THOMPSON MAKES INCREDIBLE SAVE ON WAY TO TOP TOYOTA HONORS AT TALLADEGA
The Sam Hunt Racing driver delivers consecutive top-10 runs for the first time in his career
TALLADEGA, Ala. (October 24, 2026) – Dean Thompson delivered an incredible save mid-race and recovered to finish eighth to lead Toyota in the NASCAR O’Reilly Series race at Talladega Superspeedway on Saturday afternoon. Thompson followed his seventh-place run at Phoenix with another strong performance – his first consecutive top-10 finishing streak of his NASCAR O’Reilly Series career.
Brandon Jones (ninth) also recovered from a mid-race spin to suffer no damage and the Georgia-native was able to drive from the 30s back to the top-10 to move back inside the top-10 in points.
TOYOTA RACING Post-Race Recap
NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series (NOAPS)
Talladega Superspeedway
Race 31 of 33 – 250.04 miles, 94 laps
TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS
1st, Sammy Smith*
2nd, Carson Kvapil*
3rd, Jesse Love*
4th, Justin Allgaier*
5th, Sheldon Creed*
8th, DEAN THOMPSON
9th, BRANDON JONES
21st, TAYLOR GRAY
24th, HARRISON BURTON
29th, WILLIAM SAWALICH
34th, BRENT CREWS
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA QUOTES
DEAN THOMPSON, No. 26 Thompson Pipe Group Toyota GR Supra, Sam Hunt Racing
Finishing Position: 8th
Another solid superspeedway top-10. Can you tell us about your race?
“I just want to thank Thompson Pipe Group, Sam Hunt Racing and Toyota. Really solid day for us. I wish we could have gotten some more stage points, but with the tire stuff happening in the truck race yesterday, that was an iffy thing – so we just played it safe all day and came away with a good finish.”
Can you tell us how you saved it there?
“That was wild. I was hand-over-hand, but testament to how good these race cars drive at Sam Hunt Racing. Thanks to the guys.”
BRANDON JONES, No. 20 Menards/Atlas Toyota GR Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 9th
Clean race car, and a top-10 at a superspeedway. I know you wanted more, but how was your race as a whole?
“I think the save – I don’t know if you call that a save, but it was a no contact spin which was pretty epic there. Half of it was driver, half of it was luck, I think, when it came to that, but I was happy we didn’t tear up our Atlas, Menards Supra up there. I think we made a lot of really solid moves. There are a lot of people – I think a lot of the other manufacturers are just out for themselves, and it is kind of hard to get some guys going with you, so with that kind of that mindset in play, I thought we did a really good job of keeping ourselves with people that were really shoving us really aggressively, and really hard. We made some really good moves at times. It was kind of difficult at times to generate those runs by yourself. People tonight kind of ran around single-file for most of the race. I see that here, the second race, everyone really gets tight on that cut line on the Chase, and people don’t put themselves in quite as risky scenarios that you would in the Spring, so you typically see more of a conservative race here for that reason every time. I think all things considered, a top ten is great. I would have like to have been up there in the stages more, but it is kind of timing those runs correctly and getting in the right lane whenever it builds and has momentum. There is always room to improve on the driver side and the car side, but I’ll take this, and it is definitely something we can build off of. There was a lot of good moves that we can go back and study and look at and see what was good, and maybe there was some that I made that weren’t quite as good, so I can study those too.”
About Toyota
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