Winners and losers from a busy weekend of racing at Talladega Superspeedway.
CHECKERED FLAGS
Brad Keselowski
His talent as a superspeedway racer added another chapter with Keselowski’s sixth career Talladega win coming on Sunday in the GEICO 500. He led just one lap, but it was the one that mattered most in overtime to take the checkered flag.
William Byron
Make it eight straight top-10 finishes for Byron, who trailed Keselowski across the finish line Sunday for a runner-up. Byron will be a contender for the next superspeedway race at Daytona to end the regular season.
Michael McDowell
The Daytona 500 winner turned in a solid follow-up superspeedway performance with a third-place run Sunday at Talladega. It was McDowell’s fourth top-10 finish of the 2021 season.
Kaz Grala
The super sub did it again by bringing the Kaulig Racing Cup Series effort home to a top-10 finish at Talladega. Grala is playing a vital role in the team’s foray into a potential full-time Cup effort in 2022.
Jeb Burton
Not a bad weekend for Kaulig Racing by any means. A day before Grala’s run, Burton scored his first career Xfinity Series victory in the Ag-Pro 300. In doing so, Burton became the fourth new winner in the season’s opening eight races of the season.
BLACK FLAGS
Kyle Larson
A rare mistake by Hendrick Motorsports led to Larson being eliminated with a blown engine and exiting the race after just three laps.
Joey Logano
A scary accident saw one of the GEICO 500’s favorites get eliminated early on Sunday. Logano’s Team Penske Ford was sent airborne in the incident that made the weekend’s sports highlight reels for all the wrong reasons.
Toyota
The best finish for the Toyota stable Sunday was 17th by Christopher Bell. They had fast race cars, but the strategy of working together didn’t quite pan out the way the organization had hoped leading to a disappointing Sunday afternoon in Alabama.
Erik Jones
Tough break for the Richard Petty Motorsports team that definitely deserved a better outcome Sunday. Jones ran well but was involved in a late accident that set up the overtime finish and handed the No. 43 team a 27th-place finish.
JR Motorsports
Noah Gragson won the Dash 4 Cash bonus with his sixth-place finish. But the rest of the JR Motorsports team had a miserable Saturday at Talladega with Justin Allgaier (26th), Josh Berry (30th) and Michael Annett (32nd) finishing near the bottom of the running order.
