By Aaron Bearden
After each NASCAR race weekend, Motorsports Beat will share a piece breaking down the stories and takeaways from the weekend. This is a report on NASCAR’s April voyage to Talladega Superspeedway.
NASCAR Cup Series
Race: Geico 500
Track: Talladega Superspeedway
Who Won?
Ross Chastain, scoring his second win of the young 2022 season.
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Ross Stays in Line
Ross Chastain couldn’t believe his luck.
Often times a late pass for the win at Talladega Superspeedway comes down to a big run and a bold move. But at the end of Sunday’s Geico 500, all Chastain has to do was keep his No. 1 Chevrolet pinned to the bottom.
The seas parted from there. Drivers ahead jumped up the track to block or pass and slowed, allowing Chastain to cruise to his second Cup Series win.
WOW! @RossChastain gets to the lead late to win at @TALLADEGA! pic.twitter.com/Db5rGpN1Ti
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) April 24, 2022
“Holy cow, we didn’t do anything,’’ Chastain radioed to his team on the cooldown lap. “We just stayed down there.’’
The move, or lack thereof, was a simple one from Chastain. But it stemmed from a lesson he’d learned in prior years at superspeedways.
“I’m always the one going to the top too early and making the mistake and there at the end,” he admitted. “With like eight (laps) to go I was like ‘I’m not going up there again, I did that a couple times today,’
“I was like, I’ll just drive the bottom, I’m not going to lose the race for us. They just kept going up and moving out of the way.”
His victory came at the expense of the former leaders, Erik Jones and Kyle Larson.
Jones had been at the front of the freight train over the final laps, seemingly poised to score his first victory since moving to Petty GMS Motorsports in 2021. But coming out of Turn 4, Jones let himself get a bit too far out in front of the field.
That allowed Larson to get a run on him entering the trioval.
But despite being a Cup champion, Larson found himself in a position he hasn’t really been in at a drafting-focused race. So when he saw an opportunity to pass, the Californian jumped well to the outside in an attempt to make the long way around Jones.
In doing so he hit a charging Kurt Busch and lost momentum. Larson did pass the blocking Jones, but the pair lost so much pace that they allowed the trio of Chastain, Austin Dillon and Kyle Busch to shoot past them on the bottom.
Larson admitted to making a mistake in his judgement afterward.
“I should have, like … just kind of faked going high then went back low,” Larson said. “I had that run. Ross helped me with that run. It kind of baited me into going to the outside; just a little inexperience probably there.”
Jones spent the moments after the race apologizing to his team after watching a potential win slip away.
“Obviously, if I would have known the bottom had that much steam, I would have stuck with it and hoped the No. 1 [Chastain] has to push me,” Jones admitted afterward. “It’s frustrating. You work that hard for 500 miles and it comes down to the last few thousand feet.”
The moods for the two losing drivers were as different as their circumstances. Disappointment stung for them both. But Larson had the benefit of a lesson learned with little cost, having already earned a win to put himself in a good playoff position beforehand.
“Honestly that’s the first time I’ve had a legit shot at winning a plate race in the Cup Series,” Larson said. “(I’m) happy about that.
“I was in the exact position I wanted to be in; I didn’t want to be leading. I felt like I did a good job with patience and stuff. I made one small mistake there, and it cost me the win.”
For Jones and the Petty GMS squad, the loss meant much more. As one of the midpack teams currently, Talladega is one of the wild card tracks that Jones can circle as a place to potentially win his way into the postseason.
Failing to do so when a victory was within his grasp could be the difference in competing for a title this fall or not. But Jones remains confident that his No. 43 team could have more opportunities in the future.
“We’ll go to Dover next weekend and hope we’ll have another opportunity,” he said. “I know we can win at non-superspeedways. We just have to put the parts and the pieces in place to do it.”
Good, if Not Great
On the heels of an exciting Daytona 500 and an eventful showing in the first drafting-focused race at Atlanta Motor Speedway, there were high hopes for the Next Gen car at Talladega Superspeedway.
It largely delivered on them, though there may be some room for improvement.
The race played out in typical Talladega fashion, which is a good thing overall. Drivers’ aggression levels ebbed and flowed, rising near the stage endings and proving more tame in the middle stages of the event. There was the traditional tense finish, including a lead change in the final 2,000 feet.
Stage 3 went caution-free but ended with a massive crash for Kurt Busch and Bubba Wallace – one both drivers thankfully emerged safely from. There were a few sizable crashes early on, limiting the field to fewer than 30 cars for the run to the finish, but none of them were the traditional field-clearing accidents known as the ‘Big One.’
The lack of crashing before the last lap of the final stage could be a symptom of the Next Gen car’s biggest struggle – it was difficult for many in the field to pass.
