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.

Preece, as well as fifth place finisher Joey Logano, was later disqualified after his car failed post-race tech inspection. Preece’s car was found to have three shims on the rear spoiler instead of two, while Logano’s car was found to have a spoiler bolt missing.

As a result, Kyle Larson ended up being credited with a second place finish, followed by William Byron, Noah Gragson, and Chase Elliott rounding out the top five. Carson Hocevar, Alex Bowman, Bubba Wallace, Daniel Suarez and Austin Dillon 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 27th 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.

Jack Link’s 500 results

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