Who… should you be talking about after the race?
If not for one overzealous block coming to the checkers, you might be talking about Michael McDowell, who started on pole and was leading coming to the final flag. But this is Talladega Superspeedway we’re talking about. McDowell fended off one charge from runner-up Brad Keselowski but couldn’t quite do it a second time and spun off the nose of the No. 6.
Enter Tyler Reddick, who had looked to be out of the running just yards before the finish. Reddick took advantage of McDowell’s spin, slowing the drivers behind him just enough for him so squeeze the No. 45 past them to take the GEICO 500 win over Keselowski.
Reddick finished in the top 10 in the opening stages and led five times for a total of 13 laps, including the money lap. It’s Reddick’s first win of 2024 and sixth of his career.
Also, team owner Michael Jordan hand-delivered Reddick’s son, Beau, to Victory Lane. That’s a memory and a half.
And don’t forget Noah Gragson. Gragson has a tendency to be overaggressive, so his late run, pushing Keselowski hard at the front, looked like a disaster in the making.
But it wasn’t.
Gragson was aggressive but didn’t lose his head, keeping his car under him in the late melee and finishing a career-best third. Gragson’s day was part of a very solid effort by Stewart-Haas Racing overall. Chase Briscoe finished 12th after leading three laps early, Ryan Preece had some laps in the top five as well, finishing 14th, and Josh Berry was also in the top-five mix on the final lap but was caught in the crash and wound up 16th.
What… is the big question leaving this race in the rearview?
Fans and drivers alike took to social media after the disappearance of the scoring pylons at both Talladega and the previous race at Texas Motor Speedway — and they weren’t happy.
The tracks are owned by different entities. NASCAR, which owns Talladega, said that the scoring pylons, which display the running order but nothing else, are “old and outdated,” stating that they’d rather fans look at the big screens or even at their phones to determine where their drivers are running.
That might make an iota of sense at Texas, where the “Big Hoss” screen is easily visible from everywhere, including outer space, but not every track has a screen that big or easily visible from every seat. That’s if they showed more than four drivers at a time,…
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