Ricky Stenhouse Jr. is a very capable superspeedway racer. His first-ever Cup win came at a drafting track, along with his second, and his third, and now his fourth. Two Cup wins at Talladega and two at Daytona since moving to the series full-time over a decade ago, including a dramatic victory in the 2023 Daytona 500.
But Talladega almost ended very differently for Stenhouse, who crossed the finish line with an obvious hole in the door after getting clobbered by the spinning Austin Cindric in a massive 20+ car crash before the final restart. He kept it straight as the field piled up in his rearview mirror. He went on to win the race over Brad Keselowski to his inside and William Byron to his outside, and the margin of the victory was only 0.006s.
"When the 24 [Byron] jumped out to the outside, it was like a parachute hit my car," explained Stenhouse. "I was just hoping that we would get to the start-finish line before them. It was a drag race at that point. When I got to the back stretch, they were pretty confident that we had won, and a big sigh of relief for sure."
Another factor that played a role in his victory was the fact that it was three Chevrolets versus one Ford (Keselowski). Despite that, Kyle Larson still gave Keselowski enough of a shove that he got clear of Stenhouse exiting Turn 4. To the surprise of many including the race winner, Keselowski chose not to block Stenhouse and Byron as the outside line surged forward in the final seconds of the race.
To block or not to block
"I was really shocked," said Stenhouse. "I was waiting for the block, and I was going to decide whether I was clear enough to get to his inside and get in front of the 5 [Larson] or hang a right and take our momentum with the 24 [Byron]. Yeah, I was super shocked that he didn't make that right-hand."
Earlier this year, Michael McDowell tried to block from the lead at Talladega, which ended with him losing the race and crashing into the wall. Keselowski, a veteran superspeedway racer with more wins at Talladega than any other active driver, later explained that he knew the Chevrolets would stick together and he didn't want to get split coming to the line.
Stenhouse would have handled things differently, declaring that he "was going to block anybody. I didn't care who it was." Kyle Busch, who got into a physical altercation with Stenhouse earlier this year, tried to make a third line work in those final moments, but ended up falling back. In the end, Stenhouse just needed to stay exactly where he was on restart to capture the checkered flag.
"It's so tough to win these races. It's so tough to miss the wrecks, put yourself in the right position with enough fuel. These races are kind of chaos when it comes down to the end. I was thankful that we had a successful green-white-checkered without having another caution. It's been a long time since we've been able to do that in the Cup Series, so that was kind of nice.
"I always obviously feel confident coming back to a place that we've won at before and a superspeedway where we always feel pretty confident in our race car ... We've lost a couple here by inches, so it was cool to win one."
The win obviously meant a lot to him. That was very apparent from his rapid ascent up the catch-fencing before climbing into the flag stand to the roar of the crowd. Not only was this his first victory since February, 2023, but it was his first since becoming a father too. He was able to FaceTime with his wife Madyson and his infant son Stetson after the race, but he was 'bummed' that they weren't there to celebrate in-person.
Stenhouse is the third non-playoff driver to win in the last four weeks, and did so by putting JTG in Victory Lane for just the third time in the team's 15-year history.
