TALLADEGA, Ala.– Elliott Sadler’s 41st birthday will be one to remember as he scored the victory at the Alabama roulette wheel.
The driver of the No. 1 JR Motorsports Chevrolet survived a wreck in the tri-oval coming to the checkered flag and had to wait for the official results to take said checkered flag in the Sparks Energy 300 at Talladega Superspeedway. It’s his 11th win in the XFINITY Series, second at Talladega and first since 2014.
“People don’t know how hard it is to win these races. It’s very emotional,” said Sadler choking up in victory lane. “It’s a great birthday gift to me. Man, we needed this win.”
Coming to the line, he was trying to find his way around Joey Logano when Logano got loosened up, came down on Sadler, turned back up the track and slammed the wall head-on. As his lifeless car came back down, it was t-boned by JJ Yeley in his No. 44 Tri-Star Motorsports Toyota. Both drivers were unharmed. Yeley took his car back to the garage and Logano got out of his car under his own power.
Justin Allgaier, who was sitting in his car on pit road after the race had concluded while the finishing order was still being determined, finished second in his No. 7 JRM Chevrolet. Brennan Poole, who had crossed the line first after the field was frozen, came home third in his No. 48 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet. Jeremy Clements finished fourth in his No. 51 Jeremy Clements Racing Chevrolet. Brendan Gaughan overcame an early pass-through penalty to round out the top-five in his No. 62 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet.
Austin Dillon finished sixth in his No. 2 RCR Chevrolet. Daniel Suárez finished seventh in his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.
“I feel like we had a really fast car by ourselves, but for some reason in the draft and pushing and trying to push people it wasn’t great,” Suárez said. “Pushing was okay and when I was getting pushed it was horrible and then we made it better, but it wasn’t great. I don’t know. I feel like we have to keep working and improving our superspeedway program.”
Matt Tifft led 21 laps on his way to an eighth-place finish in his No. 18 JGR Toyota.
“It wasn’t too bad for typical Talladega until the end there,” Tifft said. “We had a really fast car all day. Just kind of got shuffled out – got shuffled back a little bit further than we might have wanted to. Then the last couple laps, just craziness here, so just tried to stay on the bottom. Just tried to kind of shove our way through there and stay out of trouble, so proud of everybody at Joe Gibbs Racing and our whole NOS Energy Drink Camry.”
Chase Elliott led seven laps on his way to a ninth-place finish in his No. 88 JRM Chevrolet. Aric Almirola overcame an early pass-through penalty to round out the top-10 in his No. 98 Richard Petty Motorsports Ford.
The race lasted two hours, 19 minutes and 45 seconds at an average speed of 132.477 mph. There were 20 lead changes among 13 different drivers and six cautions for 29 laps.
Sadler leaves Talladega tied for the points lead with Suárez.
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