By David Morgan, Associate Editor
TALLADEGA, Ala. – It has been a long wait for Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. to make his return to Victory Lane in a NASCAR Cup Series race, but he’ll have to wait no longer after Sunday’s YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.
Despite starting back in 32nd place, Stenhouse channeled his previous superspeedway luck in working his way forward, finishing the first stage in second-place and hanging around in the lead pack for much of the day until it came down to go time.
After battling with Austin Cindric in the late stages of the race, with the two trading the lead back and forth, Stenhouse was able to come away with superficial damage to his No. 47 JTG Daugherty Chevrolet and asserted himself as the driver to beat when the 24-car melee brought out the red flag and pushed the race into overtime.
Lining up against another superspeedway ace in Brad Keselowski for the overtime restart, Stenhouse used a push from William Byron to hold steady with the six-time Talladega winner for almost the entirety of overtime.
One final shove from Byron entering the tri-oval for the final time was all he needed to get clear of Keselowski as they stormed toward the checkered. Both Keselowski and Byron would fan out on either side of Stenhouse at the line, but the Olive Branch, Miss. Native had enough momentum to edge out ahead of them both.
The margin of victory would be 0.006 seconds to break Stenhouse’s 65-race winless streak dating back to the 2023 Daytona 500.
“It felt really good. We had our Chevy teammates behind us, and I was hoping Kyle wasn’t going to push the 6 that hard. I knew the 24 was probably going to try and get to the line there,” said Stenhouse.
“But, man, this team has put a lot of hard work in. Obviously, we haven’t won since the 500 in ’23. It’s been an up-and-down season.
“It was a lot of hard work this season just trying to find a little bit of speed, but we knew that this track is one of ours to come get. So, for all of our Mississippi people, appreciate you all coming. This means a lot, winning here.”
Keselowski would finish as the runner-up for the second time this season at Talladega, with Byron finishing the race in third, accumulating enough points to lock himself into the Round of 8 ahead of next Sunday’s elimination race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL.
“(Larson) gave me a good push down the frontstrech, but the 24 was able to really stick…
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