By David Morgan, Associate Editor
TALLADEGA, Ala. – Tyler Reddick will lead the field to green in Sunday’s Jack Link’s 500 at Talladega Superspeedway after qualifying was washed out on Saturday morning and the field was set by the rule book.
The five-time winner in 2026 and current points leader will be joined on the front row by Kyle Larson as he looks to continue his streak of parlaying a pole into a win, which he most recently accomplished last weekend at Kansas.
The remainder of the top-10 starters will be Denny Hamlin, Bubba Wallace, Chase Briscoe, Brad Keselowski, William Byron, Chase Elliott, Ty Gibbs, and Chris Buescher.
Casey Mears will be the lone driver to miss the field in his No. 62 Beard Motorsports Chevrolet.
Reddick explained that with the revamped stage lengths for Sunday’s race, he expects their strategy from pole to be much of the same from previous superspeedway races.
“I would imagine for us, no major shifts. I think will pretty much approach the race the same,” said Reddick. “Yes, it would be nice if we could win a stage this year, but we found way to win races, so that’s good too. Yeah, I think for us, nothing major, no major changes.
“We’re going to have a great pit stall, all the things that kind of come with getting the pole position. So, I think if anything, we’re just in a good spot, whether it’s the green flag cycles or under caution, through getting first in the in the qualifying metrics. So, yeah, I think it’ll pretty much be as we expected.”
Drivers React to NASCAR Leadership Changes
One of the major stories to come out of the weekend thus far has been the leadership changes in the NASCAR front office with Jim France stepping down as CEO and Steve O’Donnell taking his place in the top leadership job, along with Ben Kennedy ascending to the COO role.
Brad Keseslowski, the 2012 Cup Series champion and one of the elder statesman on the circuit, explained that when France took over the CEO job, it was expected that his time in that role would be a stop-gap and his tenure had naturally run its course.
“I feel like when Jim came in circa ‘18, ‘19, I think we all knew that was kind of like, ‘Hey, this is the right guy and the right time to take NASCAR to the next level.’ And I feel like he did a lot of things that he’ll probably not get credit for,” said Keselowski.
“The last year was obviously very tough with things that were going on in the sport and lawsuits and beyond, but I think everyone pretty much knew that was not gonna be a 20-30 year run. He and I had a good relationship. I like talking to him. I like Jim a lot, so there’s part of me that is sad to see him go, but I think everyone understood the dynamics and that he kind of took his turn and it wasn’t meant to be long-term.”
Keselowski added his support for both O’Donnell and Kennedy in their new roles going forward.
“Like anyone else in any role, there’s been wins and losses that those guys have had. What you hope for is that you learn from your misses and that you’re able to apply those lessons to things that happen in the future,” Keselowski continued.
“I will tell you that when I’ve sat in a room with Ben we’ve had great conversations. I enjoy my time with him and I feel like we linked up on a lot of things and have similar mindsets, so that’s really exciting for me. Steve and I have worked on a number of projects together. I can’t say every one of them have gone perfectly, but I do appreciate his willingness to work together.”
Denny Hamlin, who was embroiled in a very public battle with NASCAR in his lawsuit with his 23XI Racing team last season, added that he thought well of France’s handling of some situations in his tenure, but there were also some misses.
“He had a lot of, he had to come in a challenging situation, having to step in and obviously COVID was something that they had to navigate that I thought he did very well,” said Hamlin.
“There’s just a lot of things that he wanted to see our sport head down a certain path and some were successes, some were not. That’s really what you’ll have no matter who’s in charge here, not everyone’s going to bat a hundred percent and certainly feel like it was time to get some new fresh blood in there that sees things perhaps a little differently.”
Testin’ Tires
Earlier in the week, a trio of drivers headed to Chicagoland Speedway for a Goodyear tire test in advance of the Cup Series returning to the track for the first time since 2019 over July 4th weekend.
Among those being a representative of each manufacturer, including Kyle Larson (Chevrolet), Ryan Blaney (Ford), and Denny Hamlin (Toyota).
“It was fun. It was cool just to be back,” said Larson. “I mean, the facility was in a lot better shape than I thought it would be in. The track and the garage area and all that was in better shape. I mean the track itself, I don’t know, I mean it kind of reminded me of what it was.
“It’s super rough, huge dip into [Turn] 1 and then a big bump there in the center of [Turns] 3 and 4. So if you missed it by a few feet, you’d bottom ’em out and almost crash.
“And then it was just so fast paced. I never worked up, so I don’t really know what the other lanes are like, but imagine it’s really rough. But yeah, it grippier and faster than I thought it might be, but it also is going to be a million degrees when we go back, so it’ll probably slow down quite a bit. But no, it was fun. It was cool and thought that we learned a lot about our race car.”
Blaney said much of the same, pointing out the worn-out surface and remembering some of the unique features of the track, adding that he expected many of the fans that attended the Chicago Street Race over the last three years to make their way to Chicagoland this summer.
“Track’s honestly very similar to what I remember it being,” said Blaney. “Big patch bump into [Turn] 1, big bump over the tunnel. We didn’t get super wide. We only got to a couple lanes at the test, but it’s just dirty. If you don’t start up there, it just eventually kind of gets too dirty to run it. But when we go back there, we’re going to use everything, which is good.”
“Surface is pretty worn out. But yeah, I’m excited to get back there. I think it’s going to put on a great show. I think this car is going to perform really good there when it has multiple lanes and stuff like that. So, I’m excited. I know a lot of people around there are excited.
“…I think a lot of people that came to the Chicago Street race for the first time and it was their first race are going to migrate to Joliet because they kind of got hooked with that and it something completely different. So, I know they’ve done a great job getting that place ready and it’s going to look even nicer when we go back. So, I’m excited. It’s a great racetrack.”
Hamlin added that it was a return to familiarity at the track, even with this being the first Next Gen race there, explaining that the two days of testing that he, Larson, and Blaney were able to put in should give them a leg up in the race.
“I thought that it was very similar to what it was years and years ago. Not a whole lot has changed,” said Hamlin.
“I just learned how to navigate some of the bumps around there. I think that that really is going to be the biggest advantage that probably the three of us have is to, it took hours and hours to really kind of understand the way to get around there correctly with the bumps and it’s very similar.
“It’s just very similar, but one of the disadvantages, we didn’t run really the real racing line. We had to run around on the bottom how tire tests usually are and so I agree with the other two guys that said the line’s going to move up all over the place and so I think it’s going to be a very racy surface.
“Certainly got some grass to cut and some paint to put on that thing to dress it up, but overall it’s going to probably put on a great race.”
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