YellaWood 500 Race Results

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. plays spoiler, wins chaotic playoff race at Talladega Superspeedway

TALLADEGA, Ala. — Ricky Stenhouse Jr. held off the field in overtime to claim the victory in a dramatic NASCAR Cup Series YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway — edging Brad Keselowski and William Byron by a mere 0.006-second in a thrilling three-wide finish.

That heart-stopping finish was indicative of the afternoon of competition at the 2.66-mile behemoth — which once again lived up to its reputation and provided a thrilling playoff race with significant implications for the 12 championship contenders.

A massive 23-car accident with five laps remaining brought out a red flag and stopped the race for nearly 10 minutes. The incident affected eight of the 12 playoff cars in varying degrees. There is only one more race remaining in this round to settle which eight drivers advance to the next round of championship competition.

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Stenhouse, the 36-year-old Mississippi native who is not playoff-eligible, hoisted his fourth career trophy — all coming at superspeedway tracks — and first since winning the 2023 Daytona 500. His No. 47 JTG-Daugherty Chevrolet led 19 of the 195 laps, including the all-important last one after a side-to-battle with six-time Talladega winner Keselowski and this year‘s Daytona 500 winner Byron.

This marks the third time in the five playoff races that a non-playoff driver has hoisted the race trophy.

“Felt really good, we had our Chevy teammates behind us and I was hoping Kyle [Busch] wouldn‘t push the six [Keselowski] that hard, I knew the 24 was going to try to get to the line,” said Stenhouse, who scored his first career NASCAR Cup Series win at Talladega in 2017.

“Man, this team has put a lot of hard work in and obviously we haven‘t won since the Daytona 500 in ‘23. It‘s been an up-and-down season, a lot of hard work this season trying to find a little bit of speed, but we knew this track is one of ours to come get it.”

MORE: Stenhouse: ‘Our team needed this for sure’

The finish was set up after the vast incident that took out several front-running cars and affected all but four playoff drivers. Team Penske‘s Austin Cindric was leading the race — having exchanged the top spot multiple times with Stenhouse in the closing 20 laps.

With five laps remaining, Cindric‘s leading No. 2 Ford was hit from behind on the backstretch by Keselowski‘s No. 6 RFK Racing Ford, triggering an accordion-style accident from three rows behind the leader. Harrison Burton‘s No. 21 Ford struck Joey Logano‘s No. 22 Ford, pushing Keselowski‘s car forward and into Cindric.

The aftermath collected 23 cars in all, completely sidelining playoff drivers Cindric, who was credited with a 32nd-place finish, his Penske teammate Logano (33rd), and Stewart-Haas Racing‘s Chase Briscoe (30th).

“Obviously incredibly frustrated,” Cindric said. “Just really proud of my team and the full execution of the day. We got that stage win [second stage] and put ourselves at the front of that green flag pit cycle and had another shot [to win].

“I don‘t feel like complaining right now. I‘m too pissed off and it won‘t do anything. But proud of the team. We‘ve brought really fast race cars to every single race of the playoffs and we‘re going to have to bring another one next week and I need to go out and do my job.”

His Penske teammate Logano, who was similarly frustrated, said there was nothing he could have done to avoid the accident.

“I don‘t think we could have done anything much different,” the two-time series champion Logano said. “We had the bottom working fairly well and by the time we got off [turn] two, the push from the 21 [Burton] that transferred to the six (Keselowski) that transferred to the 2 [Cindric] just at a bad angle. And off he went.”

Other playoff drivers affected in the accident included, perennial Talladega race favorite Chase Elliott, who finished 29th after pitting for repairs following the accident.

RELATED: Ride with Elliott through the ‘Big One’

Regular season champion Tyler Reddick was also in the accident and rallied to finish 20th. Alex Bowman, who was involved in two accidents on the day, finished 16th.

Defending race winner and reigning champion Ryan Blaney was on pace for solid points day until a push from the No. 48 of Bowman sent the No. 12 Ford out of shape and wrecking into Ross Chastain, Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano on the final lap of Stage 2, ending Blaney’s day and scored with a 39th-place finish in a 40-car field.

On the up-side, Hendrick Motorsports‘ Kyle Larson finished fourth, tying his best-ever Talladega finish — only his second top-five at the track in 20 races. Non-playoff driver Erik Jones rounded out the top five.

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Another playoff competitor, Joe Gibbs Racing‘s Christopher Bell was sixth, followed by Justin Haley — in his second 2024 race for Spire Motorsports. Austin Dillon, Bubba Wallace and Bell‘s fellow playoff driver and JGR teammate Denny Hamlin completed the top 10.

With Byron‘s finish, he becomes the first and only playoff contender to secure a position in the next eight-race round. Bell is next in the standings, holding a 57-point advantage on the provisional elimination line, followed by Larson, Hamlin, Bowman, Blaney, Reddick and Elliott.

Elliott is 13 points ahead of Logano going into next week‘s race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course,  where the playoff field will shrink down from 12 to eight drivers. Daniel Suárez, who rallied to a 26th-place finish despite spending most of the race recovering from a pre-race penalty for equipment violations, is now 20 points behind Elliott for that final transfer position.

Cindric and Briscoe are 29 and 32 points back, respectively.

The final race of the Round of 12 is next Sunday, the Bank of America ROVAL 400 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course (2 p.m. ET, NBC, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App). AJ Allmendinger is the defending race winner.

NOTE: Post-race inspection concluded without issue, confirming Stenhouse as the race winner. No vehicles will be taken back to NASCAR’s R&D Center.

Contributing: Staff Report