NASCAR Fall Talladega 2023 Recap

It was a wild, action-packed weekend at Talladega Superspeedway that would either benefit or hurt driver’s chances of advancing toward a championship. The rising stars of the Craftsman Truck Series and the stars of the NASCAR Cup Series took to the high banks of the 2.66-mile track and tried to avoid the big one.

Saturday afternoon featured the Craftsman Truck Series, as the 2018 Champion of the series, Brett Moffitt, took home the win driving a one-off race for Front Row Motorsports. It took an overtime restart to determine the winner of the Love’s RV Stop 250 after there was a 10-truck pileup on the front stretch. Moffitt and Christian Eckes restarted on the front row but Moffit was able to get to the front rather quickly, while Eckes lost momentum and fell back to 19th. 

“It’s pretty awesome,” said Moffitt after the race. “I’ve notably struggled on the superspeedways in the past and dreaded coming to them. But this was an all-pressure-off situation that Front Row gave me to go out there and try to help a teammate. Obviously, that didn’t work out for that group. But to come here and have a shot at a win and to do it, is just amazing.”

“Reminds me of the good ole days and I want to get back to doing this on a regular basis so we’ll see what happens.”

Among the remaining playoff contenders, the one that had the best result was the 2021 Champion Ben Rhodes, who finished in second.

“This style of racing, you never know what to expect,” said Rhodes. “Just all in all, really happy we were able to finish second. We needed this for a points day. I think last year we were seven points out coming to Homestead and we made it to the Championship 4. We’re eight out now so we did what we needed to do just one spot short. It would have been a real luxury to lock ourselves in today.”

Dean Thompson would score his career-best finish of third, while Chandler Smith, who was driving for Rackley W.A.R, finished fourth, and Corey Heim rounded out the top five.

The incident that led the race into an overtime restart was triggered between Matt Crafton and Nick Sanchez, as they got together in the tri-oval. Following the race, a fight broke out between the two drivers that resulted in Sanchez having a bloodied face. Penalties were announced Tuesday, as Crafton was fined $25,000 for his actions, and Sanchez was fined $5,000. Sanchez’s father, Rene, was also penalized as he has been barred from races for the rest of the season, which is the October 21^st race at Homestead and the Season Finale at Phoenix. Despite the wreck, Sanchez went on to finish seventh.

Corey Heim is the only driver locked into the Championship 4 with his win at Bristol, while Carson Hocevar leads the way on points 23 points above the cutline. Christian Eckes and Nick Sanchez currently hold the other two spots. Grant Enfinger sits 3 points below the cutline in fifth, while Rhodes is back by 5, Majeski back by 19, and Zane Smith back by 36 after an accident on pit road and mechanical problems that ended his day early. 

Smith hit his crew member Charles Plank coming into the team’s pit stall on the first round of pit stops, but Plank was okay after the incident and finished the race. Smith’s truck then had clutch issues that would eventually put him behind the wall for a while. 

“I feel terrible about that, so that wasn’t a great start,” Smith said of the pit road incident with his crew member.

“And then after that rolled off pit road down the backstretch, my clutch started slipping and it got worse and worse and worse. So fighting that and changing the clutch to get back out there.

“Just such a bummer. It’s a tough situation here.”

Moving over to the NASCAR Cup Series YellaWood 500, it was Ryan Blaney scoring his third win at Talladega Superspeedway, finishing barely in front of Kevin Harvick. This win gives Ryan Blaney his ticket to advance to the Round of 8 and along with William Byron will go into the Charlotte Roval next week with no worries. For Blaney, this marked his second win of 2023 and the ninth of his career. 

It would have been a special moment for Kevin Harvick had he gotten the win, however, his No. 4 team was disqualified after post-race inspection for violating rules involving windshield fasteners. 

“I don’t really know, pretty wild last restart, let alone last couple laps,” Blaney said after the race. “Kinda lost momentum, then getting it back, got clear to the bottom to kind of get to the front row and drag race it out with Kevin (Harvick). It’s so cool to win here three times at Talladega.”

“I won it by more than I had the last couple of years,” Blaney added. “You just don’t know. You have to drag race to the line and hope you get help. William (Byron) gave me a pretty good shove on the bottom.”

After Harvick’s disqualification, William Byron finished second, Denny Hamlin third, Corey Lajoie, and Austin Cindric rounded out the top five. Justin Haley, Chase Elliott, Ryan Preece, Riley Herbst (who made only his fourth career start), and Daniel Suarez rounded out the top ten. 

In a race that featured 70 lead changes among 24 drivers, Joey led the most laps at 48 despite a 24th-place finish. Seven drivers led double-digit laps, but only one of them was a playoff driver, that being William Byron. As for Hamlin, he was able to climb back from a pit road penalty to finish third.

“Not how we drew it up, but a dub (W) is a dub, and that was a dub in our book,” Hamlin said. “As close as it gets to it. I made a statement, bringing me a car fast enough for us to win. And obviously, when I had to go there, I could, and just made the right moves at the right time, and a top five is a long way from where we were with about 15 laps to go.”

Blaney and Byron are now locked into the Round of 8 with their wins at Texas (Byron) and Talladega (Blaney), while Hamlin sits on top of the points with a comfortable 50 points above the cutline. Brad Keselowski still holds a slim two-point advantage over Tyler Reddick for the eighth and final spot. Ross Chastain was involved in a wreck early that resulted in a last-place finish for him, as he now sits 10 points below the cutline. Bubba Wallace sits ahead of Chastain by one point after his 23rd-place finish and Kyle Busch sits 26 points back and is in a must-win situation heading into the Charlotte Roval.