: Xfinity playoff hub post-Talladega

Moyer noted that the points gain was a positive, but also pointed out the teenager’s season-long progress, which is now marked by 10 top-five finishes. Saturday marked the latest step in his evolution, another learning experience to file away.

“The biggest thing we’ve worked on this year, it’s just race craft,” Moyer said. “I mean, Sam came with speed, but I’ve heard some pretty smart people say these races are 70% race craft. You see a lot of fast kids that never figure it out, and they just fizzle out. So that’s what we’re working on with Sam is the intelligence. That was our biggest thing we worked on coming into this race was when he gets those runs and make those moves, always having an end goal of how that move shakes out, so always know where you’re going.

“You know, early on in his career on a speedway, he’d get a big run and pull to the bottom lane and there’d be no hole to get into. We passed three to lose six. So yeah, I’m really proud of him for working on that. He put in action today everything we worked on coming into this race. That close.”

Posted on by Zack Albert

TALLADEGA, Ala. — Ty Gibbs repeated his apology for a pit-road incident in last weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway, saying he will learn a lesson after absorbing a midweek behavioral penalty that left him $75,000 lighter.

Gibbs rallied from a Stage 1 spin and wall brush to finish seventh in Saturday’s Xfinity Series event at Talladega Superspeedway, stoking his bid to advance in that tour’s playoff grid. But his part-time duty on the Cup Series side, subbing for Kurt Busch with 23XI Racing, is what drew the attention of NASCAR officials.

Gibbs broadsided the No. 42 Chevrolet of Ty Dillon on pit road during last Sunday’s race, taking out his aggression in close proximity to RFK Racing crew members and NASCAR officials in a nearby pit stall. This week, Gibbs said his driving tactic was the subject of conversations at his Joe Gibbs Racing shop.

RELATED: Gibbs fined for Texas tangle | Weekend schedule

“They did all the talking. You know, I have a great family and I have great team owners, and I definitely had a lot of chats,” said Gibbs, who apologized on social media after the penalty. “But just making sure that, I can sit here and apologize to everybody, and my words don’t mean anything because I think I have to do it through my actions. I mean, I’m sorry for my mistakes, I announced that, but it’s by my actions that I’m gonna really truly say I’m sorry, because I can’t be doing that stuff again and I’ve got to keep going. But definitely had a lot of talks.”

It’s not the first time this season that Gibbs has been fined for unsafe driving. This spring at Martinsville Speedway, the 19-year-old driver was docked for bumping the No. 1 Chevy of rival Sam Mayer on pit road after the checkered flag.

Gibbs said that replays of his run-in with Dillon have been difficult — but necessary — to watch.

“It’s just hard to go back and look at that stuff,” Gibbs said. “I’ll definitely remember it and I’ll watch it multiple times and I’ll learn from it. But you know, it definitely is sad to see myself doing that.”

Posted on by Holly Cain

TALLADEGA, Ala. – Three times A.J. Allmendinger has led the white flag lap on a superspeedway track and not been able to lead that next lap to earn the big trophy.

On Saturday, the veteran waited and pulled ahead of the field in the final feet coming to the Sparks 300 checkered flag at Talladega Superspeedway and edged 19-year old Sam Mayer by .015 seconds – about three feet — in a photo finish to earn his first NASCAR Xfinity Series win at NASCAR’s biggest track.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos

It marked the regular season champ’s fourth victory in the No. 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet this season and first ever at a superspeedway venue. Most importantly, the win — coming in the second race of the opening round of the playoffs — is an automatic ticket through to the next round of Xfinity Series playoff competition.

“Let’s go,” an absolutely elated Allmendinger screamed into the grandstands after climbing out of his car and accepting the checkered flag at the iconic track.

“Gosh, we’ve been so close to winning one (superspeedway race) and I feel like I keep giving them away,” Allmendinger said. “Thought I might have given it away. I’m still learning, trying to know what too big of a lead is. But honestly, all credit to (Kaulig teammate) Landon Cassill.

“He kept shoving me. He stuck with me. That’s what is great about Kaulig Racing. When you have teammates like Landon and Daniel (Hemric) that you know wherever you go, they’ll go with you. So thank you Landon.

“Man, I just wanted to win a superspeedway and finally got it,” added a grinning Allmendinger, who now claims 14 career Xfinity Series victories.

