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Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Brad Keselowski wins 2025 All-Star pole; No. 71 crew wins Pit Crew Challenge
Brad Keselowski won the pole for Sunday's NASCAR All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Speedway, netting a best average speed of 77.264 mph in Friday's qualifying session. The No. 6 RFK Racing co-owner and driver will lead the field to the green flag for the 250-lap feature event on Sunday night (8 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Christopher Bell was second ahead of Alex Bowman, Chase Briscoe and William Byron. Advertisement RELATED: Live lineup tracker | At-track photos Stealing the show was the No. 71 Spire Motorsports crew of Michael McDowell, winning the Pit Crew Challenge bonus of $100,000 with a series-best time of 12.587 seconds in Friday's session, fastest between All-Star teams and those racing in the preliminary All-Star Open. McDowell's crew consists of fueler Brandon Chapman, jackman Dax Hollifield III, tire carrier Luke Bussel, front changer Max Marsh and rear changer Ty Boeck. Daniel Suárez was 20th and last in Friday's All-Star Race qualifying, but his No. 99 Trackhouse Racing pit crew netted the best time of all All-Star crews at 12.6 seconds. All-Star Open qualifying Rookie Shane van Gisbergen will lead the 18-car Open field to the green flag in Sunday's 100-lap preliminary event (5 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). The three-lap average speed — including a mandatory Lap 2 pit stop — of his No. 88 Chevrolet measured at 76.112 mph, besting runner-up Carson Hocevar's 75.942 mph. Advertisement MORE: Full Open lineup Noah Gragson (73.338 mph), Michael McDowell (75.326 mph) and Ryan Preece (75.261 mph) completed the top five. Erik Jones, who was fifth overall in Friday's practice, will start 12th. Bubba Wallace, third in practice, will roll off 14th. The top two finishers of Sunday's All-Star Open will advance to the All-Star Race and start 21st and 22nd, respectively, in the feature. The 23rd and final spot on the All-Star Race grid is reserved for the winner of the Fan Vote, awarded to the highest vote-getter who has not otherwise qualified his way into the show. Practice recap All-Star racers and Open hopefuls shared the track for a combined 45-minute practice session Friday afternoon with Tyler Reddick pacing the 38-car group with a best speed of 123.640 mph. Advertisement Chase Elliott (123.403 mph), Bubba Wallace (123.376 mph), Christopher Bell (123.186 mph) and Erik Jones (123.146 mph) completed the top five. Wallace and Jones are not yet locked into Sunday's All-Star Race but ranked fastest of the Open cars on single-car speed. Ross Chastain and Brad Keselowski, sixth and seventh respectively overall, were the next fastest cars locked into the All-Star Race. Elliott scrubbed the wall between Turns 1 and 2 late in Friday's session but avoided any significant damage. Joey Logano, the defending Cup Series champion and 2024 winner of the All-Star exhibition, posted the 10th-fastest lap in practice. Ryan Blaney, the 2022 All-Star Race winner, was 17th on the leaderboard ahead of Denny Hamlin in 18th. In 10-lap averages, Reddick was fastest at 122.116 mph over Christopher Bell, Keselowski, Kyle Busch and Josh Berry, all All-Stars this weekend. The fastest Open car in 10-lap averages was Bubba Wallace in 11th at 121.328 mph. POSITION CAR DRIVER Time Speed 1 45 Tyler Reddick 18.198 123.64 2 9 Chase Elliott 18.233 123.403 3 23 Bubba Wallace 18.237 123.376 4 20 Christopher Bell 18.265 123.186 5 43 Erik Jones 18.271 123.146 6 1 Ross Chastain 18.274 123.126 7 6 Brad Keselowski 18.29 123.018 8 24 William Byron 18.294 122.991 9 8 Kyle Busch 18.307 122.904 10 22 Joey Logano 18.313 122.864 11 21 Josh Berry 18.32 122.817 12 54 Ty Gibbs 18.321 122.81 13 2 Austin Cindric 18.327 122.77 14 34 Todd Gilliland 18.349 122.622 15 99 Daniel Suarez 18.361 122.542 16 42 J.H. Nemechek 18.364 122.522 17 12 Ryan Blaney 18.373 122.462 18 11 Denny Hamlin 18.39 122.349 19 35 Riley Herbst 18.4 122.283 20 10 Ty Dillon 18.416 122.176 21 7 Justin Haley 18.42 122.15 22 60 Ryan Preece 18.421 122.143 23 47 Ricky Stenhouse Jr. 18.423 122.13 24 5 Justin Allgaier 18.434 122.057 25 19 Chase Briscoe 18.437 122.037 26 4 Noah Gragson 18.44 122.017 27 77 Carson Hocevar 18.441 122.011 28 88 Shane Van Gisbergen 18.447 121.971 29 38 Zane Smith 18.471 121.813 30 17 Chris Buescher 18.476 121.78 31 16 AJ Allmendinger 18.487 121.707 32 48 Alex Bowman 18.5 121.622 33 71 Michael McDowell 18.512 121.543 34 51 Harrison Burton 18.529 121.431 35 3 Austin Dillon 18.549 121.3 36 41 Cole Custer 18.58 121.098 37 15 Cody Ware 18.682 120.437 38 66 Chad Finchum 19.212 117.114 This story will be updated.
