Kyle Larson Thrills with Last Lap Rally, Photo-Finish Win at Talladega

Talladega Superspeedway was supposed to be the wild card for the Chase contenders. Unfortunately, for the rest of the competition, it served as the spring board for Kyle Larson to further strengthen his hold on the point lead.

Larson, who claimed the most Stage Points on the day with 16, capitalized on a wild day, which saw many Chase contenders crash early, as he surged to a thrilling photo-finish win in the YellaWood 500.

On the final lap of the race, Larson ranked roughly eighth in line, but as the leaders became disjointed ahead of him, Larson sliced and diced his way through the field, and by the time he got back to the finish line, he was able to somehow win by a margin of 0.041 seconds over William Byron, his Hendrick Motorsports teammate.

Larson, who had the lead going into the final lap, washed up the track in Turn 1 on the final lap, and was fuming that he had let the race slip away.

"I was pissed at myself off of [Turn] 2, like, hands off the wheel, just mad," Larson explained. "And then, all of a sudden, like, I don't know, everything just opened up off of [Turn] 4. They almost crashed into [Turn] 3, and just was able to keep my momentum up. Unbelievable way to get my first speedway win."

Larson was thankful to his Chevrolet teammates for doing everything in their power to help him throughout the day.

"[Austin Hill] was helping me well all day, as well as all of my Chevy/GM partners. Really, I gotta thank them for working with me all day. It was just, I really felt it. Definitely the best superspeedway race of my career because of it."

Following the first superspeedway win of Larson's career, the driver performed a burnout in front of the crowd, as his son, Owen, ran to join him.

Here is a replay of the finish to Sunday's race at Talladega:

KYLE LARSON WINS AT TALLADEGA IN THRILLING FASHION!! pic.twitter.com/bvhb3p5y3p
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) October 25, 2026

With the win, Larson has now boosted his championship lead to 73 points over Denny Hamlin with only two races remaining before the Bill France Cup is awarded to the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series champion.

Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., who held the lead until Larson surged ahead in the closing feet of the lap, would finish third behind Larson and Byron, while Ross Chastain, who served as an annoying lapped car at the front of the field for most of the race, would come home to finish on the lead lap in fourth.

Cole Custer would be credited with a fifth-place result in the finish to the wild race at the 2.66-mile superspeedway.

Carson Hocevar, Todd Gilliland, Denny Hamlin, Alex Bowman, and Michael McDowell rounded out the top-10 finishers in the YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.

Hamlin, the eighth-place finisher, is going to need a miraculous rally over the final two races of the season if he hopes to score his first career NASCAR Cup Series title. Hamlin was involved in a multicar melee on Lap 132, which led to some damage on his No. 11 Toyota.

However, Hamlin said the damage didn't ruin his car too badly, which allowed him to be in the mix in the closing laps.

“It knocked some front-toe damage in it. Obviously, the body too. It was a handful, but it was at least serviceable. It wasn’t undrivable,” Hamlin said.

Christopher Bell, who now sits 74 points behind Larson, crashed coming onto pit road in the opening Stage of the race, and then subsequently suffered a pair of cut tires in the laps after it. Bell was never a factor all race long, and finished 35th.

12 of the 16 Chase contenders finished outside of the top-10 on Sunday. The Chase contenders, who suffered from a rough outing, included Ryan Preece (13th), Ty Gibbs (17th), Daniel Suarez (18th), Bubba Wallace (22nd), Austin Cindric (27th), Chris Buescher (32nd), Chase Briscoe (33rd), Joey Logano (34th), Christopher Bell (35th), Chase Elliott (36th), Tyler Reddick (37th), and Ryan Blaney (38th).

Logano, the 34th-place finisher, was involved in a terrifying crash with five laps to go. While battling for the lead, Logano was sent sideways, and as he impacted the outside wall, Logano went flipping onto his roof.

Logano would walk away from the crash unscathed.

While the spectacular crash with five laps remaining, and Larson's incredible rally for the win on the final lap were the final takeaways from the day, the early-race storyline was once again fuel-saving at a superspeedway.

Sunday's YellaWood 500 featured some of the most intense fuel-saving showcased in the Next Gen era, as the pack slowed to 159 miles-per-hour laps in the opening Stage. However, the RFK Racing trio of teammates (Chris Buescher, Ryan Preece and Brad Keselowski) chose to go all-out.

They easily worked their way to the front of the field, and nearly were able to lap the other cars in the race as green flag pit stops took place around Lap 45. While the rest of the pack would start to reel the RFK Racing drivers in down the stretch, the trio comfortably took the Stage 1 win by nearly an 18-second margin over the fuel-savers.

From there on, fuel saving was off the table for the rest of the afternoon, and the racing action ratcheted up in intensity throughout the closing laps.

Updated Chase Grid (Two Races Remaining)

1. Kyle Larson, 2,441 points
2. Denny Hamlin, -73
3. Christopher Bell, -74
4. Chase Briscoe, -77
5. Joey Logano, -94
6. Ryan Blaney, -107
7. Tyler Reddick, -126
8. Ty Gibbs, -183
9. Austin Cindric, -188
10. Carson Hocevar, -198
11. William Byron, -214
12. Chase Elliott, -218
13. Bubba Wallace, 218
14. Daniel Suarez, -240
15. Ryan Preece, -249
16. Chris Buescher, -253

Add us as a preferred source on Google