Frontstretch Newsletter: April 24, 2023
Volume XVII, Edition XVII |
- NASCAR teams are back at their shops, preparing for this weekend's action in Dover. Entry lists should be released later today. We'll
have those for you, along with anything else that breaks today at Frontstretch. |
| | Kyle Busch Wins After 2 Talladega
Overtimes Kyle Busch was able to slip past the crashing Bubba Wallace and Ryan Blaney on the final lap Sunday to win the GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway for his second
win of the year. Blaney was second, then Chris Buescher, Chase Briscoe and Brad Keselowski. |
| | Going For Win, Bubba Wallace and Ryan Blaney Come Up
Empty Ryan Blaney and Bubba Wallace were the two most prolific lap leaders Sunday at Talladega, combining to lead 82 laps. The two drivers were one-two on the final lap,
but a mistimed block ruined things. |
| | Jeb Burton Pulls Off Xfinity Series Upset at
Talladega Jeb Burton was able to avoid the Big One and claim the lead late Saturday. From there, he held on to win the Ag-Pro 300 for his second career win. Sheldon Creed
was second, then Parker Kligerman, Cole Custer and Brennan Poole. |
| | Blaine Perkins Taken to Hospital After Multi-Rollover
Wreck Our Motorsports' Blaine Perkins was hospitalized Saturday night after barrel-rolling multiple times on the backstretch in a lap 48 crash. As of his writing, he is
still under observation. |
| | Jordan Anderson Leaves Talladega, This Time By His Own
Accord, a Winner Last fall, Jordan Anderson was airlifted out of Talladega Superspeedway after being burned in a crash. Saturday saw his team take their first-ever
victory. |
| | Greg Van Alst To Make Xfinity Series Debut at
Atlanta During FOX Sports 1's broadcast of the General Tire 200 Saturday, Jamie Little announced that Greg Van Alst will make his NASCAR Xfinity Series debut for Alpha
Prime Racing at Atlanta in July. |
| | Paul Dalla Lana Retires; The Heart Of Racing To Assume
NorthWest AMR’s WEC Entry Aston Martin Racing announced Monday that Paul Dalla Lana has retired from racing, effective immediately. IMSA team The Heart of Racing will replace NorthWest AMR
on the grid starting with Saturday's 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps. |
| | Jesse Love Wins ARCA Race at Talladega in Dominating
Fashion Venturini Motorsports' Jesse Love dominated Saturday to win the ARCA Menards Series General Tire 200 at Talladega Superspeedway. Gus Dean was second, then Bret
Holmes, Andres Perez de Lara and Sean Corr. |
| | Sean Hingorani Overcomes Penalty, Wins ARCA West Race at Kern
County Venturini Motorsports' Sean Hingorani came back from a lap down Saturday night to win the NAPA Auto Parts BlueDEF 150 for ARCA Menards Series West at Kern County
Raceway Park, his second straight win. Landen Lewis was second, then Trevor Huddleston, Tanner Reif and Bradley Erickson. |
Photos are courtesy of Nigel Kinrade Photography, IMSA and Adam Glanzman of ARCA Racing. Have news for Frontstretch? Don't hesitate to let us know; email us at frontstretcheditors@googlegroups.com with a promising lead or tip. |
Around the World in Motorsports: April 21-24 |
- At the Tempelhof in Berlin, the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship held a doubleheader this past weekend. Saturday's Berlin e-Prix No. 1 was a wild race with 20 lead changes, an all-time Formula E
record. Jaguar TCS Racing's Mitch Evans was able to get past teammate Sam Bird with four laps to go and held on for the win. Bird was 1.85 seconds behind in second, then Maximilan Guenther, Sebastien Buemi and Nick Cassidy. Berlin e-Prix No. 2 saw Envision's Cassidy take the lead on lap 25 and hold on to take a deserved victory. He was .442 seconds ahead of Jake Dennis at the finish. Jean-Eric Vergne was third, then Evans and Antonio Felix da Costa. Through eight races, Pascal Wehrlein has a four-point lead over Cassidy. Vergne is third, then Dennis and Evans. - Sunday was the season opener for the European Le Mans Series, the 4 Hours of Barcelona. Here, Racing Team Turkey's Louis
Deletraz was given the black flag with the orange disc (often referred to as "the meatball") due to a rear bodywork issue late. He had to pit to replace it. Once out of the pits, Deletraz was able to run down Duqueine Team's Neel Jani and take the overall lead away with 15 minutes to go. From there,
Deletraz pulled out a comfortable lead to take the victory for himself, Charlie Eastwood and Salih Yoluc. The margin of victory was 2.363 seconds over Jani, Rene Binder and Nico Pino. AF Corse's Ben Barnicoat, Francois Perrodo and Matthieu Vaxiviere were third, then COOL Racing's No. 37 for Alexandre Coigny, Malthe Jakobsen and Nicolas Lapierre. Panis Racing's Miguel Maldonado, Tijmen van der Helm and Job van Uitert rounded out the top five. Sunday was the first time in the European Le Mans Series that the LMP2 class was split into Pro and Pro-Am classes. The Racing Team Turkey squad is a Pro-Am team.
