Austin Cindric became the first Team Penske driver to punch his Cup Series playoff ticket, getting to the front of the field after the final round of pit stops and staying there to win the Jack Link’s 500 at Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday (April 27). This is Cindric’s third Cup Series win and the second on a superspeedway following his triumph in the 2022 Daytona 500.
Cindric’s pit crew played a big role in his victory, which we’ll get into in more detail later. For now, let’s take a glimpse at the pit road plotlines that came out of the largest track on the Cup circuit.
Pit Entry Gone Wrong Knocks Out Big Contenders
At the superspeedway tracks, trips to pit road are highly planned out group efforts. Drivers must work together with a pack, usually of the same manufacturer, to get on and off of pit road both cleanly and as a tight group.
When that sequence goes wrong, it can result in dire consequences. Just ask Brad Keselowski and Ryan Blaney, who got knocked out of the race on a lap 43 wreck near the pit entrance. As one group of drivers waited as long as possible to slow down for pit road, it created an accordion effect in the bottom lane that stacked the cars in the bottom lane and ultimately ended Keselowski and Blaney’s day and collected Kyle Busch.
Trouble at the entrance to pit road!
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) April 27, 2025
The yellow is out on Lap 43. pic.twitter.com/dmdo5zwH3B
“It was just a stack of guys trying to come to pit road as fast as they could,” Keselowski told FOX Sports after the wreck. “Everybody was so tight behind me that I didn’t really have a chance to turn left.”
While that wreck was one of the main moments of Sunday’s race, it was not the only time that pit entry plagued drivers in the field. Shane van Gisbergen and Daniel Suarez, both drivers for Trackhouse Racing, failed to slow down enough on pit entry and got slapped with speeding penalties.
Suarez, thanks in part to Ryan Preece and Joey Logano‘s post-race DQs, fought his way for a top-10 finish, placing ninth. Van Gisbergen was not as fortunate, settling for 29th on the day.
The style of racing at Talladega demands perfection on pit road or else you risk losing the draft. But peril at pit entrance cost several drivers on Sunday.
Pit Road Police
Here is a summary of more notable pit road penalties handed out in The Yellowhammer State:
- In addition to the speeding penalties entering pit road, the following drivers got tagged for going too fast on pit exit:
- Kyle Larson was too fast after his pit stop during the post stage one round of stops. Unfazed, Larson recovered beautifully to bring the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet home second.
- Larson’s HMS teammate Chase Elliott was too fast exiting during his green flag pit stop on lap 109. Like Larson, Elliott bounced back for a fifth-place finish.
- In total, NASCAR issued six speeding penalties on Sunday, tied for the most in a single race this season with Las Vegas Motor Speedway in March.
- One the post stage one round of stops, Chase Briscoe got penalized and sent to the rear of the field from removing equipment from the pit box. Briscoe ultimately brought the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota home in 15th.
Pit Crew of the Race: No. 2 Team Penske Ford
At Talladega, the race-winning move usually happens on the track, but on Sunday, it arguably come on pit road.
With 17 laps to go, Cindric led the third and final big group of cars down pit road for the last pit stops of the day. Cindric led the group back onto the track as well, and that third group led the pack in the closing laps.
The No. 2 crew came in clutch with a 3.2-second fuel only pit stop to get the No. 2 Ford out front, and Cindric did the rest.
The No. 2 team is the second Team Penske crew to earn Pit Crew of the Race honors this season, joining the No. 22 crew, which received the honor for the Daytona 500.
Look Ahead to Next Week
The Cup Series begins the month of May with a trip to the Lone Star State and the running of the Wurth 400 presented by LIQUI MOLY at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday, May 4. Race coverage starts at 3:30 p.m. on FOX Sports 1.
The surface at Texas is starting to age, which means tires is starting to become more and more of a priority at the track. When the race is on the line, who will pick the fresh rubber, and who will risk it with just two tires for track position?
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.