Ryan Blaney scores third Talladega win in photo finish, Harvick disqualified

Ryan Blaney is a three-time NASCAR Cup Collection winner at Talladega Superspeedway, even when it meant taking years off his life as every victory got here right down to a dramatic photograph end. After profitable in 2019 and 2020 by .007 seconds, he added his third with a margin of simply .012.

Sunday’s YellaWood 500 was a mad scramble even uncharacteristic for Talladega with seventy lead modifications, the seventh most in sequence historical past, between twenty-four drivers. Blaney and Kevin Harvick led a pair of traces within the closing two laps earlier than the previous discovered a run exiting flip two to take the lead.

After committing to the within, Blaney retook the lead with William Byron pushing earlier than Harvick and Riley Herbst closed the hole on the otuside. Coming to the end, Herbst and Chase Elliott had been hit and spun in entrance of the pack. As the sphere wrecked behind them, Blaney and Harvick surged forward with the previous narrowly on high.

“We did a superb job of positioning ourselves up in direction of the entrance there,” mentioned Blaney. “After we made a mistake at Stage #2 and misplaced observe place, we did a extremely good job and had a superb pit cease and was in a position to begin within the entrance two rows. The final restart, I suppose, the #36 did an amazing job. Riley did a extremely good job of pushing me sort of the place I wanted it, particularly after we had been main the highest lane. He hasn’t run too many Cup races in any respect, and I feel the one different speedway he has run is possibly Daytona a month in the past. So he did a extremely good job of sort of understanding the place to get on me and carry momentum. So admire him for that. He did a superb job.

“I feel the largest factor was getting clear to the underside down the again stretch in entrance of the #24 (Byron) to get alongside the #4 (Harvick). That made it to the place, okay, now it’s a drag race between he and I. The most important job too was ensuring the #24 didn’t get clear, so I sort of needed to drag brake to verify the #4 stayed outdoors the #24 to verify certainly one of us gained and made positive the #24 couldn’t soar outdoors of me and made positive I had his assist.

“Only a neat day, enjoyable day. It’s all the time enjoyable to win these items, and it’s a must to admire them as a result of they’re so arduous to do. We hung in there all day, and enjoyable to pull race Kevin there on the finish. I hate it needed to be us to beat him at his closing speedway race, but it surely was positively enjoyable to race with somebody like that, particularly coming right down to the top the place it will get fairly wild.”

Paradoxically, Blaney would have gained annyway even when Harvick edged him out. After the race, Harvick’s #4 failed post-race inspection as a result of the bolts preserving his windshield in place weren’t tightened. According to crew chief Rodney Childers, “each bolt was nonetheless in” with thirty laps remaining earlier than two got here off ten laps later.

“There have been instances I’ve obtained caught doing one thing I shouldn’t have,” wrote Childers in a since-deleted tweet. “At the moment obtained DQ’d for the automotive buffering within the draft all day and a few windshield bolts vibrating out. My guys had silicon on the threads and gobbed on the tip. Nonetheless got here out. Undecided what else we might do.”

The disqualification was the primary in any NASCAR nationwide sequence in 2023 and the primary within the Cup Collection since Brad Keselowski was busted at the 2022 Xfinity 500. Whereas it spoils Harvick’s closing race at Talladega, his Stewart-Haas Racing group doesn’t intend to file an attraction.

“On the completion of the race, not all of our windshield fasteners had been safe, as we had bolts that maintain the windshield in place again out over the course of the five hundred miles. We’re within the technique of diagnosing why this occurred and tips on how to stop it transferring ahead,” reads a press release from SHR competitors director Greg Zipadelli. “We’re upset in NASCAR’s determination to disqualify our racecar and the hard-earned end by our driver and group, however we won’t attraction. Our full focus is on the remaining races on this 12 months’s schedule.”

Race outcomes