Yahoo
27-04-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Live post-race show: Inside the Race to break down all things Talladega
Can't wait any longer to go Inside the Race following each NASCAR Cup Series event? Visit our NASCAR YouTube page post-race to get live, immediate breakdowns and analysis from veteran crew chief and broadcaster Steve Letarte, alongside additional co-hosts and reporters from the track. Advertisement RELATED: Race weekend hub page Following today's Jack Link's 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, Jeff Burton and Kim Coon will join Letarte to dissect the winning and losing moves, plus other top story lines. Watch today's Cup Series race (3 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), then tune in for immediate analysis on NASCAR's YouTube page.
Yahoo
26-04-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
What to Watch: Talladega, where opportunity and a variety of victors abound
Track: Talladega Superspeedway Location: Talladega, Alabama Track length: 2.66 miles When: Sunday, 3 p.m. ET Where to tune in: FOX, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Race purse: $11,055,250 Race distance: 188 laps | 500.08 miles Stages: 60 | 120 | 188 Defending winner: Tyler Reddick, April 2024 Starting lineup: Zane Smith claims Busch Light Pole Ten races, ten faces? At a track where the unexpected regularly takes place, the one thing to count on in recent years at Talladega Superspeedway is new faces in Victory Lane. Advertisement The last nine races at the Alabama speed palace have produced nine different winners, and the specter of another no-repeat outcome looms large in Sunday's Jack Link's 500 (3 p.m. ET FOX, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). That nine-race Talladega span precedes the advent of the Next Gen car in 2022. MORE: Cup Series standings | Full 2025 schedule Denny Hamlin began that string in October 2020, and since then (in chronological order) the winners' list has welcomed Brad Keselowski, Bubba Wallace, Ross Chastain, Chase Elliott, Kyle Busch, Ryan Blaney, Tyler Reddick and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Can someone new add their name to the record books Sunday? The prospects for the Cup Series going 10 for 10 with another different winner are high. 'The field is so close, right, that it just opens up a lot of opportunities,' said Josh Berry, driver of the Wood Brothers' No. 21 Ford. 'A lot of these races just kind of come down to circumstance, and you find the same players up front a lot, but ultimately, it kind of is left up to fate a little bit on how obviously missing the wrecks and executing and it just opens the door for opportunity. So it's definitely a bit of a wild card, I think, from a driver's standpoint.' Advertisement There's some historical relevance for Talladega's good fortune smiling on an array of winners. The track's 'fall' race was traditionally called the Talladega 500, and the first 13 runnings were won by 13 different drivers. That variety and the track's growing reputation as a place where anything can happen fed into the speedway's promotions, where marketers touted '13 races, 13 faces' as a selling point. RELATED: Most wins all-time at Talladega | 'Dega surprise winners Hall of Famer Darrell Waltrip was one of those 13 faces, etching his name in Victory Lane in 1979. He nearly broke the streak in 1981, but Ron Bouchard slipped by him for an upset win within sight of the checkered flag. The next year, Waltrip sealed the deal as a Talladega 500 repeater, then showed up for a promotional event for the 1983 race wearing a shirt that read: '14 races, 13 faces. Sorry about that.' The other common thread to the unpredictable nature: the driver leading the most laps has failed to win each of the last nine Talladega races. In both races here last year, that