Brad Keselowski led just one lap in Sunday’s Geico 500 -the most important lap, the last — which helped him become a six-time winner at Talladega Superspeedway. Keselowski’s victory came in overtime and it gave him his first victory of the season in his No. 2 Team Penske Ford.
Finishing second was William Byron of Hendrick Motorsports, who was looking for his second win of the season. Coming in third was 2021 Daytona 500 winner Michael McDowell, and rounding out the top five were Kevin Harvick of Stewart-Haas Racing and Matt DiBenedetto, who restarted the race in OT with the lead and who was attempting to give the iconic Wood Brothers Racing team its 100th victory in Cup.
Playing a big role at the 2.66-mile Talladega track were crashes, including one on Lap 59 — the final lap of Stage 1 — when Joey Logano was knocked sideways. His car then went airborne before rolling down the track. Logano is a three-time winner at Talladega and had led 10 laps on Sunday. A second significant wreck occurred with two laps left in State 2, between Denny Hamlin, who led 44 laps to that point, his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Martin Truex, Jr., Chase Elliott and his Hendrick Motorsports teammates Bryon and Alex Bowman. All continued on but the cars of Hamlin and Bowman suffered serious damage and fell off the lead lap.
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