Racing Team Turkey won the LMP2 Pro-Am class by 12.995 seconds over AF Corse. COOL
Racing's No. 37 was third, then Nielsen Racing's Ben Hanley, Mathias Beche and Rodrigo Sales. DKR Engineering's Sebastian Alvarez, Nathaniel Berthon and Tom van Rompuy were fifth.
Duqueine Team in second overall won the LMP2 class by 44.014 seconds over Panis Racing. IDEC Sport's Paul-Loup Chatin,
Laurents Hoerr and Paul Lafargue were third, then COOL Racing's No. 47 for Reshad de Gerus, Vladislav Lomko and Jose Maria Lopez. Algarve Pro Racing's James Allen, Alex Lynn and Kyffin Simpson were fifth. COOL Racing's No. 17 Ligier JS P320-Nissan for Adrien Chila, Alejandro Garcia and Marcos Siebert
took the victory in the LMP3 class. They were 13.275 seconds ahead of Inter Europol Competition's Kai Askey, Wyatt Brichacek and Miguel Cristovao. Racing Spirit of Leman's Antoine Doquin, Fabien Michel and Jacques Wolff were third, followed by Eurointernational's Adam Ali and Matt Bell. Nielsen Racing's Ryan Harper-Ellam and Anthony Wells were fifth. In the GTE class, Proton Competition's Ryan Hardwick, Alessio Picariello and Zacharie Robichon took the win in their Porsche by 1.408 seconds over Formula Racing's amd Mikkel Mac. JMW Motorsport's Martin Berry, Lorcan Hanafin and Jon Lancaster were a lap down in third, then Iron Lynx's No. 60 Porsche for Matteo Cairoli, Matteo Cressoni and Claudio Schiavoni. Spirit of Race's Duncan Cameron, Matt Griffin and David Perel were
fifth. - The World of Outlaws CASE Construction Late Model Series was at Talladega Short Track over the weekend for two nights of racing. Friday night saw three 20-lap preliminary features. Race No. 1 saw Tanner English take the lead on lap 2 and hold on to win the first feature. Brian Shirley was second, then Drake Troutman, Chris Ferguson and Chris Madden. Race No. 2 saw Kyle Bronson take the lead
on the first lap and lead all 20 en route to the win over Jonathan Davenport. Bobby Pierce was third, then Spencer Hughes and Kyle Larson. Race No. 3 saw Brandon Overton led flag-to-flag to take the win over Gordy Gundaker, Garrett Smith, Todd Cooney and
Brandon Sheppard. Saturday night was the main show, the Alabama Gang 100. Here, Pierce led early before suffering a broken wheel. The broken wheel caused a brake failure, ending Pierce's night. Overton took the lead as a result and held on to win the Alabama Gang 100 and win $50,000. English finished second, then Ryan Gustin, Davenport and Madden. In the points, Madden has an
18-point lead over Bronson through seven races. Gustin is third, then Shirley and Sheppard. - The Super DIRTcar Series opened their points season Sunday night at New Jersey's Bridgeport Motorsports Park. Here, Mat Williamson and Darren Smith battled back and forth for much of the
feature. Williamson briefly led on lap 35 before Smith re-assumed control. With 13 laps to go, Williamson pounced to take the lead away. From there, he held on to win the King of the Big Blocks. Matthew Stangle finished second, then Billy Pauch Jr., Mike Gular and Smith. For more dirt action, check
out Bryan Keith's This Weekend in Dirt at Frontstretch. |
These are examples of the 37 videos that we posted from Talladega to our YouTube channel. For more content from Talladega and from past weekends, please make to subscribe and hit the bell to be notified of future videos! |
