RICK WARE RACING
YellaWood 500
Date: Oct. 25, 2026
Event: YellaWood 500 (Round 34 of 36)
Series: NASCAR Cup Series
Location: Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway
Format: 188 laps, broken into three stages (98 laps/45 laps/45 laps)
Note: Race extended one lap past its scheduled 188-lap distance due to a green-white-checkered finish.
Race Winner: Kyle Larson of Hendrick Motorsports (Chevrolet)
Stage 1 Winner: Chris Buescher of RFK Racing (Ford)
Stage 2 Winner: Joey Logano of Team Penske (Ford)
RWR Finish:
● Cody Ware (Started 11th, Finished 16th / Running, completed 188 of 189 laps)
RWR Points:
● Cody Ware (35th with 258 points)
RWR Notes:
● Ware’s 16th-place finish in the YellaWood 500 was his best of the season. His previous best was 17th, earned Feb. 15 in the season-opening Daytona 500.
● This was Ware’s eighth top-25 of the season and his fifth top-25 in 13 career NASCAR Cup Series starts at Talladega.
● Ware led twice for nine laps to bring his laps-led total at Talladega to 20.
Race Notes:
● Kyle Larson won the YellaWood 500 to score his 35th career NASCAR Cup Series victory, his third of the season and his first at Talladega. His margin over second-place William Byron was .041 of a second.
● This was Chevrolet’s 890th all-time NASCAR Cup Series victory and its ninth of the season. Chase Elliott won for the Bowtie Brigade March 29 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway, Carson Hocevar won April 26 at Talladega, Elliott won again May 3 at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Shane van Gisbergen won May 10 at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International, Daniel Suárez won May 24 at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway, van Gisbergen won again June 28 at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway, Kyle Larson won Sept. 13 at World Wide Technology Raceway near St. Louis and again Sept. 27 at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City.
● This was Chevrolet’s series-leading 47th NASCAR Cup Series victory at Talladega. Chevrolet won its first race at Talladega on May 1, 1977, with NASCAR Hall of Famer Darrell Waltrip.
● There were four caution periods for a total of 18 laps.
● Only 14 of the 40 drivers in the race finished on the lead lap.
● Larson remains the championship leader after Talladega with a 73-point advantage over second-place Denny Hamlin.
Next Up:
The next event on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the Xfinity 500 on Sunday, Nov. 1, at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway. The penultimate race in the 10-race Chase starts at 2 p.m. EST with live coverage provided by NBC and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
