Stenhouse Steals the Win

YellaWood 500:

Ricky Stenhouse Jr stole the win at the line on Sunday afternoon in the YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. Stenhouse had a late surge that propelled him to the lead off of turn four and he was able to hold on at the line by .006 of a second over Brad Keselowski. The win was Stenhouse's first win of the 2024 season and snapped a 65-race winless streak dating back to the 2023 Daytona 500. The win also proved to be emotional for the team as well with some uncertainty surrounding the details of their 2025 campaign, and the win was a needed morale boost for those reasons and to honor co-owner Brad Daugherty and his hometown of Black Mountain, NC as well as all of Western NC still reeling from the impacts of Hurricane Helene. All in all a feel good win for the sport and most importantly Stenhouse and the 47 team.

The race was, unfortunately, much like many of the recent drafting races with the new generation car. Two wide, slot car racing saving fuel. Sure, a few times the pack would expand to three-and-four-wide, and that was intense as any minor mistake or malfunction by a driver or car would surely set off a disastrous wreck. But it was mainly drivers just holding a steady wheel and riding around until they filtered themselves out for green flag pit stops. Now, the mad dashes we had at the end of each stage and all the way up to the 28 car pileup that put the race in overtime, were rather entertaining. You could see drivers trying to build runs, shuck drivers out of the lane, make moves, and try to get a third lane going. So, we can see that this package can, sometimes, race well, but there is too much talent of the drivers left to be had and not on display. Then at the end of the races it just turns into shoving matches, wrecks, and little skill actually used to win these races like we had seen in previous generation cars. I am not sure of the fix (I'm no engineer) but I am tired of 450 miles of lollygagging and 50 miles of some semblance of racing.

With that being said, we still did see some of the cream of the crop rise to the top. Unfortunately, many got taken out in the 28-lap junkyard that was on the backstretch. But Stenhouse, Keselowski, Byron, and Larson were some of the top that made it through and put on display skill to win these races. However, I am not a fan of Larson's spotter saying on the radio to not push the 6 because he is a Ford. It's go time; you do what you have to do to win the race OEMs of other cars be damned. But we will likely never move beyond that now that those games have been set in motion. And I am 100% against NASCAR's inadequate and inconsistent officiating the DVP - that absolutely has to be rectified before the green flag falls on any race this upcoming weekend. Failure for NASCAR to address that matter will further demonstrate their inability to pragmatically or consistently rule on anything within their rule book. Not a good look for them with everything going on in their world on and off the track, and in the midst of a championship battle. Aside from those clusters, we still got a thrilling finish. Anticlimactic until the tri-oval - which annoys me because I want to see more drivers challenge and try to win, but I digress - but it is hard to say that wasn't exciting as three cars charged to the finish line side-by-side trying to win. And nothing against Byron or Keselowski, but I did enjoy seeing Stenhouse for the underdog team take the checkered flag.

Now we shift our eyes forward to the beast that is the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL. I am anxious to see how the new layout impacts racing for both series. The Craftsman Truck Series is enjoying another weekend off so we have the Xfinity Series kicking off the weekend on Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m. EST on the CW with the Drive for Cure 250 Presented by BCBS. And the Cup Series Round of 12 cutoff race caps off the weekend on Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. EST with the Bank of America ROVAL 400.

ROVAL Picks:

Truck = Off

Xfinity = SVG

Cup = Elliott

Header Photo: Vasha Hunt, Vasha Hunt Imagn Images