Seeking the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs: Christopher Bell Expands Advantage After Late Talladega Crashes
by Phil Allaway
Christopher Bell ran well Sunday in Talladega, but got in the wrong lane late and drifted towards the back. Avoiding the late wrecks boosted him back up to eighth. That allowed Bell to expand his lead up to 12 points over Ross Chastain. Chastain had contact with Aric Almirola on the first Green-White-Checker
attempt, then had to pit, eventually finishing 23rd. Kevin Harvick ran low on fuel late and had to stop, finishing 21st. He stays in third. Kyle Larson was eliminated in the same crash that Chastain was in, but he stays in fourth. Kyle Busch's second
win of the year moved him up three places to fifth. Tyler Reddick recovered from a crash while trying to pit under green to finish 13th, allowing him to stay in sixth. Martin Truex Jr. is down two places to seventh after getting caught up in a crash on the final lap. Ryan Blaney is up two places to eighth after leading the most laps and finishing second. Denny Hamlin and Alex Bowman are now tied for ninth, Bowman finished 13th, while Hamlin was 17th. Bowman wins the tiebreaker. Joey Logano dropped four places to 11th after his lap 184 crash dropped him to 30th. Brad Keselowski finished fifth and stays in 12th. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. finished 16th despite being in the same wreck as Logano and stays in 13th. William Byron is up to 14th after finishing seventh, jumping over Chase Briscoe. Chris Buescher finished third and keeps the final spot in the playoffs. Buescher has an 11-point lead over Daniel Suarez, who finished ninth Sunday. Austin Cindric moved up one place to 18th, while Michael McDowell crashed on lap 2 and ended up 35th, dropping him to 19th. Ty Gibbs had a chance to win, but ran out of gas on the final restart. He is still 20th. Chase Elliott scored the most points Sunday (44), but his 12th-place finish only moved him up one place to 31st. He is currently two full races behind Buescher and has exactly half of Buescher's point total. Point Standings (1-16): 1) Christopher
Bell 331, 2) Ross Chastain -12, 3) Kevin Harvick -20, 4) Kyle Larson -36, 5) Kyle Busch -41, 6) Tyler Reddick -45, 7) Martin Truex Jr. -50, 8) Ryan Blaney -56, t-9) Alex Bowman -61, t-9) Denny Hamlin -61, 11) Joey Logano -63, 12) Brad Keselowski -64, 13) Ricky Stenhouse Jr. -84, 14) William Byron -86, 15) Chase Briscoe -88, 16) Chris Buescher -91.
Note: Drivers in italics are either outside of the playoffs, or ineligible for points. Playoff
Points: 1) Kyle Larson 12, t-2) William Byron -2, t-2) Kyle Busch -2, 4) Tyler Reddick -5, 5) Joey Logano -6, t-6) Christopher Bell -7, t-6) Ricky Stenhouse Jr. -7, 8) Ross Chastain
-9, t-9) Kevin Harvick -11, t-9) Denny Hamlin -11, t-9) Brad Keselowski -11, t-9) Austin Cindric -11, t-9) Aric Almirola -11, t-9) Ryan Preece -11, t-9) Chase Elliott -11. Stage Points: 1) William Byron 92, 2) Kyle Larson -7, 3) Ross
Chastain -11, 4) Kevin Harvick -19, 5) Denny Hamlin -25, 6) Christopher Bell -26, 7) Alex Bowman -29, 8) Tyler Reddick -30, 9) Joey Logano -35, 10) Brad Keselowski -38, 11) Austin Cindric -44, 12) Martin Truex Jr. -47, 13) Ryan Blaney -51, 14) Aric Almirola -57, 15) Ryan Preece -58, 16) Kyle Busch -59.