hard-luck leader was Michael McDowell, who crashed out in multi-car tangles — another Talladega trademark — each time. Advertisement That included a melee in this race last spring when McDowell was knocked out while leading on the final lap through the trioval. Last fall brought another massive stack-up, one that thinned 20-plus cars from the herd of contenders. MORE: Full Saturday recap The Cup Series field fans out through the trioval at Talladega Superspeedway From atop the pit box … What do crew chiefs have in focus to win Sunday's race? Superspeedway strategy is as much driven by how drivers work the aerodynamic draft as how teams work in tandem across manufacturer lines. Automakers typically hold pre-race meetings to formulate a game plan for attacking Talladega, developing the best course for how to stick together, pit together and move forward — also together. Advertisement That spirit of teamwork — among organizations and the OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) — should permeate Sunday's 500-miler, the first of two stops this season at the massive 2.66-mile circuit. 'It's not really set in stone what the plan or path is for how we approach the race set by the OEM, but we do communicate with the other Chevrolet guys during the race, and more than anything else, we just try to be mindful of each other's situation,' says Luke Lambert, crew chief for the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevy driven by Carson Hocevar. 'Chevrolet has so many cars that they kind of split it up into two different groups of cars that work more closely together, but as you know, the way these races are, cars get eliminated, those numbers can dwindle down and then the plans kind of change in the middle of the race. 'Primarily, we'll be working close with the Spire guys, that's our intentions, and then try to work and cooperate with the Chevrolets. When we have the opportunity to do things that benefit each other, as far as working together in lines, and then also how we pit, we try to do that as much as possible.' Chevrolet's contingent makes up 18 cars in the field of 39 starters, the most of any manufacturer; Ford has 12, Toyota nine. Managing that number is tricky, but to Lambert's point, the ability to call audibles and have some amount of flex or give in the strategy is critical. Advertisement 'The bigger the group, the harder it becomes to execute this stuff, because everybody's running their own race and has different things that pop up as the race goes on, based on how much fuel they're using, or how the car is handling, or possibly having a short fill at one point in time, they get out of sync with the other cars,' Lambert said. 'So you can't really be too locked in. You have to kind of be fluid in how we approach the race. But primarily for us, our approach is to run our race really mindful of what's going on around us and how we can work with other guys and what we can expect for them to do as far as working with us when the opportunity arises.' MORE: Power Rankings for Talladega Toyota teams may not have the strength in numbers, but the size of their group — four cars from Joe Gibbs Racing, three from 23XI Racing and two from Legacy Motor Club — may be more manageable. Charles Denike, first-year crew chief of the No. 23 Toyota for 23XI's Bubba Wallace, said that their strategy wasn't necessarily manufacturer-mandated, but that collaboration stemmed mostly from a team level — save for trying to stack their numbers when executing green-flag pit stops together. Chevrolet has prevailed in four of the last six races here, but Toyota's ability to shift up strategy in winning this race last year was key. Advertisement 'Very much, you have to remain flexible,' Denike told 'So there's kind of two things: You always stay ready for if a caution comes out, and then when you can pit under green varies based off of how fast the pace is going and how much fuel you're burning. So it's a bit of a moving target there on what you want to be prepared for if you need to put under green, and then you always stay ready with your answer of, 'if the caution comes out, now, what would I do?