LINCOLN, Ala. -- Tyler Reddick capitalized on an ill-timed block by Michael McDowell to win the GEICO 500 at Talladega, taking the lead as McDowell spun in front of the pack trying to protect the lead from Brad Keselowski coming to the checkered flag. It's Reddick's first win of the 2024 season, his first at Talladega, and the sixth win of his Cup career.
Despite the outside line he was leading breaking up on the last lap, the way to victory opened for Tyler Reddick when McDowell threw aggressive blocks on Keselowski, swinging high and then swinging low before spinning off Keselowski's bumper. As McDowell's spin triggered The Big One, Reddick snuck to Keselowski's outside and flatfooted the final yards back to the checkered flag as the carnage -- including Corey LaJoie crossing the finish line on his side -- behind him unfolded.
GEICO 500 unofficial results
1 - #45 - Tyler Reddick
2 - #6 - Brad Keselowski
3 - #10 - Noah Gragson
4 - #47 - Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
5 - #48 - Alex Bowman
6 - #62 - Anthony Alfredo
7 - #24 - William Byron
8 - #38 - Todd Gilliland
9 - #31 - Daniel Hemric
10 - #21 - Harrison Burton
Reddick found himself up front late thanks to a strategy play by the Toyotas, which seemed to be completely botched when several of them got together and crashed as they were running in a draft by themselves. Reddick credited the drafting help he received from the remaining Toyota drivers, Martin Truex Jr. and Ty Gibbs, with putting him in a position to win coming off the final corner.
"That was chaos! That's Talladega for you," Reddick told Fox Sports. "I've got to give a lot of credit to Ty Gibbs and Martin Truex. It was just us Toyotas left and they pushed me with everything they had. Huge credit to Martin and Ty. Without those pushes we don't win this race."
Reddick drove the Jordan Brand Toyota to Victory Lane with a special guest in tow, as NBA and sports icon and 23XI Racing co-owner Michael Jordan was in attendance for a win by one of his cars for the first time.
Jordan, who grew up a race fan in Wilmington, N.C. and even had strong ties to legendary car owner Hoss Ellington, made a point that he chose to come to Talladega and support his team even as the NBA playoffs have now begun -- even going as far as to compare the feeling of winning a NASCAR race to an NBA playoff game.
"[Team co-owner Denny Hamlin] keeps saying I was bad luck when I come to the track. And today we proved him wrong," Jordan joked to Fox Sports. "... I think Tyler did a good job. Unfortunately Bubba [Wallace] couldn't finish, but the whole team did a good job. I'm very happy to be here to see it.
"Everybody tells me when we win we can have a good celebration, but this is the first time I've been here [for it]. ... I'm all in. I love it. It replaces a lot of the competitiveness that I had in basketball. But this is even worse because I have no control. If I was playing basketball I have total control, but I have no control so I live vicariously through the drivers, crew chiefs and everybody. I'm very happy for 23XI. 110 percent."
Reddick's win marks the sixth in team history, two of which have come at Talladega.
Toyota turmoil
Aggressive fuel conservation strategies became a major part of the race in February's Daytona 500, and the same thing would play out again as NASCAR made its second trip of the year to a superspeedway. Long green flag runs of racing Sunday featured the lead pack slowing their own pace down by multiple seconds in an effort to try and gain track position by spending as little time on pit road as possible.
As the race progressed, topping off on fuel became a popular move, and it was one the Toyota drivers employed when they dropped out of the lead pack to hit the pits for fuel to the finish with 37 laps to go. Their strategy would have allowed them to run flat out in a single-file line, which would have allowed them to make significant time on the lead pack and would have put them at the head of the field at the end of the final cycle of stops.
It would have worked, and should have worked. But it all went awry when an accordion effect sent Erik Jones head on into the Turn 3 wall, triggering a crash that took out Bubba Wallace, John Hunter Nemechek and Denny Hamlin.
"Obviously we were pushing and shoving to try and make time with our strategy. I got pretty sideways getting into [Turn] 3 and tried to gather it up, and then ended up really hard into the wall," Jones told Fox Sports. "It's unfortunate. I hate it for my team and my guys."
"We were all pushing really hard to keep our line going. We had a plan and just didn't execute it as well as we should," Wallace, who made the initial contact with Jones, told Fox Sports. "Hate it for our Leidos team. Look forward to running these places and then you just get trapped in somebody else's mess. I hate it. It doesn't make us look good at all."
Following the accident, there was some initial concern as Jones reported back pain to safety workers, but he was able to climb from his car and was checked and released from the infield care center, though he was admittedly quite sore. Per Legacy Motor Club, Jones later returned to the care center and has since been transported to a local hospital for further evaluation.