Outside of the top-16, but in the playoffs: 19) Chris Buescher -61, 20) Chase Briscoe -64, 24) Ricky Stenhouse Jr. -77.
Note: The Stage Points also include the Bluegreen Vacations Duels at Daytona. Old Point Standings (1-16): 1) Christopher Bell
311, 2) Kyle Busch -11, 3) Ross Chastain -25, 4) Kevin Harvick -27, t-5) Ryan Blaney -31, t-5) Martin Truex Jr. -31, 7) Ricky Stenhouse Jr. -38, 8) Tyler Reddick -47, 9) Brad Keselowski
-49, 10) Chase Briscoe -53, t-11) Joey Logano -54, t-11) Alex Bowman -54, 13) Denny Hamlin -55, 14) Kyle Larson -56, 15) Chris Buescher -59, 16) Daniel Suarez -70. Outside of the top 16, but still in the playoffs:
21) William Byron -98. Note: These standings are based on the old point system that was used before stages were created. WC Points (1-16):
1) Christopher Bell 1399, 2) Kyle Busch -58, 3) Ross Chastain -92, 4) Kevin Harvick -110, 5) Ryan Blaney -112, 6) Martin Truex Jr. -132, 7) Ricky Stenhouse Jr. -154, 8) Tyler Reddick -162, 9) Brad Keselowski
-170, 10) Joey Logano -175, 11) Kyle Larson -186, 12) Chase Briscoe -192, 13) Alex Bowman -201, 14) Chris Buescher -214, 15) Denny Hamlin -218, 16) Daniel Suarez -252. Outside the top-16, but still in the playoffs: 23)
William Byron -373. Note No. 1: The WC points are based on the original points system created by Bob Latford in 1975. Race Winners: Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (Daytona), Kyle Busch (Fontana,
Talladega), William Byron (Las Vegas, Phoenix), Joey Logano (Atlanta), Tyler Reddick (Austin), Kyle Larson (Richmond, Martinsville), Christopher Bell (Bristol)
Note: Race wins in Italics do not count
towards playoff eligibility.
Phil Allaway is the Frontstretch newsletter manager. He can be reached at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com. Photo is courtesy of Nigel Kinrade Photography.
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Seeking the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs: Austin Hill Crab-Walks Back Into Points Lead
by Phil Allaway
John Hunter Nemechek spun and hit the inside wall late in Saturday's Ag-Pro 300, ending his day. He ended up finishing 32nd. Austin Hill got caught up in the Big One late and had his rear end knocked askew. He managed to finish the race that way in 18th. That was enough for Hill to retake the points lead. His advantage is four points over Nemechek. Chandler
Smith was eliminated in the Big One, but stays in third and is now only 19 points out of the lead. Riley Herbst is still in fourth. Josh Berry was eliminated in a crash with teammates Justin Allgaier and Sam Mayer, but stays in fifth. Allgaier is sixth, while Cole Custer moved up one place to seventh
after finishing fourth. Sheldon Creed is up two places to eighth after finishing second. Sammy Smith is down two places to ninth after crashing out. Daniel Hemric is down one place to 10th after getting spun out of the lead and deposited on his roof in the Big One. Parker Kligerman is up one place to 11th after finishing third.
