TALLADEGA, Ala. — Ford drivers combined to lead 98 of the 188 laps in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Talladega Superspeedway, but for the 10th time in 10th races this season there wasn’t a Blue Oval in victory lane.
Michael McDowell had the strongest Ford Mustang and led 36 laps, but tangled with fellow Ford driver Brad Keselowski as the pair headed to the checkered flag, with another Ford driver, Noah Gragson, pushing Keselowski.
McDowell crashed, while Keselowski finished second and was Gragson was third, with Toyota driver Tyler Reddick stealing the victory in the final couple hundred yards.
It was the second consecutive week that Keselowski finished second.
“The Fords were really working well together. We cleared the Toyotas on the bottom lane and it was pretty clear it was gonna come down to the three of us,” Keselowski said. “I backed up. Noah gave me a great push and I went to make a move on Michael and he covered it, and I went back the other way and got another push from Noah and there was nowhere to go when Michael came back down. I hate that for him. He’s a good guy. I hope he’s alright. That’s just kind of the way this stuff goes, but, all in all it was a really solid day for us, for Ford and Castrol. It’s another second. It’s a solid day, but not the win we wanted.”
Gragson was also disappointed.
“I really wanted to see a Ford in victory lane, but the Overstock team at Stewart-Haas did a great job all day,” Gragson said. “We had clean pit stops, fast pit stops, a lot of horsepower under the hood. The Mustang Dark Horses and racing with these other Ford guys has been a lot of fun. I haven’t been up here very much in the Cup Series on these superspeedways, but I’m extremely grateful. It’s a privilege to race with guys like Keselowski and McDowell.”
• Ricky Stenhouse Jr. grabbed his best finish of the season, coming home fourth in the JTG Daugherty Racing No. 17. He was the best finishing Chevrolet driver.
“Not a bad day, but it was somewhat frustrating every now and then just kind of being gridlocked there but you know our team we came in with a plan,” Stenhouse said. “We stuck to our plan and glad that it all worked out. I feel like we’ve been close all year with different things and you know just nothing seems to work out so for it all to come together for the Thomas Bagels and Philadelphia Cream Cheese Camaro feels really good and we’ve got a really good month of racing coming up for us at really good race tracks that we enjoy and run well at so, hopefully, this will be a boost to our season and kind of a kick-start to get us going and just see what happens.”
•Alex Bowman was the best-finishing Hendrick Motorsports driver, bringing his Chevrolet home fifth.
“Not amazing, honestly. Not that we didn’t have a good No. 48 Ally Camaro or good strategy, just kind of didn’t have the openings I needed at times,” Bowman said. “There was so much riding around saving fuel. And then when we finally all would go run around wide-open, there weren’t really many moves to make, and we were buried and stuck on the bottom. We just never had a hole to get up or do anything.”
•Anthony Alfredo finished sixth in his second Cup Series race of the season for Beard Motorsports.
“We had an awesome Chevy today. We drove to the front and led some laps,” Alfredo said. “At the end there, we were just kind of boxed-in. I couldn’t really do a whole lot, especially when that third lane formed. I wanted to join that party earlier, but I was just trapped on the bottom. I pushed as hard as I could. In typical Talladega Superspeedway racing fashion, it got a little crazy coming to the line. I just yanked it hard left, flew through the grass and somehow opened my eyes and I crossed the line in sixth.”
Alfredo finished third in the NASCAR Xfinity Series race on Saturday as well.
•Daniel Hemric led eight laps and finished ninth, which was the best finish of the season for the Kaulig Racing driver.
“I’m really proud of how far we’ve come with this No. 31 Cirkul Chevrolet from Daytona, as far as speed goes,” Hemric said. “It’s hard to make gains there with everyone being so close. We qualified right at about 30th in Daytona, and then we came here and qualified inside the top 20, which is a big deal as we saw today with fuel saving. You have to have a faster racecar that lets you save more fuel. I’m proud of this team and to have had a clean race.”
•Harrison Burton finished 10th at Talladega. It was the first top-10 finish of the season for the Wood Brothers Racing driver.
“It was kind of an up and down day. We did a really good job on the first pit cycle to get us out front and we did a great job of managing the track position versus saving,” Burton said. “The second stage didn’t quite go our way and the caution fell at a weird time for us. We came down and topped off and just didn’t end up getting track position until the last lap when everyone wrecked. It’s good to be up front, good to help the 2 (Brad Keselowski) get a stage win there. Obviously, I’d like to win one of these, but 10th is good, especially for how our year has been so far.”
•Cody Ware finished 24th in his first Cup Series start in nearly a year.
“I think we showed our speed multiple times throughout the race. I just wanted to play it smart and be there at the end, which is what we did,” the son of team owner Rick Ware said. “Unfortunately, the last 20-25 laps we didn’t have a whole lot of help behind us to get a pack going towards the front, but I’ll take the wins with the losses. I’m still happy for our first race back.
“I’ll take the positives from it and know that we’ve got good, fast cars here at the superspeedways and looking forward to Daytona, Atlanta and the second Talladega later on in the year.”