QUINIX Sport News: NASCAR at Talladega results: Austin Cindric beats Ryan Preece in photo finish to win Jack Link’s 500

LINCOLN, Ala. — In yet another close finish at a track notorious for them, Austin Cindric edged out Ryan Preece in a photo finish to win the Jack Link’s 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. Cindric, the 2022 Daytona 500 champion and one of the best superspeedway racers in NASCAR, earned his first Talladega win and the third win of his Cup career.

After executing on his team’s strategy and a quick final pit stop by his crew, Cindric found himself in the lead in the final 15 laps, leading the inside line and first battling fellow Daytona 500 champion William Byron for the win before Ryan Preece, seeking his first Cup victory, boldly swung to the top line to take the fight to Cindric for the win. Come the checkered flag, the two crossed finish line side-by-side with Cindric ahead by 0.022 seconds — about half a carlength.

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Steven Taranto

Preece earned the best finish of his Cup career in second, followed by Kyle Larson, William Byron and Joey Logano rounding out the top five. Noah Gragson, Chase Elliott, Carson Hocevar, Alex Bowman and Bubba Wallace made up the rest of the top 10.

Time and time again, Cindric had found himself in position to win on superspeedways in the past year — including February’s Daytona 500, which he led coming off turn 2 on the final lap — only to either get wrecked or have circumstances go against him in some other way. This time, the law of averages would finally work in Cindric’s favor as he held on to cross the finish line at the head of the lead pack.

“I’m just so proud of this team,” Cindric told Fox Sports. “… The Ford Performance, Roush Yates engines package at these types of racetracks are second to none. We talked about in every single one of those meetings why we haven’t won one of these races. Just really proud of the effort.”

In a race once again dominated by fuel strategy and trying to minimize time spent on pit road, most of the lead pack exhibited exemplary discipline racing three and four-wide, as the dreaded Big One did not occur at any point across Sunday’s 500 miles of racing. However, with pit road at the center of action, it was also the center of trouble as three contenders and former Talladega winners — Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch and Ryan Blaney — were all involved in an early crash trying to come in for their first green flag stops. The wreck ended Keselowski and Blaney’s races, while Busch was able to stay in contention but finished 29th after a pit road speeding penalty on his final stop.

With 34 of the 39 drivers that started the race running at the finish — Keselowski, Blaney, Christopher Bell and Chris Buescher after a separate accident and B.J. McLeod due to mechanical troubles were the other DNFs — Sunday’s race saw 67 lead changes among 23 different drivers.

1. #2 – Austin Cindric
2. #60 – Ryan Preece
3. #5 – Kyle Larson
4. #24 – William Byron
5. #22 – Joey Logano
6. #4 – Noah Gragson
7. #9 – Chase Elliott
8. #77 – Carson Hocevar
9. #48 – Alex Bowman
10. #23 – Bubba Wallace
11. #99 – Daniel Suarez
12. #3 – Austin Dillon
13. #71 – Michael McDowell
14. #47 – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
15. #41 – Cole Custer
16. #45 – Tyler Reddick
17. #19 – Chase Briscoe
18. #34 – Todd Gilliland
19. #54 – Ty Gibbs
20. #43 – Erik Jones
21. #38 – Zane Smith
22. #1 – Ross Chastain
23. #11 – Denny Hamlin
24. #35 – Riley Herbst (R)
25. #10 – Ty Dillon
26. #16 – A.J. Allmendinger
27. #7 – Justin Haley
28. #21 – Josh Berry
29. #8 – Kyle Busch
30. #62 – Anthony Alfredo
31. #88 – Shane van Gisbergen (R)
32. #42 – John Hunter Nemechek
33. #51 – Cody Ware
34. #44 – J.J. Yeley
35. #78 – B.J. McLeod
36. #17 – Chris Buescher
37. #20 – Christopher Bell
38. #6 – Brad Keselowski
39. #12 – Ryan Blaney