Cassill finished third, followed by Ryan Sieg and JR Motorsports driver Josh Berry – all playoff contenders. Parker Kligerman was sixth, followed by Playoff drivers Ty Gibbs, Daniel Hemric, Brandon Jones and Noah Gragson.

It marked quite the comeback for Gibbs, who qualified on the front row, but was involved in the only on-track yellow flag for incident on the afternoon. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver’s No. 54 Toyota was tagged from behind by Justin Allgaier while racing in a tight pack up front only three laps into the 113-lap event. Gibbs spun out but was remarkably untouched by any other car.

A quick pit stop and impressive pit strategy later, Gibbs was running around the top 10 in the closing laps of the race and managed to recover to that seventh place final effort.

Gragson, driver of the No. 9 JR Motorsports Chevrolet, was looking to become the first driver in NASCAR Xfinity Series history to win five consecutive races and was running among the top three with 10 laps to go.

RELATED: Appreciating Gragson’s recent dominance

His ultimate move forward for the win in the closing laps was blocked and he instead finished 10th. Although just short of that historic victory nod, he had already earned his automatic ticket to the playoffs’ second round by virtue of his victory last week at Texas (his seventh on the season and fourth in a row).

“We’re going to keep it going,” Gragson said after the race. “I have a super motivated team… you want to win them all, but you can’t do that sometimes.”

Pole-sitter and series rookie Austin Hill, who swept the two stage wins and led the most laps – 60 on Saturday – also dropped out of the lead group in the waning laps to the checkered flag. He finished 14th.

With Allmendinger and Gragson having earned automatic bids in ton the next round of the playoffs, Gibbs (-21) and Hill (-27) are ranked third and fourth in the standings, followed by Berry, Allgaier — who finished 15th Saturday – Mayer and Sieg in that eighth and final transfer position.

Defending series champion Hemric  (-6 to the elimination line), Brandon Jones (-10), Riley Herbst (-10) and Jeremy Clements (-47) are ranked ninth through 12th heading into the final race of this playoff round.

Up next is the Drive for the Cure 250 presented by BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina on Saturday (3 p.m. ET, NBC, Peacock, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Allmendinger has won the last three races there.

NOTE: Post-race inspection concluded without issue, confirming Allmendinger as the race winner.

Posted on by Cameron Richardson

YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superpeedway
(⏰ 2 p.m. ET | 📺 NBC, NBC Sports App | 📻 MRN, SiriusXM)

Everything you need to know for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Talladega, the fifth playoff event of the 2022 campaign.

Where: Talladega, Alabama
Approximate start time: 2 p.m. ET | Weekend schedule
TV/Radio: NBC, NBC Sports App, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio | Full TV schedule
The purse: $8,338,881
Forecast: Sunny, with a high near 77 degrees, according to NOAA.gov | Weather tracker
Race distance: 188 laps | 500 miles
Stages: 60 | 120 | 188
Pit-road speed: 55 mph
Caution car speed: 70 mph
Talladega 101: Get the full lowdown
Starting lineup: Bell on the pole | Full recap
Cars to the rear: Three cars fail pre-race inspection
Pit stalls: See where your favorite driver will pit
Playoff grid: Print yours now

Key things to watch 🔑

Big story line

Talladega is the wild card of all wild cards and a surprise winner always looms when NASCAR heads to the 2.66-mile superspeedway. The first four playoff races have been won by non-playoff drivers (Tyler Reddick was eliminated after Bristol when he won last week at Texas), so the trends certainly favor someone outside the Round of 12 striking paydirt Sunday afternoon. In the last eight fall races at Talladega, just three current playoff drivers have taken the checkered flag with Joey Logano taking two of them (2015, 2016). If a 20th winner this season is to emerge, it would set the modern single-season record for the series. Drivers still looking for their first win of 2022 include Ryan Blaney, Martin Truex Jr, and superspeedway aficionados Michael McDowell, Aric Almirola, Brad Keselowski and Justin Haley. Anything can happen at Talladega, and massive playoff implications are sure to emerge throughout the 500-mile event. | How 19 winners stacks up in history | Surprise Talladega winners

Who’s hot? Who’s not? 

Speaking of Logano, he’s heading to Talladega with the most momentum of the current 12-driver playoff field after scoring a runner-up finish last Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway. The Team Penske driver is at the top of the board in the playoff standings and is currently 37 points clear of the Round of 8 elimination line. While collecting stage points is vital for playoff drivers, Logano will have the most leeway in strategy Sunday and has enough separation above the bubble to ride more cautiously around the high-banked superspeedway. Logano is also a three-time ‘Dega winner but his aggressiveness has led to a mixed bag of results with five finishes of 11th or worse in the last six races there.