Bad blocks
In the deciding moment of the race, two droughts had been set to potentially come to an end. Ford was in position to get its first win of the 2024 season, while Brad Keselowski was in position to end a three-year winless streak as he made his move on Michael McDowell for the win. Likewise, a third career victory and a potential third playoff berth in four years was on the line for McDowell, who started from the pole and led the most laps (36).
That all went awry when McDowell blocked once but was not able to block twice. As he swung his car down to the inside of the track to block Keselowski as he cut low, he ended up sliding across Keselowski's nose and sliding around, leaving him to lament what went wrong as well as what could have been.
"[Keselowski] did everything right. He pushed me out, I drove back to him, and I was able to get in front of him that very first time. But when I came back down just barely, barely wasn't clear," McDowell told Fox Sports. "... I hate it that we didn't make it to the finish line. We had such a fast Mustang today. It's unfortunate, it's been a rough few weeks. But it's the last lap at Talladega. Going for it trying to get a win and just came up short and hate that I took a lot of guys with me."
"I backed up, Noah [Gragson] gave me a great push and I went to make a move on Michael. And he covered it and I went back the other way, I got another push from Noah and just nowhere to go when Michael came back down," Keselowski told Fox Sports. "I hate that for him, he's a good guy ... Just kind of the way this stuff goes, right?"
McDowell's spin gave Keselowski the lead momentarily, but the contact broke his momentum just enough that it allowed Reddick to drive past him and beat him back to the finish line, yet again frustrating Keselowski's efforts to end what it now a 108-race winless drought dating back to the spring Talladega race in 2021.
"It's a solid day, but not the one we wanted. ... Good finishes are important, but we want wins," Keselowski said. "And we could really taste it today. It just didn't happen."
Race results rundown
- Officially, NASCAR timing and scoring counted 72 lead changes among 23 different drivers during Sunday's race. That marks the second Talladega race in a row that has featured 70 or more lead changes, and it's the most lead changes in any Cup race at the track since a record-tying 88 lead changes in the spring of 2011.
- Two drivers in the top 10 earned career-best finishes, with Noah Gragson crossing the line third and Anthony Alfredo, driving part-time in Cup for Beard Motorsports, coming home sixth. For Alfredo, who led four laps, his run capped off a weekend that also saw him finish third in Saturday's Xfinity Series race.
- Several other drivers also broke long droughts from their last top-10 finish to the end of Sunday's race. Daniel Hemric's ninth-place finish marked his first top 10 since Fontana in 2022, while Harrison Burton's 10th-place finish marked his first since Pocono last July.
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr. put his skills as a superspeedway racer to good use, earning his second top-10 finish of the year and setting a new season-best finish in fourth. It's also Stenhouse's first top five since he finished fourth in the Bristol Dirt Race in 2023.
- If anything, Corey LaJoie should earn points for style the way he finished the race. LaJoie's car was knocked upside down and underneath Josh Berry's car, and then slid on its side along the outside wall and past the start/finish line before flipping over and coming to rest on its wheels. LaJoie was credited with finishing 18th, the same spot Clint Bowyer was credited with when he crossed the finish line upside down in the 2007 Daytona 500.
- Cody Ware made his season debut in his family's No. 15 Ford, marking his first race back after he was suspended for much of the 2023 season following domestic assault charges he was later cleared of. Ware spent the bulk of the day in the lead pack and even drove up inside the top five before finishing 24th after being swept up in the wreck at the finish.
- Shane van Gisbergen acquainted himself well in his first Cup race on an oval, as the former V8 Supercars champion and last year's winner at Chicago led three laps and nearly led a third lane of cars at the very top of the track towards the lead in the final laps before falling back to 28th. Van Gisbergen also led one lap in Saturday's Xfinity Series race.
- After leading only a single lap in his Cup career entering Sunday, John Hunter Nemechek spent a total of 20 laps out front. That's the most laps a Nemechek has led in a Cup race since 2005, when father Joe Nemechek led 30 laps after starting from the pole in the August race at Michigan. Nemechek would finish 33rd after being eliminated in the crash among the Toyotas.
- The early portion of Sunday's race featured a driver/owner out front, as B.J. McLeod drove to the front and led five laps -- the most he's ever led in a single race -- in the Live Fast Motorsports No. 78 that he owns and that did not have any primary sponsor. McLeod was leading the top lane when his car lost fuel pressure, putting him in a hole that he was unable to recover from as he finished one lap down in 37th.
Next race
It's off to The Monster Mile for the NASCAR Cup Series as they make their annual trip to Dover Motor Speedway for the Wurth 400 next Sunday at 2 p.m. ET on FS1.