“It was just hard to pass all day,” third-place finisher Kyle Busch said. “Really there at the end if two lanes were formed and they were pushing, there wasn’t really enough for a third lane to form to get any speed going. It was just kind of a stuck in line, if you will, in the first few lanes,
Last year’s Daytona 500 champion, Michael McDowell, felt the same way.
“It (was) just so hard to pass today,” he said. “It was hard to make moves from sixth or seventh to the lead. In the front row, everybody was just kind of jammed up.
“It is just a different style of racing even more so here than it was at Daytona with this Next Gen car.”
Notes
- Sunday’s ending couldn’t have gone much worse for Denny Hamlin. Not only did he run out of gas in the final laps, but both of his 23XI Racing cars wound up junked by a crash coming to the start-finish line. Wallace appeared shaken ups afterward, but was ultimately cleared from the infield care center.
- If you haven’t already, do yourself. favor and look at Talladega’s annual “left behind” thread.
- Austin Dillon hasn’t been the Richard Childress Racing driver making the most noise early in 2022, but he’s been strong in his own right. Dillon earned his third top-five on Sunday, one short of tying his personal best mark of four from 2016 and 2020.
- Noah Gragson made his fourth Cup Series start with Beard Motorsports, surviving to the finish for a career-best result of 20th. Baby steps…
Geico 500 Results
- Ross Chastain
- Austin Dillon
- Kyle Busch
- Kyle Larson
- Martin Truex Jr.
- Erik Jones
- Chase Elliott
- Michael McDowell
- Alex Bowman
- Kevin Harvick
- Ryan Blaney
- Justin Haley
- Aric Almirola
- Corey LaJoie
- William Byron
- Kurt Busch
- Bubba Wallace
- Denny Hamlin
- Landon Cassill
- Noah Gragson
- Austin Cindric
- Christopher Bell
- Brad Keselowski
- David Ragan
- JJ Yeley
- BJ McLeod
- Todd Gilliland
- Cody Ware
- Cole Custer
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
- Daniel Suarez
- Joey Logano
- Ty Dillon
- Harrison Burton
- Greg Biffle
- Daniel Hemric
- Chase Briscoe
- Chris Buescher
- Tyler Reddick
Stage 1
- Bubba Wallace
- Kyle Larson
- Christopher Bell
- William Byron
- Martin Truex Jr.
- Chase Elliott
- Kurt Busch
- Erik Jones
- Alex Bowman
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
Stage 2
- William Byron
- Chase Elliott
- Kyle Larson
- Martin Truex Jr.
- Alex Bowman
- Kyle Busch
- Aric Almirola
- Erik Jones
- Ross Chastain
- Kurt Busch
Next Up: The season’s lone trip to the Monster Mile, Dover Motor Speedway, on May 1.
NASCAR Xfinity Series
Race: Ag-Pro 300
Track: Talladega Superspeedway
Who Won?
Noah Gragson, after a lucky break and surge to the lead in the final overtime.
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Gragson Keeps Rolling
Noah Gragson lined up for the last restart as the second car in the outside lane. But when JR Motorsports teammate Justin Allgaier ran out of fuel, Gragson quickly took advantage to score his second win of the 2022 season.
In the third overtime of of a race that stretched well beyond the scheduled distance, Gragson was able to power to the lead from the outside and keep all comers at bay over the final lap. A three-wide battle for second kept anyone from gaining momentum, allowing Gragson to effectively cruise through the last circuit with few necessary blocks.
He took the checkered flag .131s clear of Jeffrey Earnhardt for his second superspeedway win. This one was credited to his team, who never gave up amid a difficult day and celebrated with Gragson by climbing the catch fence afterward.
“There was one point where I said, ‘I can’t get up there. We just don’t have the car fast enough’” Gragson admitted. “But we never quit. That’s the most important thing.
“I’m so grateful for all these race fans out there. We’re at Talladega baby! Listen to them! I’m supposed to race tomorrow in the Cup race but Talladega Boulevard sounds a lot better right now to celebrate.”
The result was Gragson’s seventh-career victory, giving him multiple wins for the third-straight season. It served as the continuation of a breakout 2022 campaign, where he sits second in points and has established himself among the early title contenders alongside Ty Gibbs and AJ Allmendinger.
A Fitting Homage
Call it a publicity stunt if you want, but Jeffrey Earnhardt was given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity on Saturday at Talladega Superspeedway.
Piloting a black No. 3 Chevrolet. For Richard Childress Racing. With Larry McReynolds atop the box. At Talladega.
Earnhardt country.
He took full advantage of the chance.
With the clear homage to his grandfather, seven-time Cup Series champion Dale Earnhardt, Jeffrey delivered the best run of his NASCAR career in Alabama.