It may be a bit of a surprise but Regular-Season Champion Chase Elliott hasn’t had the best of starts to his playoff run. He’s finished outside the top 30 in two of the first four races and enters Talladega just 11 points above the cutline. The 2020 champion will be in a bit of a bind Sunday as Elliott will have to balance risk vs. reward in order to stay above the elimination line before the Round of 12 elimination race at Charlotte (Oct. 9). The silver lining for Elliott is that he does have favorable results at Talladega with the second-best average finish of active Cup drivers with more than 10 starts at the 2.66-mile superspeedway (15.2).

Driving under the radar

Ross Chastain has quietly worked his way to second in the Cup Series playoff standings, 25 points above the elimination line. Outside of a mechanical setback at Darlington, Chastain’s postseason run has been relatively clean with a pair of top 10s at Kansas and Bristol, followed by a 13th-place run at Texas. The two-time winner in 2022 should have the a shot entering Sunday’s race as Chastain is the defending winner at Talladega, leading the one lap he needed in April en route to his second Cup Series victory.

Overview of Talladega frontstretch with cars on track
James Gilbert | Getty Images

Race-day staples ✅

Our biggest pieces of the week — get covered for race day from all angles.

• Playoffs standings: Where drivers stand before Talladega | Latest standings
• Paint Scheme Preview: Great new looks for Talladega | See your favorite
• Power Rankings: Did Joey Logano take control of the playoff race? | Updated driver rankings
• NASCAR betting: Multiple co-favorites heading into Talladega | Underdogs, value bets
• Fantasy Fastlane: As playoff race tightens, who are the best plays? | Must starts, sleepers

Catch the pack 💨

Read up on the top headlines from the week leading up to Sunday’s race.

• Bowman out: Alex Bowman to miss Talladega race because of concussion-like symptoms | Read more
• Busch improving: Kurt Busch gives update on condition at charity event | Catch up
• Byron, Gibbs penalized: NASCAR docks them for getting physical under caution/on pit road |Read more
• Reaction to penalties: Stacking Pennies crew weighs in on Byron, Gibbs penalties |Watch the segment
• Bunched up playoff race: Talladega offers opportunities to jump ahead | Read more
• Race for the Championship: Episode 5 features Kyle Busch and Trackhouse Racing | Read more
• Heading in the right direction: Cody Ware gives update after wreck at Texas | Catch up
• Jimmie’s bucket list: Seven-time champ Johnson steps back from full-time racing |Read more
• Pulling back the appeal: No. 12 Team Penske squad to start serving suspensions | Get the details

Get in on the action 💰

Think you know NASCAR? Put your mettle to the test with gaming, fantasy.

• BetMGM: Belief in non-playoff drivers continues to grow | Read full analysis
• The Action Network: Why your eyes should be on Erik Jones | 30-1 pick to make
• Backseat Bets: Who wins head-to-head matchups at Talladega? | Watch the segment
• Play it LIVE: Full guide to 2022 NASCAR Fantasy Live game | New rules for playoffs
• Going all the way: 2022 Cup Series championship odds | See them here

Traveling back to Talladega 🇺🇸

Talladega may be the most unpredictable race in the entire playoffs — so, see what has happened here in the past. 

• Surprise winners: These drivers shocked the world at Talladega | See them all
• Last year: Bubba Wallace pulls off a historic win at Talladega | Full race recap
• This spring: Ross Chastain pulls off a last-lap pass for the upset win | Relive the moment
• Fall victories: Drivers who came to Alabama in autumn and conquered | List of winners

Fast facts ⏩

Hard-hitting, race-relevant statistics, brought to you by the experts at Racing Insights.

• Non-playoff drivers have won the last four races, the longest stretch in series history.
• Kyle Busch is the only driver to finish top 10 in all three superspeedway races in 2022.
• The driver winning the Talladega playoff race has never gone on to win the championship (12 of the 18 were won by playoff drivers).
• The driver leading at the white flag has finished fifth or worse in each of the last four Talladega races to go the full distance.
• Rodney Childers is making his 600th career start as a crew chief this weekend; he will be the 15th crew chief with at least 600 starts. Kevin Harvick and Childers are the longest active driver/crew chief pairing making their 314th start together this weekend.

