NASCAR Talladega race winners and losers: Tyler Reddick escapes with win

The Big One at Talladega held off until the last turn Sunday in the Geico 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. When the race ended, Tyler Reddick had his first NASCAR Cup Series win of 2024 and NBA icon Michael Jordan had his first this season as co-owner of 23XI Racing and sixth overall.

Here are our winners and losers from Talladega, where cautions were minimal, but the big crash still occurred in the end.

Keselowski had one of the top cars most the day at Talladega and contended for the win at the end. He collected Michael McDowell's car when McDowell came down across his nose on a late block attempt and ended up causing the big crash on the last lap Sunday. Keselowski had a shot at his first win in 107 races, but Reddick had the momentum to get past Keselowski for the win to extend Keselowski's drought to 108 races. This was Keselowski's second straight second-place finish.

Gragson had his best race of the season and showed he could be a drafting partner for the fall Talladega race in the process. Gragson finished third, his best finish of the season for Stewart-Haas Racing. He was a key drafting partner late in the race. Gragson's previous best finish this year was sixth at Las Vegas.

Reddick won his first race of 2024 and did so with Jordan in attendance. It was the race team's first win of the season. And with another Toyota win, it kept Ford winless for the season despite Ford drivers McDowell and Keselowski among the top three before the late crash.

Christopher Bell's day ended on a wreck on Lap 132 after Chase Elliott spun Justin Haley, who in return spun out Christopher Bell. The crash ended Bell's No. 20 Toyota. He finished last at 38th. It was his fourth race of finishing 33rd or worse and second in three weeks. The good thing? He has a win at Phoenix.

Larson's weekend started when he was penalized and not permitted to qualify after NASCAR found his car had an unapproved adjustment to the roof rails. On Sunday, NASCAR also made Larson go through a drive through penalty at the start of the race and suspended his car chief. Larson still made his way into the top 10, but finished 21st.

McDowell was in position to collect his third career NASCAR Cup win and if nothing else, a top-3 finish. But McDowell blocked one too many times. Brad Keselowski punted him on the last lap when McDowell moved down low to block a late Keselowski pass attempt after a success block on the outside. McDowell spun out when he clipped the front of Keselowski's car and ended up wrecking, which forced the big crash at the finish line of the Geico 500. McDowell finished 31st.

Reach Tom Kreager at 615-259-8089 or [email protected] and on the X platformer @Kreager.