Olive Branch’s Ricky Stenhouse Jr. comes out on top at Talladega

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Olive Branch native Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. came out victorious Sunday night in a thrilling finish to a chaotic NASCAR Cup Series YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.

The 36-year-old driver was able to maintain a razor-thin distance from Brad Keselowski and William Byron to cross the checkered line in an epic overtime photo-finish at the wildly popular Alabama venue. Stenhouse was a grand 0.006 seconds ahead of the two counterparts who threatened a late push.

The Mississippian’s win followed a massive wreck involving 28 vehicles — the largest crash in NASCAR history — with five laps remaining in the race. Officials waived the red flag and stopped action for about 10 minutes.

Sunday’s feat marked Stenhouse’s first win since the 2023 Daytona 500 and his fourth career Cup Series win as a professional driver. Each of his victories has taken place at Daytona and Talladega.

“Man, this team has put a lot of hard work in and obviously we haven’t won since the Daytona 500 in ’23,” Stenhouse said after the big win. “It’s been an up-and-down season, a lot of hard work this season trying to find a little bit of speed, but we knew this track is one of ours to come get it.”

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