Sad News: Joey Logano Handed Penalty After Holding Blaney to Clinch 2024 NASCAR Cup Championship 3-Time….Read More…
Sad News: Joey Logano Handed Penalty After Holding Blaney to Clinch 2024 NASCAR Cup Championship 3-Time….Read More…
Four drivers will be cut from the playoff field following the race, with the bottom four in the points standings having their championship hopes end.
Martin Truex Jr., Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski and Harrison Burton start the day below the cutline, but all are within range of pushing into the top 12 on points.
And a win sends a playoff driver through to the next round too.
Alex Bowman is on the pole and in a good spot regarding the playoff cutline (41 points ahead of 13th).
We’ll keep tabs on the playoff battle all evening long.
All Bubba Wallace could do was look down in dejection.
The 23XI Racing driver had followed his game plan to a tee over the course of 188 laps, giving himself a shot at another Talladega win.
But he was felled by a late block attempt on best friend Ryan Blaney, which sent him spiraling down the track while handing Kyle Busch his second win of the Cup Series slate.
A Busch victory didn’t seem all that likely for most of the race, even as it reached its latter stages.
The No. 8 car was in the mix, for sure. But so was everyone else; the difference between P1 and P20 was less than a second.
In the end, a gutsy call paid off for the Richard Childress Racing star.
Busch batted away his pit crew’s suggestion to come in for fuel, choosing instead to stay on the track after Noah Gragson wrecked in the first round of overtime.
It was a high-risk, high-reward strategy, the type of aggressive play Busch has become known for over the years.
