By David Morgan, Associate Editor
TALLADEGA, Ala. – Austin Cindric finally got it done on a superspeedway this season, holding off a fellow Ford in Ryan Preece down the stretch to bring home the win in Sunday’s Jack Link’s 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.
Cycling to the lead after the final round of green flag pit stops with 15 laps to go over the Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets of Kyle Larson and William Byron, it was shaping up to be a Ford vs Chevrolet battle as the laps wound down.
Cindric would have Larson in his rear-view, while Preece had Daytona 500 champion Byron behind him providing pushing help.
As nearly everyone in the field waited with baited breath on the expected chaos in the closing laps, that chaos never came and it turned into a drag race between the two Blue Ovals of Cindric and Preece.
Cindric was able to push out just ahead of Preece as they crossed the line to score the first win of the season for Team Penske and first win for Cindric since Gateway in June 2024.
The victory also provided a respite of sorts for Cindric on the superspeedways, having been in contention for the win in both the Daytona 500 and at Atlanta, only to have those wins snatched from his grasp.
What a finish at @TALLADEGA! pic.twitter.com/xvzKkWgprM
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) April 27, 2025
“It takes everything and we’ve had it so many races here and you’ve got to have a little bit more,” said Cindric. “I’m just so proud of everybody on this race team. Team Penske, the entire shop deserves wins at these racetracks with how fast our race cars are and I’m just so proud to be able to win for John Menard and the Menards team – to get this yellow car in Victory Lane and get in the playoffs.”
He noted that he was waiting on the chaos to strike at the end and derail the race for him and his team, but stayed focused all the way to the finish and on to Victory Lane.
“You’re waiting for it to go wrong, but you’ve got to stay in the zone,” Cindric said. “There are so many times at the end I was just focused on the feedback Doug Campbell was giving me and what I knew about our car and maybe other cars I observed throughout the field today, so just an absolutely fantastic job by everybody involved.”
Meanwhile, it was heartbreak for Preece, who has come so close to winning in the Cup Series, only to fall short for one reason or another. Despite having the win in his grasp, Preece said that being that close to the win will only strengthen his resolve to deliver a win for RFK Racing and his No. 60 team.
“We did all we could,” Preece said. “I felt like we executed Stage Three exactly like we needed to. We came out in the front of our group and worked our way through that traffic. We had the opportunity to get to the top lane and then from there it was just managing those cars behind us and not giving up what we gained.
“I’m really proud of everybody at RFK for this race car. I’m just really super appreciative from Jack, Brad, the Fenway Group for this opportunity. Honestly, without Kroger and BAM and Celsius and a lot of the other partners today, I’d probably be back in Connecticut.
“I’m really excited about the rest of this year. It’s a great day, but I wanted to win.”
Kyle Larson scored a career-best superspeedway finish with his third-place result, as he finally turned around his bad luck at Talladega.
Though he would have liked to have been able to make something happen in the final run to the checkered, Larson noted that he was happy to settle with a third-place finish on the day and leave Talladega with an intact race car.
“There wasn’t really much I could do the final five laps… I was just kind of jammed up there,” Larson said.
“I will take a third-place finish. We had a great day, points-wise, for this No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet team. Winning the first stage was a bit unexpected, and then finishing third in the second stage from where we were on the final restart was also unexpected. Just a really good day, overall, for the No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevy.”
Byron crossed the line in fourth, with Joey Logano rounding out the top-five. The remainder of the top-10 went to Noah Gragson, Chase Elliott, Carson Hocevar, Alex Bowman, and Bubba Wallace.
Stage 1 Chaos
The only two cautions for cause came in the opening stage of the race, with some top contenders seeing their days come to an early end.
During the first pit stop cycle, as Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski were attempting to get onto pit road with a host of others, Busch made contact with Keselowski as they slowed, collecting Ryan Blaney as he attempted to sneak by on the inside, along with Alex Bowman also getting a piece of it.
Both Keselowski and Blaney were sidelined at that point in the race, with the damage to their Fords too much to be able to continue on, while Busch and Bowman were able to repair their machines to finish out the race.
Trouble at the entrance to pit road!
The yellow is out on Lap 43. pic.twitter.com/dmdo5zwH3B
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) April 27, 2025
“I just got hit from behind. I didn’t really have a chance to do anything and got turned and wrecked our race car and a few others. That really stinks but that’s the way it’s been,” said Keselowski.
Blaney’s team originally appeared that they would try to repair the damage to his machine, but upon further investigation, the damage was just too much to try and fix.
“We just broke too many pieces in the right-rear. That took all the damage. The right-rear wheel and it broke everything. We couldn’t fix it, unfortunately, but I don’t really know,” said Blaney.
“I saw the 8 and 6 kind of get hooked together and they were going up the track, so I kind of picked the bottom and tried to get out of there and I think they clipped someone outside of them and the 6 came back into me and I got clipped in the right-rear.
“Oh gosh, man, another DNF. It just sucks. Just when we were kind of getting our momentum and didn’t even get to race today. We’ll just move on to Texas.”
On the ensuing restart, the field would only make it around to the exit of Turn 2 before the caution flew again.
This time, it was an errant bump from Denny Hamlin to the rear of teammate Christopher Bell as the field worked up to speed, sending Bell spinning toward the inside wall, collecting Chris Buescher in the process.
Contact sends the No. 20 into the inside wall.@CBellRacing exited the vehicle under his own power. pic.twitter.com/7dkdalRtpu
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) April 27, 2025
Bell would make heavy contact with the inside SAFER barrier, but thankfully, he was able to climb from his battered Toyota seemingly no worse for wear.
Likewise from Buescher, who was also unhurt after his car slammed into the wall behind Bell;s car.
“Whenever you’re the car getting pushed, you’re completely at the mercy of the guy behind you,” said Bell. “You know, Denny (Hamlin) didn’t do anything wrong. You have to push, you have to push to be successful. It’s a product of the cars we race with this rules package.”
Buescher said much of the same, explaining how he was just a victim of circumstance in the incident.
“Everything was great out the windshield. I have no clue what happened yet. I imagine it was a bad push. That’s all it can really be. I know we’re all going for it there at the end,” said Buescher.
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