Top 5 Talladega upsets

Talladega Superspeedway has become known for its wild finishes and unpredictability. With its high speeds and pack-racing style, it makes way for more upset wins to happen than most circuits.

The second race of the NASCAR Playoffs Round of 12 takes place on the Alabama high banks, so here are the top 5 biggest upsets from Talladega over the years.

No. 5: Ricky Stenhouse Jr, 2017

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. finally broke through into Cup Series victory lane at the Talladega Spring Race in 2017 in his fifth year of full-time competition.

His team at the time, Roush Fenway Racing, was on the decline in terms of results. The team had not recorded a win since Carl Edwards in June 2014 at Sonoma.

Stenhouse took the lead on the final lap of an overtime restart to notch the first of three victories so far in his Cup Series career.

The Olive Branch, Miss. driver would take another victory that season at Daytona, another superspeedway, and win the Daytona 500 in 2023.

He currently sports an average finish of 15.1 at Talladega which makes it his third-best track statistically.

No. 4: Lennie Pond, 1978

Lennie Pond raced for 17 seasons in NASCAR’s premier division. The Ettrick, Va. driver won the NASCAR Rookie of the Year award in 1973 with top 10 finishes.

However, his only win would come at Talladega in 1978. Pond, driving an Oldsmobile for Ranier Racing, outran Donnie Allison and that season’s champion, Cale Yarborough, for the victory.

Pond ended his career with 88 top 10s and five pole positions before officially retiring from Cup Series competition in 1989.

No. 3: Ron Bouchard, 1981

Massachusetts driver Ron Bouchard peaked in NASCAR right after he started his Cup Series career.

In just his tenth career start, Bouchard overtook Darrell Waltrip and Terry Labonte, two champions of the sport, to take his only Cup Series win.

The win, along with 11 other top 10s in 22 starts, gave Bouchard the Rookie of the Year honors. He would race for six more seasons in the Cup Series before retiring.

No. 2: David Ragan, 2013

The 2013 Aaron’s 499 was one of the most triumphant underdog stories in NASCAR history.

David Ragan held off a hard-charging pack to take his second career Cup Series win. It was also the first win for his team, Front Row Motorsports, who secured a 1-2 finish with Ragan’s teammate, David Gilliand, finishing in second.

Front Row sees more success now in NASCAR with Michael McDowell getting two wins for the team later on, but they were comfortably a backmarker team in 2013.

Ragan and Gilliand’s teamwork to fend off the rest of the field in a chaotic final stanza to the race cemented their legacy in Talladega history.

No. 1: Richard Brickhouse, 1969

The first-ever race at Talladega then called the Alabama International Motor Speedway, was plagued with controversy.

Talladega was originally built to be a faster version of Daytona, but when it came time to test the track, Goodyear’s tires kept failing.

In protest of safety concerns, members of the Professional Drivers Association (PDA), an unofficial union of NASCAR drivers, boycotted the race. The walk-out left only Richard Brickhouse, Jim Vandiver and Bobby Isaac at the track for race day.

NASCAR allowed cars from the lower-division support race to enter the main event in order to avoid a cancellation, but this meant that only three cars were competitive.

This allowed Brickhouse to take his first and only NASCAR win. He finished his career with 13 top 10s in 39 starts.

Jack Rachinsky is a second-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email jjr6682@psu.edu.