He is the last driver in the playoffs on points. Kligerman has a 10-point advantage over Mayer. Jeb Burton's victory moved him up two places to 13th. Brandon Jones is down to 14th, followed by Ryan Sieg. Brett Moffitt, who led the most laps Saturday, is still in 16th. Point Standings (1-16): 1) Austin Hill 328, 2) John Hunter Nemechek -4, 3) Chandler Smith -19, 4) Riley Herbst -32, 5) Josh Berry -36, 6) Justin Allgaier -41, 7) Cole Custer
-49, 8) Sheldon Creed -52, 9) Sammy Smith -70, 10) Daniel Hemric -73, 11) Parker Kligerman -81, 12) Sam Mayer -91, 13) Jeb Burton -99, 14) Brandon Jones -104, 15) Ryan Sieg -119, 16) Brett Moffitt
-134. Playoff Points: 1) Austin Hill 18, 2) John Hunter Nemechek -5, t-3) Chandler Smith -12, t-3) Jeb Burton -12, 5) Sammy Smith -13, 6) Justin Allgaier -14, 7) Cole Custer -16, t-8) Josh Berry
-17, t-8) Sheldon Creed -17, t-8) Parker Kligerman -17. Note: If he were eligible for Xfinity Series points, AJ Allmendinger would be tied for third in playoff points. Stage Points: 1) Riley Herbst
79, 2) Austin Hill -1, 3) Sheldon Creed -2, 4) Justin Allgaier -5, 5) Chandler Smith -7, 6) John Hunter Nemechek -11, 7) Cole Custer -17, 8) Josh Berry -24, t-9) Sammy Smith
-27, t-9) Brandon Jones -27, 11) Daniel Hemric -29, 12) Sam Mayer -35, 13) Parker Kligerman -43, 14) Jeb Burton -54, 15) Ryan Sieg -60, 16) Brett Moffitt -62. Note: If he were eligible for points, Kyle Busch would be 15th in stage points. Old Point Standings (1-16): 1) John Hunter Nemechek 299, 2) Austin Hill -8, 3) Chandler Smith -20, 4) Josh Berry
-21, 5) Cole Custer -42, 6) Riley Herbst -44, 7) Justin Allgaier -48, 8) Parker Kligerman -49, 9) Sammy Smith -53, 10) Daniel Hemric -57, 11) Jeb Burton -59, 12) Sheldon Creed -60, 13) Sam Mayer
-67, 14) Ryan Sieg -72, 15) Brett Moffitt -84, 16) Parker Retzlaff -86. WC Points (1-16): 1) John Hunter Nemechek 1326, 2) Austin Hill
-46, 3) Josh Berry -78, 4) Chandler Smith -81, 5) Justin Allgaier -152, 6) Cole Custer -158, 7) Riley Herbst -168, 8) Parker Kligerman -186, 9) Sammy Smith -190, 10) Sheldon Creed -208, 11) Daniel Hemric
-214, 12) Jeb Burton -238, 13) Sam Mayer -241, 14) Ryan Sieg -276, 15) Brett Moffitt -308, 16) Parker Retzlaff -312. Race Winners: Austin Hill (Daytona, Las Vegas, Atlanta), John Hunter Nemechek
(Fontana, Martinsville)), Sammy Smith (Phoenix), AJ Allmendinger (Austin), Chandler Smith (Richmond), Jeb Burton (Talladega) Phil Allaway is the Frontstretch newsletter manager. He can be reached at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com. Photo is courtesy of Nigel Kinrade Photography.
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Seeking the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Playoffs: Off-Week Edition No. 3
by Phil Allaway
The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series was off last weekend. They will return to action May 6 at Kansas
Speedway. When the season resumes, ThorSport Racing's Ty Majeski will have a 26-point lead in the standings
over Zane Smith. Ben Rhodes is third, then Corey Heim and Christian Eckes. At the cut-off, ninth-place Matt DiBenedetto is the last driver in the playoffs on points. He has an
11-point advantage over both Nick Sanchez and Chase Purdy. Jake Garcia is 12th, then Texas winner Carson Hocevar. Point Standings (1-16): 1) Ty Majeski
301, 2) Zane Smith -26, 3) Ben Rhodes -49, 4) Corey Heim -71, 5) Christian Eckes -72, 6) Grant Enfinger -90, 7) Matt Crafton -92, 8) Tanner Gray -100, 9) Matt DiBenedetto -116, t-10) Nick Sanchez
-127, t-10) Chase Purdy -127, 12) Jake Garcia -149, 13) Carson Hocevar -151, 14) Stewart Friesen -152, 15) Hailie Deegan -159, 16) Tyler Ankrum -162.
