One never knows what surprise Talladega Superspeedway will unleash next.
One never knows what surprise Talladega Superspeedway will unleash next.
The last 10 Cup races at Talladega have seen 10 different winners.
Seven of the last 11 races at the Alabama track have been won with a last-lap pass.
And then there’s the Big One. Last year’s playoff race there featured a 28-car crash.
With help from Racing Insights, here is a look at the good news and bad news for Cup drivers and teams heading to Sunday’s race at Talladega.
23XI Racing —Good news: Bubba Wallace has finished in the top 10 in each of the last two Talladega races. … Wallace has six top 10s in his last 11 starts on drafting tracks. … Tyler Reddick has scored three consecutive top-10 finishes , tied for his longest streak of the season. … Riley Herbst’s 17th-place finish at his hometown track of Las Vegas tied for his best result in the last 22 races. … Herbst has finished 17th in five races this year, including the first three of the season Bad news: Reddick has finished 14th or worse in seven of the last eight races at Talladega. … Reddick has seven finishes of 15th or worse in the last 12 races.
Front Row Motorsports — Good news: Noah Gragson’s 13th-place finish at his hometown track in Las Vegas was his best result since placing 10th at the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte on Memorial Day weekend. … Gragson finished a season-best fourth at Talladega in April. … Gragson has two top-five finishes in the last three Talladega races. … Gragson’s best career Cup finish came at Talladega in April 2024 when he placed third. … Todd Gilliland has three top 10s in seven Talladega Cup starts. … Gilliland’s three top 10s at Talladega are his most at any track. … Zane Smith won his first career Cup pole at Talladega in April. Bad news: Smith has had four consecutive finishes of 24th or worse.
Haas Factory Team — Good news: Cole Custer finished fourth at Daytona in August in the most recent race at a drafting track. … Custer has finished in the top 20 in each of the last three races at drafting tracks. Bad News: Custer has finished 22nd or worse in nine of the last 11 races.
Hendrick Motorsports — Good news: Kyle Larson has scored back-to-back runner-up finishes. … Larson enters Talladega 35 points above the cutline. … Larson placed second at Talladega in April for his best result in 21 starts there. … Larson will make his 400th career Cup start Sunday at Talladega. … Hendrick Motorsports had all four cars in the top 10 at Talladega in April, only the second time the organization had done so at that track. … William Byron has scored five consecutive top-10 finishes at Talladega, the longest active streak. … Chase Elliott is one of two current playoff drivers (Ryan Blaney is the other) who has won at Talladega in the last nine races. … Elliott has three consecutive top 10s on drafting tracks, the best active streak in the series. … Alex Bowman finished seventh last weekend at Las Vegas, his best result since placing second at Richmond in August. … Bowman has seven top 10s in the last 13 races at drafting tracks. Bad news: Byron is 15 points below the cutline after his crash with Ty Dillon at Las Vegas. … Elliott is 23 points below the cutline after finishing 18th at Las Vegas, a result impacted by a penalty for an uncontrolled tire on pit road. … Larson is winless in his last 21 races, one short of his longest winless streak since joining Hendrick Motorsports in 2021. … Larson is winless in 52 races at drafting tracks.
Hyak Motorsports — Good news: Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s 14th-place finish at Las Vegas gives him back-to-back top 20s for the first time since Kansas and Charlotte in May. … Stenhouse has more wins (2), top fives (8) and top 10s (11) at Talladega than any other Cup track. … Stenhouse’s average finish of 14.4 at Talladega is his best among all active tracks. … Stenhouse won last year’s playoff race at Talladega. Bad news: Stenhouse has 14 finishes of 22nd or worse in the last 18 races this season.
Joe Gibbs Racing — Good news: Denny Hamlin is the first driver to advance to next month’s championship race after he won at Las Vegas for his sixth victory of the season and 60th of his career, which puts him in a tie with Kevin Harvick for 10th on the all-time list. … Hamlin’s six wins this season are his most since 2020 when he won seven times. … The organization has won four of the seven playoff races and done so with three different drivers (Hamlin, Christopher Bell and Chase Briscoe). … Bell has three consecutive top-three finishes. … Bell has scored points in each of the last seven stages. … Briscoe has the best average finish in the playoffs, among all drivers, at 6.3 (Bell is next at 7.4). … Ty Gibbs has led 64 laps this year on drafting tracks, ranking fourth among all drivers. Bad news: Hamlin has two top 10s in his last 11 races at drafting tracks. … Briscoe has one top 10 finish in the last 10 races on drafting tracks. … Bell’s average finish of 20.9 at Talladega is his worst among all active tracks. … Gibbs’ average finish of 25.7 at Talladega his second worst among all tracks.