\"' RELATED: See where drivers will pit for Sunday's race Bubba Wallace loads into the No. 23 Toyota for qualifying at Talladega Superspeedway History tells us … Expect Penske fingerprints at the front. Just two drafting-style tracks have hosted races this year (Daytona and Atlanta in February), but Team Penske and its affiliated Wood Brothers Racing team have zoned in on the front of the pack. The Penske/Wood Brothers power combo has run 175 laps in first and second place this season. The next closest on that list is Trackhouse Racing, a distant second with 14 laps running 1-2. He may not be the favorite to win, but watch out for … RICKY STENHOUSE JR. The Hyak Motorsports veteran has just one top-five result this season, but that total could grow after Sunday's showdown. Stenhouse won here to play playoff spoiler last fall, and two of his four career Cup Series victories have come at Talladega. The 37-year-old has eight top-five finishes here — the most of any track in his Cup career. Advertisement MORE: Get lineup advice in Fantasy Fastlane Speed reads Our biggest pieces of the week — get covered for race day from all angles. • NASCAR at Talladega: Key information, links, results through the weekend | Read more • Keselowski 'clawing': RFK driver/owner aims to maximize No. 6 team's potential | Read more • Crew chief change-up: Spire, Rodney Childers go separate ways | Read more • Racing Insights: Full finishing order projections for Sunday's Jack Link's 500 | Read more • Turning Point to Talladega: Forecasting a Championship 4 … already? | Read more • At-track images: Best photos, scenes from a full weekend at Talladega | View gallery • NASCAR Classics: Rewind with full-race replays from the 'Dega video vault | Watch races • Paint Scheme Preview: Fresh designs ready to tackle Talladega | View gallery
Yahoo
26-04-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Ty Gibbs on recent resurgence: 'I know I can run good'
Joe Gibbs Racing driver Ty Gibbs is coming off his best showing of the 2025 season — a third-place finish at Bristol Motor Speedway — as he arrives at the series' biggest track, the 2.66-mile Talladega Superspeedway. It's a significant uptick for Gibbs, who has jumped from 34th place in the championship standings three races ago to 20th coming into Sunday's contest (3 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN Radio, Sirius XM NASCAR Radio) thanks to that Bristol result and a ninth-place finish in the preceding race at Darlington Raceway. It marks the first back-to-back string of top-10 finishes in 2025 for the 22-year-old past NASCAR Xfinity Series champion and first instance since last summer when he scored a third-place finish at Michigan International Speedway and a fifth at Daytona International Speedway. Advertisement RELATED: Starting lineup | At-track photos: Talladega Most importantly, it shows a notable sign of improvement for his No. 54 JGR Toyota team, which has a new crew chief this year in Tyler Allen and several new crew members. He was the only Toyota driver to advance to the second round of qualifying Saturday at Talladega and will roll off 10th in Sunday's race. 'For us, I feel the results have shown for sure,'' Gibbs said of the recent change in tide. 'But there is not a time where I've felt I was down on my team or was bummed out. I just think it's part of the process, we have a new team and I think our guys are really good and I have a lot of faith in our guys. There's a lot of things behind the scenes and everyone makes a judgment call, but I know I can run good and that our team is capable of that. 'Sometimes it takes time, and we'll get there. I have confidence in our team.''
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
NASCAR Cup Series qualifying order for Talladega Superspeedway
The NASCAR Cup Series returns to racing action this weekend at Talladega Superspeedway, with qualifying set for Saturday at 10:30 a.m. ET on Prime Video. QUALIFYING ORDER: Xfinity Series Superspeedway qualifying procedures are in effect, with only one round of qualifying and one lap each. Advertisement The qualifying order below is determined via metric that combines the previous race finish by owner (70%) and current owner points position (30%). The race itself is at 3 p.m. ET on Sunday. Watch the race on FOX or listen on MRN Radio or SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. # denotes series rookie (i) denotes ineligible for driver points
