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Ricky Stenhouse Jr. spoils NASCAR Playoff race at Talladega, wins in photo finish

JHby:Jonathan Howard•about 11 hours•

Jondean25

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Talladega
Mandatory Credit: Vasha Hunt-Imagn Images

Back in Victory Lane for the first time since the 2023 Daytona 500, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. plays spoiler at Talladega Superspeedway. Stenhouse upset the NASCAR Playoffs, playing spoiler after one of the biggest “big ones” of all-time.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. puts himself in position at almost every single one of these superspeedway races. Today, he was able to follow through on that and win the race.

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After the race today, William Byron makes the Round of 8 on points. There is a lot of fallout in regard to the playoffs to get through. For now, it’s all about Stenhouse Jr.! He gets the win over Brad Keselowski in overtime.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. is now the 18th winner of the Cup Series season. In the first year of the Next Gen car, there were 19 winners in total. There are more than enough races for that number to be surpassed.

Following a wreck that involved 28 of 40 cars in the race, Stenhouse was in the perfect position. He had been racing Austin Cindric for the lead, but Cindric is the car that really got things going in that wreck.

Lining up next to Brad Keselowski on the final restart, Stenhouse had a clear view out of his windshield. William Byron ended up being a better pusher than Kyle Larson in the end. Stenhouse wins by inches.

Up until the big wreck with four laps to go, this was a relatively calm Talladega race. Only a few incidents prior. One thing is for sure, that wreck made the remaining playoff drivers very cautious in overtime.

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Ricky Stenhouse Jr. ran up front most of the day

During this race, it wasn’t like Ricky Stenhouse Jr. came out of nowhere. He is a skilled superspeedway racer. Even in the Next Gen car, those skills can come in handy. The JTG Daugherty racer was consistent and patient all day long.

In Stage 1, Stenhouse almost took the win. Funny enough, he fought Chris Buescher down to the line in that stage. Then to end the race, he beat out Keselowski, Buescher’s teammate, for the race win. I think he’d rather have the black and white checkered flag than the green and white one.

You really can’t talk enough about the big wreck late. It took Denny Hamlin and Tyler Reddick from negative points positions to being up double digits above the cutline. Massive and incredibly important playoff implications from that one wreck alone.

Rumor has it that Kroger is leaving JTG Daugherty next year for RFK Racing as well. The coincidences and ironies just keep popping up the more I look at this race. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. had one last hurrah for his sponsor. Talladega delivered another epic race.