Ryan Blaney and Bubba Wallace are past winners at Talladega Superspeedway, and both found themselves with a chance to add another trophy to their collection during the second overtime at the end of Sunday’s GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.
They both left the track empty-handed and still seeking a win to qualify them for the playoffs. On the final lap of Sunday’s race, an attempted block by Wallace turned the No. 23 around, triggering multiple crashes deeper in the field that necessitated a caution that ended the race.
“I hate it, I caused that one,” Wallace said. “I thought it would play out a little differently, obviously, and not getting wrecked. I thought the move would happen coming off of 2. The way we were shoving and pushing, we were kind of getting each other out of whack.
“Close, close, close block, and I honestly thought that he would leave me high and dry coming back around. Just hate it for the team. That’s just how it goes,” Wallace added.
The biggest beneficiary of the late-race contact was clearly Kyle Busch, who emerged with his second win of the season.
“Bubba went to block and you can’t make it more than one turn without being pushed,” Busch said.
Blaney, a two-time winner at Talladega, has now finished second in the last two races at the 2.66-mile track.
“It was nice to have a decent finish, even though you’re bummed you didn’t win. You run second here, there’s a good and bad, to it, right? You could run 32nd two years in a row,” Blaney said. “It stinks to be really close to one, but we’ll take good finishes on to next week and see what next week holds.”
As for what he could have done differently in the final laps?
“There’s nothing I could do differently,” Blaney said. “Block three times, that’s what’s going to happen.”
Blaney got the finish despite not having a strong push late from Erik Jones, who he was able to link up with for a better part of the final stage. Jones, ended up sixth.
“Me and Erik were great in the third stage, the car was fast, and we were kind of able to hold the second lane at bay while I was also saving fuel with the leaders. We kind of picked our spots really well, he and I, when to go and not to go,” Blaney said. “He actually didn’t run out of gas, he actually had a right front go down when he hit the wall, he told me. It was a shame losing him as the pusher, but we did a great job together all…
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