TALLADEGA, Ala. – After a mid-race shock change dropped him a lap down to the leaders, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was prepared for a long day in Sunday’s 1000Bulbs.com 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.

However, through fortuitous luck, a well-timed caution flag and late charge through the field, Stenhouse ultimately ended up with his best finish of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season.

Stenhouse qualified 12th and ran solidly in the lead pack during the first half of Sunday’s race, but battled handling issues for much of the day that kept him largely mired behind the frontrunning Fords from Stewart-Haas Racing and Team Penske.

The consistent gremlins led crew chief Brian Pattie to call Stenhouse down pit road and change both front shocks on the No. 17 SunnyD Ford in an effort to improve his race car.

It ultimately paid big dividends, especially once a caution with 52 laps to go for a spinning Jamie McMurray allowed Stenhouse to get the free pass and return to the lead lap. He then charged from 31st up to eighth before a final yellow flag waved with three laps left for a multi-car accident in turn four.

That set up an overtime restart where Stenhouse, in his typical fashion at Talladega, was able to shine.

The Olive Branch, Miss., native made several impressive moves in the draft to get to the back bumper of second-running Aric Almirola at the white flag, before shoving Almirola to the race lead exiting turn four when Kurt Busch’s engine sputtered with a lack of fuel in the final corner.

Stenhouse then battled right to the finish line with Almirola’s teammate Clint Bowyer, settling for third by a narrow margin and earning perhaps the quietest top-five finish of his Talladega career.

“We definitely had to fight hard today,” Stenhouse said. “We fought hard and made a lot of adjustments to try and make our car faster. I was gearing up for a long end to the race, but everything seemed to work for us a little bit there … and we obviously fell on the lucky side of having to pit and having enough fuel, so everything worked out for us today.”

Stenhouse admitted that he thought a few more cars might end up low on fuel and open the door for him on the final lap Sunday.

“I was really hoping all of them were going to run out, but that didn’t happen,” he laughed. “We got a good run to the outside of the 21 (Paul Menard), I believe. Got up into third there down the back straightaway, and then I was able to get to second there.

“I thought Clint was going to stay in line and see if we could catch the 10 (Almirola) getting back to the start/finish line,” added Stenhouse. “I left the door open just enough on the bottom to let Clint get to the inside of us, but neither one of us had a shot to catch Aric at the start/finish line.”

Despite ending up in the top five in both Talladega races this season, Stenhouse was disappointed in the lack of speed he and his team had for much of the race weekend.

However, he was pleased with his first stretch of consecutive top-10 finishes all year long.

“All in all from the way our day started and with all the adjustments we made, we’ll definitely take that result, but I’m not pleased at all with the speed that we had today,” said Stenhouse.

“To get that good finish and have back-to-back top 10s is a solid start, though.”