Kyle Larson won the YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, after a controversial finish that had the NASCAR community up in arms.
“I got ate up off of [turn] two and had no run and finally just settled into where I was and I thought they were gonna crash,” Larson said about the finish. “The 33 I think ran out of fuel here and the 33 drug everyone up and I went down and had a huge run and thankfully Ricky [Stenhouse Jr] wasn’t able to close it off.”
This was Larson’s first win on a drafting track in 67 tries. He also leads the NASCAR Cup Series Chase standings by 73 points after winning, with Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell and Chase Briscoe all within 79 points of the Hendrick Motorsports driver.
Following Larson, William Byron finished in second while Ricky Stenhouse Jr, who led nine laps, finished in third. Meanwhile, Ross Chastain, who was a lap down until lap 185 and Cole Custer rounded out the top five. This was also Custer’s first top five of the season.
Rounding out the top 10, Carson Hocevar, Todd Gilliland, Denny Hamlin, Alex Bowman and Michael McDowell finished in sixth through 10th.
Chris Buscher won stage one, as Ryan Preece and Brad Keselowski followed behind to make it a RFK Racing 1-2-3. Following 17.5 seconds behind the RFK trio was Larson, Byron, Riley Herbst, Chase Briscoe, Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano and Austin Cindric to make up the rest of the top 10.
Logano won the second stage followed by Larson, Briscoe, Cindric, Byron, Chris Buescher, Connor Zilisch, Shane Van Gisbergen, Erik Jones and Austin Hill in second through 10th.
Over the 189-lap race, there were two “big ones” that shook up the field. The first came on lap 131 when Ryan Blaney made a late block on a charging Bubba Wallace who couldn’t check up in time, sending Blaney into the wall and collecting Wallace, Chase Elliott, Tyler Reddick, Daniel Suarez, Christopher Bell, Casey Mears, John Hunter Nemechek and Ty Gibbs.
Blaney, Nemechek and Mears were the only ones who couldn’t finish the race from that wreck. Reddick ended up coming back on the track late in the race, completing 137 laps in total while Elliott did the same, completing 147 laps out of 188.
The second “big one” took place with six laps to go when Chastain checked up, causing Logano to lose control and collecting Carson Hocevar, Herbst, Jones, Brad Keselowski, Zilisch, Bowman, AJ Allmendinger, Cindric, Buescher, Josh Berry and Van Gisbergen.
The biggest hit of the wreck was Riley Herbst, who hit the inside wall at 160 mph. Herbst did not respond on the radio after the wreck and the AMR Safety Team took quite a bit to get to him, instead attending to Logano who flipped upside down during the wreck. After the wreck, Herbst was ok although he was seen with a cast on his left wrist, after leaving the medical center.
The other bad wreck of the second “big one” was Logano’s who flipped upside down almost immediately after the impact with Chastain. Logano came out of the wreck ok and had no major injuries.
With the field decimated after those two wrecks, Stenhouse took the lead on the final lap, but in the final corner Larson turned on the jets and went from 10th to first to win. This was controversial as many fans accused the other Chevrolet’s of lifting to give Larson the win.
NASCAR came out and said nobody lifted but has refused to release the SMT data to back that up. With that being said, fans online have speculated that the run Larson got was fabricated due to the field being too spread out to get a real draft.
Fans also pointed out that on the final lap, Larson went below the yellow line which on superspeedway’s is prohibited because of how dangerous it is. NASCAR rebutted by saying that Larsons tires weren’t fully over the yellow line, but fans again pointed out that past precedent says that doesn’t matter.
At Daytona International Speedway on July 6, 2018, in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, NASCAR ruled that Justin Haley went below the yellow line and disqualified him from the race, giving Larson the win. Looking back at the video, and like Larson on Sunday, Haley’s tires did not fully cross the yellow line which is what NASCAR says is how they decide if a disqualification is needed. Yet Haley was disqualified and Larson wasn’t.
The no-call has led Larson to a 73, 74 and 79-point lead over Hamlin, Bell and Briscoe, meaning if Larson gains just four points on Hamlin and three points on Bell at Martinsville next week, Larson will be crowned champion with a race to spare.
The NASCAR Cup Series will continue the Chase with the Xfinity 500, this Sunday, Nov. 1, at Martinsville Speedway for the penultimate race of the season. To watch the Xfinity 500, fans can watch on NBC or listen on SiriusXM.