Who … should you be talking about after the race?
Kyle Busch led just three laps during Sunday’s GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway (April 23) and never led more than one lap in a row. But he led the last one, ignoring his crew chief’s call to pit for fuel and surviving two overtime restarts to win for the 62nd time in his career.
Talladega is a track where patience is as important as anything, and Lady Luck often plays a hand in the final rundown. Busch clearly had her favor on Sunday, staying on track despite being so low on fuel that his car shut off before he had the chance to do a celebratory burnout. He played the long game well, positioning himself near the front but not doing anything to get himself involved in any of the late incidents that, one by one, took other drivers with strong cars out of contention.
And don’t forget RFK Racing. Brad Keselowski and Chris Buescher were among the favorites to win Sunday after a strong season debut at Daytona, but both struggled early on Sunday, dropping to the back of the pack and staying there for most of the day. It appeared that they were playing the strategy game of laying back to avoid trouble, but neither seemed to be able to move up as the laps wound down.
But then, as the race entered overtime, there they were. Keselowski made a bid for the win on the final restart before falling back to fifth. Meanwhile, Buescher saw a window as mayhem erupted coming to the checkered flag and drove his way to a third-place finish that looked out of the question earlier in the day.
What … is the big question leaving this race weekend in the rearview?
Sunday’s race started off relatively tame, but the weekend at Talladega was far from tame as Saturday’s action featured a number of scary-looking incidents including two cars getting airborne during the Xfinity Series race. As of race time Sunday, NXS driver Blaine Perkins was still in the hospital for observation following his car getting sent into the air and then flipping several times.
A separate incident left Daniel Hemric’s car on its roof until safety crews could set it upright so that Hemric could climb out. Riley Herbst sounded confused and foggy in an interview after being released from infield care.
The Cup drivers saved their chaos until the closing laps, but when it happened, the hits were big. Ryan Preece’s collision with Kyle Larson on the first overtime attempt was brutal; Preece called it…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at …