In the opening five rounds of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, three non-championship-eligible drivers have celebrated in Victory Lane.
Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway, Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. joined Chris Buescher and Ross Chastain on that list of non-playoff winners, after narrowly beating out Brad Keselowski and William Byron to the start-finish line in the YellaWood 500.
The driver of the JTG Daugherty Racing No. 47 led the final 12 laps of Sunday’s event, which was extended into NASCAR Overtime for a record-extending 13th time in 2024, holding back a pack of hungry drivers, including multiple in the post-season, to score the victory.
It’s the fourth NASCAR Cup Series victory for Stenhouse, all four of which have come at either Daytona International Speedway or Talladega Superspeedway. The victory is the third in NASCAR’s premier division for JTG Daugherty Racing, and the second in the last two seasons.
“We had our Chevy teammates behind us, and I was hoping Kyle [Larson] wasn’t going to push [Brad Keselowski] that hard. I knew [William Byron] was probably going to try and get to the line there,” Stenhouse said post-race. “But, man, this team has put a lot of hard work in. We haven’t won since the 500 in ’23. It’s been an up-and-down season. It was a lot of hard work this season just trying to find a little bit of speed, but we knew that this track is one of ours to come get.”
In May, Stenhouse inked a multi-year extension with JTG Daugherty Racing, which will see him remain in the No. 47 Chevrolet for several years to come, putting to rest rumors of the team’s demise with speculation of major sponsorship partner Kroger leaving at season’s end.
Stenhouse entered the afternoon sitting 27th in the NASCAR Cup Series point standings, but with the victory will jump four spots into 23rd place.
Brad Keselowski was right in the heat of the battle during the final two-lap shootout, and at times had a slight advantage over Stenhouse, but didn’t make the defensive moves necessarily to keep the race lead and drive to victory. The No. 6 had to settle for a runner-up finish, losing by 0.006 seconds.
The margin of victory is the third-closest finish of the season, in a year that has had three of the eight closest points-paying finishes in the history of the NASCAR Cup Series, with Atlanta (0.003 seconds) and Kansas (0.001 seconds) being all-timers.
William Byron peeked out of line at the last second with a run in the tri-oval to attempt and snag the victory but came up just short, 0.027 seconds behind race-winner Stenhouse.
Kyle Larson finished in fourth place, matching his best-ever finish on a superspeedway in the NASCAR Cup Series. In 48 superspeedway starts, Larson has only managed to score two top-five finishes, both at Talladega.
Erik Jones completed the top-five finishers in Sunday’s event, scoring the first top-five of the year for LEGACY MOTOR CLUB. Jones recovers after sustaining an injury at this very racetrack earlier in the season, which left him sidelined for two races.
NASCAR Cup Series playoff driver Christopher Bell came home in sixth place, with Justin Haley finishing second in just his second start back in the Spire Motorsports camp. Austin Dillon, Bubba Wallace, and Denny Hamlin completed the top-10.
The picture at the checkered flag looks drastically different than it did with five laps remaining after a bad bump from Brad Keselowski to Austin Cindric turned the No. 2 Ford Mustang from the race lead and caused the biggest accident in recorded history, involving 28 cars.
Austin Cindric, Joey Logano, Chase Briscoe, Chase Elliott, and Daniel Suarez were among those to receive significant damage from the accident, and all fell multiple laps down, finishing outside the top 25 on the afternoon.
On the other hand, Denny Hamlin was running outside the top-30 at the time of the incident and by not being in the lead draft, although unintentionally, managed to gain a ton of positions, essentially saving his hopes of advancing into the Round of 8.
Ryan Blaney, the defending NASCAR Cup Series champion, was part of an earlier wreck that involved Hamlin, as well, when Alex Bowman gave the No. 12 a shot, and sent the Team Penske driver hard into the outside wall, collecting last week’s winner, Ross Chastain.
They weren’t the first playoff-eligible drivers to have issues, though. Daniel Suarez, who was handed a penalty pre-race from NASCAR, was attempting to stay in the lead draft after being lapped from his pass-through penalty when he cleared himself on BJ McLeod and wrecked.
The NASCAR Cup Series is headed to Charlotte Motor Speedway’s ROVAL, which has a new layout for the 2024 season, to decide which eight drivers will be advancing to the next round of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.
Only William Byron is locked into the next round, with Joey Logano (-13), Daniel Suarez (-20), Austin Cindric (-29), and Chase Briscoe (-32) sitting below the cutline.
