Aric Almirola stole the lead from Kurt Busch on the last lap to earn his second career win and punch his ticket to the Round of 8. Almirola gained a huge run on Busch after Ricky Stenhouse Jr. got behind him and started drafting, and as Almirola passed Busch coming off of turn 4, Busch ran out of fuel and coasted across the line in 14th place. “This is awesome! At Talladega!” Almirola said in an interview with NBC Sports reporter Rutledge Wood after taking the checkered flag. “I’ve been so close so many times this year. Four or five times this year, I feel like we’ve had a shot to win, and I haven’t been able to seal the deal. … I feel like I’ve let (the team) down so many times, because we’ve had so many opportunities to win and haven’t done it… We come here, a place that I love — I won an Xfinity race here last year. I just love racing at Talladega, and I came here with the mind-set that we were going to go give ’em hell, and if we wreck, we wreck, and if we win, we win. And we won!” (Courtesy of nascar.com) Almirola and his three Stewart Haas teammates dominated the race, finishing 1-2-3-4 in both stages, and were 1-2-3-4 before a late-race crash with 3 laps to go involving playoff driver Alex Bowman. “This was an incredible race for us,” Almirola said. “We were so committed to each other and so organized, and nobody in the field could touch us. It was us against the field. What an impressive run. I’m just proud to be the one on top today” (courtesy of nascar.com). As for Kurt Busch, his stage 1 win and points earned in stage 2, as well as points for his 14th place finish, were enough to put him 30 points ahead of Brad Keselowski, who is currently the first driver out of the playoffs this round with one race left in the round. “That’s good stuff,” Busch said. “We had 21 (points) coming into this, and if you can bank nine and get the heck out of Talladega, that sounds good” (courtesy of nascar.com). Busch was upset with NASCAR about two calls made late in the race that changed the outcome. “There was [sic] two missed calls though by NASCAR at the end,” he told NBC after the race. “Why have an extra yellow-flag lap? Beyond me. The track was ready to go.” Busch was also upset about a call made on the last lap of the race. “Once we crossed the white flag, if there’s a wreck and the ambulance needs to be dispatched — I’ve been on the other side of that where I was racing to come back and win the race, and they said, ‘Well, we had to dispatch an ambulance,’” Busch said. “There was [sic] two cars dead in the water down there, and Chase Elliott’s safety is my concern, and so was the 32 car. So it’s a human call. There’s [sic] rules that need to be stricter at the end of these races” (courtesy of usatoday.com). There was a crash on the last lap heading into turn 1 that involved Chase Elliott, Matt Dibenedetto, and Kyle Busch. If the caution had been thrown, Busch was in a great position to be declared the winner of the race, as the white flag had already been taken.

Timothy Peters won Saturday’s Fr8Auctions 250 after crashing race leader Noah Gragson on the last lap heading down the backstretch. The caution was thrown, and Peters was leading at the time of caution. It was Peters third win at Talladega. “Everybody’s wanting to win,” Peters said, who triumphed for the 11th time in his career and the first time since 2015. “Everybody’s wanting to block. I wanted to win, too, because this is my last go-around on the three-race stint. So, at the end of the day, I was going for it. These guys right here (the No. 25 GMS Chevrolet team) worked their butts off. It just feels so good, so good. … Man, I love this place, and it’s so cool to be a three-time winner. But this is not about me. It’s about the team. This team put together this truck back at the shop, and I was just the lucky one who got to drive it today” (Courtesy of nascar.com). Ben Rhodes and Stewart Friesen were eliminated from the playoffs after having issues throughout the race that hampered their chances. “Bad day for the No. 41 team,” Rhodes said after the race. “It is what it is. We got caught up in the first wreck. I didn’t think we were going to be able to continue. I was watching the oil and water temperature peg. I had flat tires and everything else. They fixed it, miraculously; I was ready to race. We just could never get our lap back. We were fighting back. That was the unfortunate part. If we could have done that, we could have possibly competed for a win” (Courtesy of autoweek.com).

Sources:
Spencer, Reid. “Race Results Talladega Playoff Recap.” Official Site Of NASCAR, NASCAR Wire Service, 14 Oct. 2018, www.nascar.com/news-media/2018/10/14/aric-almirola-wins-in-nascar-overtime-as-kurt-busch-runs-dry-on-final-lap-at-talladega/.

Sharma, Ashwini. “2018 NASCAR Cup Series Race Results | Live Leaderboard | 1000Bulbs.Com 500.” Official Site Of NASCAR, 11 Sept. 2018, www.nascar.com/results/race_center/2018/monster-energy-nascar-cup-series/1000bulbscom-500/stn/race/.

Akomarovski. “2018 NASCAR Playoffs | Monster Energy Series.” Official Site Of NASCAR, 22 Aug. 2018, www.nascar.com/playoff-standings/monster-energy-nascar-cup-series/.

Spencer, Reid. “Kurt Busch Dominates Talladega but Runs out of Fuel.” Official Site Of NASCAR, NASCAR Wire Service, 15 Oct. 2018, www.nascar.com/news-media/2018/10/14/kurt-busch-dominates-right-last-gasp-fuel-finishes-14th/.

Martinelli, Michelle. “Kurt Busch Perplexed by ‘Two Missed Calls’ by NASCAR in Overtime at Talladega.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 15 Oct. 2018, www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nascar/2018/10/14/kurt-busch-talladega-playoff-race-overtime-caution-crash/1644582002/.

Spencer, Reid. “Peters Survives Wild Talladega Finish for Win.” Official Site Of NASCAR, NASCAR Wire Service, 13 Oct. 2018, www.nascar.com/news-media/2018/10/13/results-talladega-camping-world-truck-series-fr8auctions-250-timothy-peters/.

Wilhelm, Chase. “Noah Gragson Crashes While Leading, Timothy Peters Wins.” Official Site Of NASCAR, 13 Oct. 2018, www.nascar.com/video/franchise/one-to-go/noah-gragson-crashes-leading-peters-takes-win/.

Weaver, Matt. “Ben Rhodes, Stewart Friesen Eliminated from NASCAR Truck Playoffs at Talladega.” Autoweek, 13 Oct. 2018, autoweek.com/article/nascar/ben-rhodes-stewart-friesen-eliminated-nascar-trucks-playoffs-talladega.

Written on October 16th, 2018