The fourth-generation driver qualified on pole, avoided the crashes that eliminated teammates Austin Hill and Sheldon Creed among others and stayed within sight of the front.
He lined up eighth for the final restart, benefitted from Allgaier running out of fuel and then made the right moves to rise to second on the final lap. Earnhardt emerged off of Turn 4 needing only to chase down Gragson for the win, but didn’t have the help he needed to get the last spot.
So he settled for second – a bittersweet result, but the best finish of Earnhardt’s 136 Xfinity Series starts. It came at the end of an emotional weekend, behind a car owned by his uncle, Dale Earnhardt Jr.
A dream come true, even if it didn’t have the desired result in the end.
“I feel like I’ve proved myself in the past,” Earnhardt said. “Hopefully this will prove that much even more. But I’m just very, very thankful for this opportunity and I don’t know that I can ever say thank you enough to everyone that’s given it to me.”
The race ending was a dramatic conclusion to a feel-good story, pieced together by Richard Childress Racing in the final weeks leading up to Saturday’s race. Earnhardt’s opportunity was announced 11 days earlier on April 12. McReynolds, the crew chief for Dale Earnhardt when he won his lone Daytona 500 in 1998, was officially added to the fold six days before the race. It was his first race as a crew chief since 2000.
Everything came together for a unique story. Earnhardt just needed to do his part to make it memorable.
In the end he did just that, putting on a thrilling late charge that harkened back to late rallies from others in the Earnhardt family.
“I had feelings on that last lap that there must have been an Earnhardt behind the wheel based on the things he was doing,” McReynolds said. “The apple didn’t roll too far from the dad’s tree or the granddad’s tree.”
Notes
- Ryan Sieg’s attempt to top-10 the field to death saw him score his first top-five of 2022 at Talladega. The fourth-place effort was Sieg’s sixth top-10, one shy of the seven he managed in 2021. He’s halfway to his career-best mark of 12 from 2019.
- Of course that pales in comparison to AJ Allmendinger, whose nine top-10s in as many races thus far have him within 13 top-10s of his 22 from last year. Allmendinger has a ludicrous 4.3 average finish in the season to date, helping him hold the early points lead.
- Jeffrey Earnhardt’s runner-up run was just his second top-five in 135 Xfinity Series starts. The prior came in his short 2019 stint with Joe Gibbs Racing, where Earnhardt snagged a third-place run at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
- A quiet eighth-place effort for Joe Graf Jr. was the best result of his career to date.
- Drew Dollar also earned the best result of his young Xfinity Series career, finishing 13th in his second start for Joe Gibbs Racing.
- Emerling-Gase Motorsports also quietly had what may have been its best day to date in NASCAR’s second series, finishing 14th and 16th with Shane Lee and Joey Gase, respectively.
- Chandler Smith made his Xfinity Series debut on Saturday with Sam Hunt Racing. Unfortunately for Smith, it wasn’t a warm welcome. The Georgian wound up classified in last after an early crash.
- Myatt Snider picked up his second top-10 of the year for Jordan Anderson Racing on Saturday, finishing ninth. Snider’s been feast or famine thus far, either finishing inside of the top-10 or outside of the top-20 in each 2022 start.
Ag-Pro 300 Results
- Noah Gragson
- Jeffrey Earnhardt
- AJ Allmendinger
- Ryan Sieg
- Landon Cassill
- Anthony Alfredo
- Riley Herbst
- Joe Graf Jr.
- Myatt Snider
- Brett Moffitt
- Josh Berry
- Alex Labbe
- Drew Dollar
- Shane Lee
- Jeb Burton
- Joey Gase
- Bayley Currey
- Kyle Sieg
- Josh Williams
- Ryan Vargas
- Gray Gaulding
- Justin Allgaier
- Jeremy Clements
- Sheldon Creed
- Caesar Bacarella
- Brandon Jones
- Austin Hill
- Sam Mayer
- Kaz Grala
- Brandon Brown
- Matt Mills
- Ryan Ellis
- David Starr
- Daniel Hemric
- Ty Gibbs
- JJ Yeley
- Mason Massey
- Chandler Smith
Stage 1
- Josh Berry
- Ty Gibbs
- AJ Allmendinger
- Landon Cassill
- Austin Hill
- Justin Allgaier
- Noah Gragson
- Anthony Alfredo
- Sam Mayer
- Brett Moffitt
Stage 2
- Justin Allgaier
- Sam Mayer
- Austin Hill
- Brandon Jones
- Ty Gibbs
- Drew Dollar
- Brandon Brown
- Jeffrey Earnhardt
- Myatt Snider
- Jeb Burton
Next Up: A trip to Dover Motor Speedway for the A-Game 200 on April 30.