Note: Drivers in italics are either outside of the playoffs, or ineligible for the playoffs
Playoff Points: 1) Zane
Smith 11, 2) Christian Eckes -3, 3) Corey Heim -4, 3) Carson Hocevar -5, 4) Nick Sanchez -9, t-3) Matt Crafton -10, t-3) Tyler Ankrum -10. Note: If he were eligible for playoff points, Joey Logano would be tied for third with seven points, while Kyle Busch would be tied for fifth with six. Stage Points: 1) Ty Majeski 77, 2) Zane Smith -7, 3) Christian Eckes -11, 4) Ben Rhodes -20, 5) Matt Crafton -22, t-6) Corey Heim
-35, t-6) Matt DiBenedetto -35, 8) Nick Sanchez -42, 9) Grant Enfinger -44, 10) Tanner Gray -48, t-11) Chase Purdy -53, t-11) Stewart Friesen -53, 13) Carson Hocevar -54, 14) Tyler Ankrum
-59, 15) Hailie Deegan -60, 16) Dean Thompson -65. Note: If they were eligible for stage points, Kyle Busch would be ninth and Joey Logano 15th. Old Point Standings (1-16): 1) Ty Majeski 199, 2) Zane Smith
-19, 3) Ben Rhodes -29, 4) Corey Heim -36, 5) Grant Enfinger -48, 6) Tanner Gray -55, 7) Christian Eckes -60, 8) Matt Crafton -70, 9) Jake Garcia -72, 10) Chase Purdy -73, 11) Nick Sanchez -81, 12) Matt DiBenedetto -83, 13) Carson Hocevar
-95, 14) Hailie Deegan -99, 15) Stewart Friesen -101, t-16) Tyler Ankrum -104, t-16) Colby Howard -104. WC Points (1-16): 1) Ty Majeski 1105, 2) Zane Smith -71, 3) Ben Rhodes -116, 4) Corey Heim
-143, 5) Grant Enfinger -186, 6) Tanner Gray -199, 7) Christian Eckes -208, 8) Matt Crafton -256, 9) Chase Purdy -265, 10) Nick Sanchez -287, 11) Matt DiBenedetto -297, 12) Jake Garcia -327, 13) Carson
Hocevar -343, 14) Stewart Friesen -350, 15) Tyler Ankrum -360, t-16) Colby Howard -361, t-16) Hailie Deegan -361. Race Winners: Zane Smith (Daytona, Austin), Kyle Busch (Las Vegas), Christian Eckes (Atlanta), Carson Hocevar (Texas), Joey Logano (Bristol), Corey Heim (Martinsville)
Phil Allaway is the Frontstretch newsletter manager. He can be reached at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com. Photo is courtesy of Nigel Kinrade Photography.
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Letter of the Race: Sunday's GEICO 500 was brought to you by the letter A for Adventurous. The previous eight superspeedway races with
the Next Gen car saw teams unable to truly make a third lane work at any time and drivers would fall off the back of the draft easily. That wasn't necessarily the case Sunday, allowing drivers to be a bit more aggressive. - Phil Allaway |
Quotes to Remember: GEICO
500 compiled by Phil Allaway
"Sometimes you gotta be lucky. Some of these races comes down to that, and you have
to take them when they come your way. The seas kind of parted there when they went up the racetrack. They were trying push draft, and these cars just aren’t stable enough to do that. I saw [Bubba Wallace] just turn a little bit sideways and I was like, ‘Get out of the way.’ Just missed it and tried to see if I was
ahead of [Ryan Blaney] when it was called. "[The car] shut off here when I was trying to do a burnout so maybe it’s out [of fuel]. I went left instead of right. The fuel-pickup is on the right so maybe I ran it out. We were sweating it being close. I thought back to California and Fontana earlier this year where we have a
win, and I’m like we have to gamble. We’re up here, you have to take the track position when you have it and go give it what you can on the restart and see what happens. Lo and behold, it worked out." - Kyle Busch, race winner
"The Fords were
quick. We did a good job working together, but it’s unfortunate we got a little separated there with [Kevin Harvick] having to pit and [Aric Almirola] having a right front [tire go] flat. I think we worked great together… just I think [Ty Gibbs] ran out of gas at the restart zone and kind of hurt our lane. By the time we got back up there, we tried to make every run we could. It’s a fast car, just a shame not to win. This is a completely separate race than anywhere else, so you take it for what
it's worth, get ready to go for the next speedway. Hopefully, the momentum carries over." - Ryan Blaney, finished second "It was a good finish for our Fastenal Mustang. It was not as much fun on the day as I expected. Just really hard to make any moves – lanes just stalled out, handing
