For the third time in five playoff races, a non-playoff driver took the checkered flag. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. edged out Brad Keselowski by six one-thousandths of a second to win the YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, his fourth career NASCAR Cup Series win.
Pit strategy ultimately played a secondary role in the outcome, as is often the case at superspeedways. But that doesn’t mean there were no pit road plotlines coming out of the high banks in Alabama.
Alex Bowman Cooled Off by Penalty
Entering Talladega, no one had accrued more points during the playoffs than Alex Bowman, with the driver of the No. 48 Chevrolet racking up three top 10s across first four playoff races.
At the end of stage two, Bowman appeared to be well positioned for another good finish, placing sixth in stage two following contact with Ryan Blaney that ended the defending champion’s day.
However, the post-stage two pit stops on lap 122 threw a wrench into the No. 48 team’s plans. Trying to maximize track position, Bowman started to leave his pit stall early with a fuel can still attached in the left rear of the car. Bowman stopped to try and avoid any issues, but the fuel can barely slid over the front line of the No. 48 team’s stall, resulting in a penalty for removing equipment from the pit box.
Bowman lost all his track position, miring him in the back of the pack as the aggression picked up during the final stage. Finally, on lap 172, The (Really) Big One struck on the backstretch, engulfing the majority of the field, including Bowman.
While Bowman was able to continue after the crash and salvaged a 16th-place finish, Talladega could have been another great finish in Bowman’s solid playoff run. Without the removing equipment penalty, there’s a good chance Bowman lines up somewhere in the first three rows, perhaps avoiding the wreck and contending for the win like his Hendrick Motorsports teammates William Byron and Kyle Larson.
Despite the penalty, Bowman will head to the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL next Sunday with a decent margin for error at 26 points above the cut line. But that points gap could be even bigger, and a finish outside the top 10 does slow Bowman’s recent momentum.
To Tow or Not to Tow?
NASCAR’s damaged vehicle policy (DVP) has become a hot topic of discussion in recent weeks, and that carried over to this weekend’s race at Talladega.
Looking back to last week at Kansas Speedway, Josh Berry got sent behind the wall and declared out of the race after spinning on the opening lap. This happened despite repeated pleas from Berry and No. 4 crew chief Rodney Childers that all the car needed was a tow back to pit road for tires.
On the other hand, at Talladega, Chase Briscoe and Chase Elliott both got tows back to pit road to make repairs and cleared the DVP after making minimum speed.
Following his involvement in The Big One, Berry did not mince words when it came to his thoughts on the DVP.
“All I know is that all those cars parked in turn 3 better not get towed to pit road buddy, because that’d be breaking the damaged vehicle policy,” Berry said. “If you have four flat tires [and] you gotta get towed to pit road, you’re done, right?”
Berry went further when asked if the DVP should be changed immediately.
“No, everybody else should get screwed too. It’s only fair, right?”
Elton Sawyer, NASCAR Senior Vice President of Competition, talked briefly with the media about the DVP postrace.
“Based on our experiences last week at Kansas, looked at what happened there with the No. 4 car, we felt like we probably could’ve made a different call,” Sawyer said. “We had a good car that probably just needed tires last week. As we went into this week, we wanted to err on the side of the competitor.”
It will be interesting to see if there are any revisions to the DVP going into the 2025 season, or perhaps even sooner than that. I’m of the opinion that some clarification on the DVP will be needed going forward.
Look Ahead to Next Week
The Round of 12 in the Cup Series playoffs concludes next Sunday, Oct. 13, with the running of the Bank of America ROVAL 400 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL in Concord, N.C. NBC will have the race coverage beginning at 2 p.m.
Closing out a playoff round with a road course opens the door for more creativity with pit strategies, as playoff teams hovering around the cut line will be pulling out all the stops to either maximize stage points or go for a walk-off win into the Round of 8.
Andrew Stoddard joined Frontstretch in May of 2022 as an iRacing contributor. He is a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College, the University of Richmond, and VCU. He works as an athletic communications specialist at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va.
Bowman punted Blaney out of the event and kept on motoring. Sound familiar?
Actually, any race that a Hendrick team doesn’t win, is a good one.
+26 points says it all for Alex, Andrew. Good try lol