After a thrilling last stage of the Ag-Pro 300 at Talladega Superspeedway on Saturday (April 25), Corey Day came out victorious for the first time in his young NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series career.
Day managed to block multiple lanes in the final laps to get the win over series veterans, including Sheldon Creed, Sam Mayer, Jeb Burton, and more, as the caution flag flew out of turn 4 after a last-lap crash ended the race under yellow.
Day became the third NOAPS driver to go to victory lane for the first time in their career, joining Creed and William Sawalich.
“It’s awesome, the Hendrick legacy is super strong at superspeedways and my No. 17 guys just built me a rocket ship,” Day told The CW broadcast in victory lane. “I feel like we’ve been close, had a good day at Rockingham [Speedway] and had a couple other good days and just didn’t finish it off so it’s super cool.”
Brent Crews finished runner-up in his drafting track debut, Creed finished third, Sammy Smith finished fourth, and Jeremy Clements rounded out the top five.
“Honestly, a really good day…was able to get great stage points,” Creed said post-race after winning the Dash 4 Cash prize for the second straight race. “Obviously was leading there at the end and maybe just got too far out a couple times and then I thought I missed a good block down the backstretch.”
Dean Thompson, Jesse Love, Brandon Jones, Parker Retzlaff, and Austin Green completed the top 10 in sixth through 10th.
The event was mostly clean until that last-lap crash involving Mayer, Jeb Burton, Harrison Burton, Ryan Sieg, and others, as the only other caution for cause was a lap 1 wreck involving Patrick Staropoli, David Starr, and Tyler Ankrum.
In his series debut, Ankrum finished one lap down in 32nd, Staropoli was eight laps down in 37th place, and Starr wound up in last place (38th).
Love led 37 laps, the most of any driver, and was in contention late in the race but was shuffled out of the lead. His teammate Austin Hill stalled on pit road during the final green flag pit stop and lost the lead draft, finishing 13th.
JR Motorsports teammates Carson Kvapil and Justin Allgaier won the first two respective stages, but they were both penalized after they blended their cars into traffic after their last pit stops of the race. The maneuvers nearly caused the lead pack to run into them at full speed and NASCAR penalized them with a pass-through penalty on pit road, ending their chances for victory.
Allgaier continues to lead the driving standings, holding a 105-point advantage over Creed.
NASCAR O’Reilly Talladega Results
The O’Reilly Series will return to action for the 12th race of the season on Saturday, May 2, at Texas Motor Speedway at 3:30 p.m. ET. Coverage of this race will be broadcast on The CW.
Michael Bellifemini joined Frontstretch in February 2026 as a contributor. Bellifemini was born and raised in New Jersey and graduated from Seton Hall University. He called Seton Hall men's and women's basketball games for their college radio station, 89.5 FM WSOU, and continues to broadcast in the area. Outside of covering NASCAR, Bellifemini is also an avid baseball, football, basketball, and hockey fan and enjoys watching different sports leagues on a daily basis.