Say what? 🎙

Notable quotes from the stars of the sport heading into Sunday’s race.

• “No, I don’t feel confident just because I won the race there earlier this year (laughs). That was pure luck, it’s still hard for me to believe it happened.” — Ross Chastain, driver of the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet

• “Unfortunately we are going into Talladega buried under the (elimination) line, but we’re going to give it our all. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain.” — Christopher Bell, driver of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota

• “When you first start in this sport and you’re trying to work your way up, you just never know where you’re going to end up and how it’s going to go and what opportunities you might get. To look back on it and say that you’ve crew chiefed 600 races in the Cup Series is kind of crazy. Everybody goes through ups and downs and you wonder how it’s all going to go, and I think everybody knows that my career definitely changed when Kevin wanted me to do this, and to be able to do it for a long time and win a lot of races and all that has been pretty special.” — Rodney Childers, crew chief of the No. 4 Ford driven by Kevin Harvick

NASCAR Studios’ George Winkler contributed to this report.

Posted on by Zack Albert

TALLADEGA, Ala. — William Byron says his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports team has prepared its case for an appeal of midweek penalties but that he hasn’t changed his approach for Sunday’s race in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.

Byron and his team were penalized for spinning out Denny Hamlin during a caution period in last weekend’s event at Texas Motor Speedway. NASCAR officials later said they did not see the incident as it happened and issued no in-race penalty. The driver and team were docked 25 points in their respective standings in Tuesday’s penalty report, and Byron was also fined $50,000 for the late-race contact.

RELATED: Weekend schedule | Playoff standings

As he did post-race at Texas, Byron reiterated Saturday at Talladega Superspeedway that he did not intend to send Hamlin’s No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota spinning off the track, but that he did want to deliver a message to convey his displeasure. Byron said he and the team took exception to the severity of the penalty, which will be appealed in a hearing next week.

“We’ve kind of compiled our list of evidence and got quite a few videos and things to look at and information that we’ve put together,” Byron said after qualifying ninth for Sunday’s YellaWood 500 (2 p.m. ET, NBC, NBC Sports App, MRN, SiriusXM). “So, I feel pretty good about that and willing to help any way I can. I feel like I’ve tried to help in some ways, just to try to get all the evidence kind of put together. But yeah, I feel good about that end of things. … Like I said, we’re just focused on, I mean, this weekend we just have to go get stage points, try to go win the race, and there’s worse places to do it.”

Jeff Andrews, Hendrick Motorsports’ president and general manager, said that the team opted to appeal in the hopes of presenting an opposing viewpoint of the incident and the intent.

“Until we get through the process next week, I think it’s probably best just to leave it at, our perspective of it is a little bit different and we would just like the opportunity to explain that and bring some things forward,” Andrews said.

The penalty dropped Byron from third to 10th in the Cup Series playoff standings, moving him from a 17-point cushion above the provisional elimination line to an eight-point deficit with two races remaining in the postseason’s Round of 12. Though the appeal is still pending, Byron said his approach to Sunday’s 500-miler relative to his playoff positioning won’t change.

“I race eight (points) behind. I don’t think about the hypotheticals,” Byron said. “Obviously, I feel like we’ve got a good case and a good idea of what … a good amount of evidence that we put together, but I race like it’s there and like it happened. So just move forward with it, I think go after the stage points and feel like we’re capable of running really well at superspeedways. I’ve had a couple of wins on superspeedway-type tracks, so feel good about that.”

Byron said he had a chat this week with Hamlin, who mentioned after Texas that he’d keep their run-in in his memory bank.

“We had a good conversation a couple of days ago, and we’ve never had issues,” Byron said. “So I’m not really worried about … I’m not thinking about Denny and his team. You know, I’m thinking about our team and what we can do going forward. So yeah, it was a good conversation, learned a lot from him, got a better understanding of kind of what he was thinking.”

Hamlin was not restored to his running position after the Byron bump, and he placed 10th in the Round of 12 opener in Fort Worth. Asked if he was satisfied that competition officials penalized Byron and his team, the JGR veteran offered: “Yeah, sorta.”

“I mean, it didn’t help my finish,” Hamlin added. “I saw a lot of people react, ‘well, he could have made up those spots.’ Well, it didn’t change the fact that I could have won the race and instead finished 10th. So you gotta account for those points in there, as well.”