didn’t seem to come into play. I don’t know if it was temperatures or what. Just not as much movement as we hoped… just thought we’d have more opportunities there. Everybody worked hard and got us up there in the end. We had enough fuel, and threw some good strategy in there. We were in the hunt for it. I wanted to see the lap play out. I felt like we had a good run up-top, but looking back I don’t think we had any help either. I don’t know. At the end of the day, it was a good finish. The race
itself wasn’t as much fun as I was hoping for, for us." - Chris Buescher, finished third "Wild day. I made a huge mistake coming to pit road. We’re two laps down, and then we were one and was going to get the lucky dog at the end of stage two, and then [Joey] Logano had that speeding
penalty and barely got us for the lucky dog. It was a battle all day long – very similar to how we kind of were at the end of last year, just continuing to fight and keep doing everything we could to try to maximize our day. At the end, find ourselves up there and in the top-five. I would have loved to have a little bit more, but if you told me we were going to finish fourth there –at any point of the race really, even there with 20 [laps] to go. We were so stuck in the back and couldn’t really
do anything. So, cool to get this Mahindra ‘Old Goat’ car in the top-five and looking forward to next week." - Chase Briscoe, finished fourth
"We could just never get track position. Felt like we had a car that could win this race if we could get to the front, but we could never get to the front with all the pit
cycles and everything. It just kept cycling us back, and it was really frustrating. Towards the end when we got to the front, I feel like if [Bubba Wallace] didn’t spin, we were in a spot to win the race, pushing [Kyle Busch] down the back-stretch. It’s just not the way the cookies crumbled." - Brad Keselowski, finished fifth
"It was kind of an up and down day. We weren’t really running how we wanted to during the day. But obviously there at the end some attrition got us toward the front. I felt like our car was good and that the Air Force Chevy had speed. We just weren’t up there to show it. We’ll take it, thought. A [sixth-place finish] is obviously a strong run. I was hoping to come here and have a good day for us and get us rolling with some momentum to Dover and forward. We’re on to some good
tracks for us, so hopefully we can repeat the same next week – bring a good car and kind of keep this momentum rolling." - Erik Jones, finished sixth "There’s so much to be proud of. We had a great race car and ran up front – led, was in position all day, and then just Ross [Chastain]
doing Ross things on that restart. Wiped out the right side of our car, and either broke something in the right-front suspension or had the right-front tire go flat. So, it took a race car that had a great shot to win and crashed. That part is frustrating. But, we have a lot to be proud of. Drew [Blickensderfer] and these guys gave us an unbelievable speedway car again, and we keep showing up to these places with an opportunity to win. The last few weeks we’ve had really fast race cars and ran
up front, so at some point we’re going to convert and win us one." - Aric Almirola, finished 20th "I’m good. It was a really solid day for our Wendy’s Biggie Bag team and Legacy Motor
Club. This No. 42 team was really on top of it today. Good pit stops and a fast car there in the race. I felt like we were in a good position restarting on the front row on a green-white-checkered. I got kind of shoved out there and bobbled a little bit by [Ross Chastain]. I just gotta look back and see what I could do better. Obviously not let [Chastain] get inside me. Overall, it was a good day
until it wasn’t. The results have sucked here lately, but we’ve been running strong. We ran in the top-five, the top 10 all day and I’m really proud of that. I appreciate Wendy’s and everybody coming out to Talladega and all the fans. We’re close. We’ll get there one day." - Noah Gragson, finished 32nd (Crashed out) "Thankfully I’m OK but my car is absolutely destroyed. The cockpit’s a mess. I’m just thankful that I’m alright and all that. It’s just a bummer. We put ourselves in position once again on a superspeedway and the results don’t show it. Another wreck not of my doing on a superspeedway. I just hate it but we’ll keep getting better, and
eventually it’ll have to work out I would think." - Kyle Larson, finished 33rd (Crashed out)
Phil Allaway is the Frontstretch newsletter manager. He can be reached at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com. Photo is courtesy of Nigel Kinrade Photography.
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