A massive crash, a photo finish, and a pointlessly complex points system: yes, that’s right, we’re back on the NASCAR Cup Series hype train. As with all oval racing, survival was the name of the game in last night’s playoff race at the series’ longest circuit.
With just 5 of 500 laps remaining around the 2.66-mile Talladega Superspeedway, Brad Keselowski’s #6 Roush Fenway Keselowski Ford barged into the rear quarter of Austin Cindric’s #2 Penske Ford as he fought for the lead with Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s #47 JTG-Daugherty Chevrolet. Around Cindric went, and with regards to what unfolded next, it’s probably best you see for yourself.
Eight of the 12 cars in contention for NASCAR’s farcical playoff structure were collected in this huge pile-up, which affected 27 out of the 35-car field (77%). Ergo, by the metric of number of cars involved, the crash marks the series’s largest ever.
In his post-race comments, Stenhouse was justifiably enthused by his return to the top of the rostrum at the track where he took his first Cup Series victory in 2017, explaining that “[it] felt really good… 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.”
His victory came in overtime, which NASCAR uses to extend races after late crashes as a means to ensure races have the best possible chance of finishing under green. After a predictably long red flag and clean-up period, just 0.006s separated Stenhouse from Keselowski and playoff points leader Byron across the line.
Ricky Stenhouse celebrates post-race © Sean Gardner/Getty Images
Austin Cindric’s anger was thinly veiled as he reflected on the crash in the media pen: “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.”
The sport’s senior vice president of competition, Elton Sawyer, spoke post-race on the sporting safety connotations after the sport’s new ‘Biggest one’. He explained, “We want to make sure that we aired on the side of the competitors. We didn’t anticipate seeing 25 plus cars down there, some of them in the grass, high-sided, weren’t sure why they couldn’t continue.”
And on the fact that no cars were flipped, nor a driver injured: “I will say that we’re extremely pleased that they all stayed on there on four wheels. There’s a lot still for us to learn.”
The Charlotte Roval’s Chicane © James Gilbert/Getty Images
NASCAR next heads to possibly its strangest circuit, the part oval, part road course “Roval” in the sport’s spiritual home of Charlotte, North Carolina. With Logano, Suarez, Cindric, and Briscoe all below the cutoff line, each will be hoping to supplant Chase Elliot’s spot as the last driver before the bottom eight are eliminated from eligibility.
