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

Ryan Blaney is a three-time NASCAR Cup Series winner at Talladega Superspeedway, even if it meant taking years off his life as each victory came down to a dramatic photo finish. After winning in 2019 and 2020 by .007 seconds, he added his third with a margin of just .012.

Sunday’s YellaWood 500 was a mad scramble even uncharacteristic for Talladega with seventy lead changes, the seventh most in series history, between twenty-four drivers. Blaney and Kevin Harvick led a pair of lines in the final two laps before the former found a run exiting turn two to take the lead.

After committing to the inside, Blaney retook the lead with William Byron pushing before Harvick and Riley Herbst closed the gap on the otuside. Coming to the finish, Herbst and Chase Elliott were hit and spun in front of the pack. As the field wrecked behind them, Blaney and Harvick surged ahead with the former narrowly on top.

“We did a good job of positioning ourselves up towards the front there,” said Blaney. “After we made a mistake at Stage #2 and lost track position, we did a really good job and had a good pit stop and was able to start in the front two rows. The last restart, I guess, the #36 did a great job. Riley did a really good job of pushing me kind of where I needed it, especially when we were leading the top lane. He hasn’t run too many Cup races at all, and I think the only other speedway he has run is maybe Daytona a month ago. So he did a really good job of kind of understanding where to get on me and carry momentum. So appreciate him for that. He did a good job.

“I think the biggest thing was getting clear to the bottom down the back stretch in front of the #24 (Byron) to get alongside the #4 (Harvick). That made it to where, okay, now it’s a drag race between he and I. The biggest job too was making sure the #24 didn’t get clear, so I kind of had to drag brake to make sure the #4 stayed outside the #24 to make sure one of us won and made sure the #24 couldn’t jump outside of me and made sure I had his help.

“Just a neat day, fun day. It’s always fun to win these things, and you have to appreciate them because they’re so hard to do. We hung in there all day, and fun to drag race Kevin there at the end. I hate it had to be us to beat him at his final speedway race, but it was definitely fun to race with someone like that, especially coming down to the end where it gets pretty wild.”

Ironically, Blaney would have won annyway even if Harvick edged him out. After the race, Harvick’s #4 failed post-race inspection because the bolts keeping his windshield in place were not tightened. According to crew chief Rodney Childers, “every bolt was still in” with thirty laps remaining before two came off ten laps later.

“There have been times I’ve got caught doing something I shouldn’t have,” wrote Childers in a since-deleted tweet. “Today got DQ’d for the car buffering in the draft all day and some windshield bolts vibrating out. My guys had silicon on the threads and gobbed on the tip. Still came out. Not sure what else we could do.”

The disqualification was the first in any NASCAR national series in 2023 and the first in the Cup Series since Brad Keselowski was busted at the 2022 Xfinity 500. While it spoils Harvick’s final race at Talladega, his Stewart-Haas Racing team does not intend to file an appeal.

“At the completion of the race, not all of our windshield fasteners were secure, as we had bolts that hold the windshield in place back out over the course of the 500 miles. We are in the process of diagnosing why this happened and how to prevent it moving forward,” reads a statement from SHR competition director Greg Zipadelli. “We are disappointed in NASCAR’s decision to disqualify our racecar and the hard-earned finish by our driver and team, but we will not appeal. Our complete focus is on the remaining races on this year’s schedule.”

Race results