TALLADEGA, Ala. – Kyle Busch won the GEICO 500 to score his 62nd career NASCAR Cup Series victory, his second of the season and his second at Talladega.
Ryan Blaney finished in the runner-up position as the race ended under caution.
Several contenders were in a position to win the GEICO 500 until a crash on the final lap of the race gave Kyle Busch his second win at the track.
The race extended eight laps past its scheduled 188-lap distance due to a green-white-checkered finish.
The final restart was going smoothly until Bubba Wallace and Ryan Blaney got squirrely when Blaney tried to give Bubba a push. They both went high, then slid down the banking and into the lead pack. Blaney was able to continue and scored a runner-up finish for Team Penske. Busch slid through and was in the right place at the right time to come away with the victory.
Chase Briscoe rebounded to finish 4th after a rough start to the race. The Stewart Haas Racing driver locked up his brakes coming to the pit road during his first pit stop. He spun and was not able to continue, which brought out a caution flag. Chris Buescher snuck his way to the front towards the end of the race to finish 3rd while Brad Keselowski finished 5th in what was a solid afternoon for RFK Racing.
Erik Jones, William Byron, Christopher Bell, Daniel Suarez, and Todd Gilliland completed the top ten on Sunday. The biggest incident occurred on the penultimate restart when Noah Gragson tried to block Chastain while battling for the lead. The crash only collected four cars, but Ryan Preece and Kyle Larson had a massive crash but both drivers were able to escape without injury.
The race once again went to an overtime finish, which put several drivers at the front of the pack in peril of running out of gas. Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin, and Ross Chastain had no choice but to hit the pit road for fuel. Ty Gibbs was one of the drivers that gambled, but the rookie ran out of gas on the final restart. They all finished 15th or worse, but that is simply a product of racing at Talladega.
Twenty-seven of the 38 drivers in the race finished on the lead lap. There were eight cautions for a total of 34 laps.
Christopher Bell remains the championship leader after Talladega with an 11-point advantage over second-place Ross Chastain.
Stage 1 Winner: Chase Elliott of Hendrick Motorsports (Chevrolet)
Stage 2 Winner: Aric Almirola of Stewart-Haas Racing (Ford)
SHR Race Finish:
● Chase Briscoe (Started 4th, Finished 4th / Running, completed 196 of 196 laps)
● Aric Almirola (Started 2nd, Finished 20th / Running, completed 196 of 196 laps)
● Kevin Harvick (Started 11th, Finished 21st / Running, completed 196 of 196 laps)
● Ryan Preece (Started 16th, Finished 34th / Accident, completed 189 of 196 laps)
SHR Points:
● Kevin Harvick (3rd with 311 points, 20 out of first)
● Chase Briscoe (15th with 243 points, 88 out of first)
● Aric Almirola (24th with 170 points, 161 out of first)
● Ryan Preece (28th with 149 points, 182 out of first)
Briscoe earned his third top-five and his fourth top-10 of the season. It was also his first top-five and second top-10 in five career NASCAR Cup Series starts at Talladega. This was Briscoe’s best finish so far this year. His previous best was a pair of fifth-place finishes – April 9 on the dirt at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway and last Sunday at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway.
“Wild day. I made a huge mistake coming to pit road,” said Chase Briscoe, driver of the No. 14 Mahindra Tractors Ford Mustang. “We’re two laps down, and then we were one and were going to get the Lucky Dog at the end of Stage 2, and then (Joey) Logano had that speeding penalty and barely got us for the Lucky Dog. It was a battle all day long – very similar to how we kind of were at the end of last year, just continuing to fight and keep doing everything we could to try to maximize our day. In the end, found ourselves up there and in the top five. I would’ve loved to have a little bit more, but if you told me we were going to finish fourth there – at any point of the race really, even there with 20 (laps) to go. We were so stuck in the back and couldn’t really do anything. So, cool to get this Mahindra ‘Old Goat’ Ford Mustang in the top five and looking forward to next week.”
This was Briscoe’s fifth straight top-15. He finished 15th March 26 at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in Austin, Texas, 12th April 2 at Richmond (Va.) Raceway, fifth April 9 on the dirt at Bristol and fifth last Sunday at Martinsville. Briscoe led one lap, increasing his laps-led total at Talladega to two.
Aric Almirola won Stage 2 to earn 10 bonus points and one playoff point. He led three times for 11 laps to increase his laps-led total at Talladega to 118.
“There’s so much to be proud of,” said Aric Almirola, driver of the No. 10 Smithfield Ford Mustang. “We had a great racecar and ran up-front, led, was in position all day, and then just Ross (Chastain) doing Ross things on that restart. Wiped out the right side of our car, and either broke something in the right-front suspension or had the right-front tire go flat. So, it took a racecar that had a great shot to win and crashed. That part is frustrating, but we have a lot to be proud of. Drew (Blickensderfer, crew chief) and these guys gave us an unbelievable speedway car again, and we keep showing up to these places with an opportunity to win. The last few weeks we’ve had really fast racecars and run up front, so at some point we’re going to convert and win us one.”
The GEICO 500 marked Harvick’s 800th career NASCAR Cup Series start. He is the 10th driver in NASCAR’s 75-year history to reach this milestone and, at age 47, the fifth-youngest driver to make 800 starts. Harvick joins an impressive lineup that includes Richard Petty (1,185 starts), Ricky Rudd (906), Terry Labonte (890), Dave Marcis (883), Mark Martin (882), Kyle Petty (829), Bill Elliott (828), Darrell Waltrip (809) and Jeff Gordon (805). Harvick is on track to finish the year with 826 career starts, which would put him eighth all-time.
Harvick finished third in Stage 2 to earn eight bonus points. He led twice for 11 laps to increase his laps-led total at Talladega to 303.
Harvick has now led 11,560 laps since joining SHR in 2014. He has led 15,975 laps in his entire NASCAR Cup Series career.
Preece finished ninth in Stage 1 to earn two bonus points and seventh in Stage 2 to earn four more bonus points. He led once for two laps, increasing his laps-led total at Talladega to 14.
Next Up:
The next event on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the Würth 400 on Sunday, April 30 at Dover (Del.) Motor Speedway. The race begins at 2 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by FS1 and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