Kaulig Racing — Good news: Six of Ty Dillon’s eight career top 10s in Cup have come at drafting tracks. Bad news: Dillon finished a season-worst 37th last week at Las Vegas. … AJ Allmendinger has finished 20th or worse in seven of his last eight Talladega starts.
Legacy Motor Club — Good news: Erik Jones has three top fives in the last six races at drafting tracks, including each of the last two. … Jones has eight top 10s in 17 Cup starts at Talladega. Bad news: John Hunter Nemechek has finished 30th or worse in each of his last three Talladega starts. … Nemechek’s average finish of 31.3 at Talladega in the Next Gen era is the worst among all drivers with multiple starts there.
Richard Childress Racing — Good news: Austin Dillon has finished in the top 10 in each of the last two races at Talladega. … Dillon had his best start of the season (fifth) at Talladega in April. … Kyle Busch’s eighth-place finish at his hometown track of Las Vegas tied for his best result in the last 14 races. … Austin Hill is back in the No. 33 this weekend for his fifth Cup start of the season. Bad news: Busch has finished 18th or worse in 10 of the last 12 Talladega races.
Rick Ware Racing — Good news: Cody Ware led a career-high 23 laps at Daytona in August in the most recent race at a drafting track. … Ware’s 20th-place finish in that Daytona race is his best result in the last 15 races. Bad news: Ware has finished 29th or worse in seven consecutive races. … Ware has failed to finish 10 of 33 races this season.
RFK Racing — Good news: Brad Keselowski leads active drivers with six Talladega wins. … Keselowski has two runner-up finishes in his last three Talladega races. … Chris Buescher has five top 10s in the last 10 races at drafting tracks, including each of the last two. Bad news: Ryan Preece was disqualified after his second-place finish at Talladega in April for a post-race inspection violation. … Preece has one top 10 in his last 18 starts on drafting tracks.
Spire Motorsports — Good news: Carson Hocevar finished sixth at Talladega in April. … All three of Hocevar’s top 10s on drafting tracks came in the last four starts on such tracks. … Michael McDowell has two top 10s in the last four races. Bad news: Spire Motorsports announced this week that Justin Haley will not return to the No. 7 car after this season. … Haley, 31st in points, has seven finishes of 25th or worse in the last 10 races. … McDowell has placed 31st or worse in three of the last five Talladega races.
Team Penske — Good news: Austin Cindric won at Talladega in April. … Ryan Blaney is the only driver to have won multiple times at Talladega in the last 12 races there, scoring three wins in that time. … Blaney’s three wins at Talladega are his most at any Cup track. … Joey Logano has led 228 laps on drafting tracks this season, best among all drivers. … Blaney and Logano are tied for second for most wins at Talladega among active drivers with three victories each. Bad news: Blaney’s last-place finish at Las Vegas snapped his season-long streak of 12 consecutive races without a DNF. … Blaney has eight DNFs this season. … Blaney is last among the eight remaining playoff drivers, 31 points below the cutline. … Blaney has finished 37th and 39th (DNFs due to accident) in his last two Talladega starts. … Logano has not finished in the top 10 in a race on a drafting track this season. … Logano has one top-10 finish in the last 12 races at Talladega after he was disqualified in the spring and lost his fifth-place finish when his car failed inspection after the race. … Cindric has an average finish of 24.3 over the last seven races, ranking 31st among full-time competitors.
Trackhouse Racing — Good news: Daniel Suarez has four top 10s in the last six Talladega races. Bad news: Ross Chastain has finished 20th or worse in four of the last five Talladega races. … Chastain has one top-10 finish in the last nine races on a drafting track. … Shane van Gisbergen has not finished better than 15th in nine Cup starts on drafting tracks.
Wood Brothers Racing — Good news: Josh Berry placed ninth at Daytona in August in the most recent race at a drafting track. Bad news: Berry has not scored a top-15 finish in three Cup starts at Talladega. … Berry has four top 10s since he won at Las Vegas in March.
Category: General Sports
