What happened?
After two late crashes forced double overtime in Sunday’s (April 23) race at Talladega Superspeedway, Ryan Blaney led the field to the green with two laps to go while everyone was running on fumes.
Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin and Ross Chastain had to pit for fuel before the final restart, while Ty Gibbs and Aric Almirola both ran dry on the penultimate lap while running in the top five.
With cars running out of gas left and right, the still-running cars had to scramble their way through the twists and turns of Talladega before roaring across the trioval to take the white flag.
Blaney had lost momentum after Gibbs ran out on the restart and that allowed Bubba Wallace and Kyle Busch to enter the foray out front. Wallace took the white flag as the leader, but a hard-charging Blaney was soon on his back bumper heading into turn 1.
Wallace tried to block the No. 12 heading into the turn to preserve his spot as the leader, but a bump by Blaney ultimately sent Wallace down the racetrack and spinning in front of the pack in a crash that took out at least 10 cars.
Busch had cleared Wallace and Blaney before the contact, and he had just enough gas remaining to take the yellow and checkered flags for his 62nd career NASCAR Cup Series win, his second of the 2023 season and his first at Talladega since 2008.
But what really happened?
The 2023 GEICO 500 was the latest chapter in a story that has been seen far too often at Daytona International Speedway and Talladega in recent years: a clean, well-raced 95% followed by a destructive demolition derby in the final five.
Side-by-side racing and a textbook pass by Almirola to win stage two over Chase Elliott were the biggest highlights of the first 130 laps, and not a single car was out of the race until a lap 142 crash put Zane Smith and Austin Dillon behind the wall.
Twenty-one of the 38 drivers in the field took a turn out in front of the pack and with the laps winding down, it was Blaney who found himself out front. The laps continued to count down, and with five laps to go, the race looked to be a matter of whether someone would be able to run the No. 12 car down and cruise on by.
And then, to the surprise of absolutely no one, the finish became a game of restarts.
A bad bump by Corey LaJoie turned Joey Logano in front of the field with five to go, setting up the first overtime attempt.
Noah Gragson restarted on the outside of Blaney, but Gragson was…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at …