Elliott took a hard lick into the outside SAFER Barrier before his car came to rest, leading to a third and final red flag period for cleanup before the race-deciding three-lap dash to the finish.
Keselowski lined up on the bottom lane with Dale Earnhardt Jr. behind him, while Ryan Newman started from the top side with Denny Hamlin’s Toyota behind him.
When the green flag waved, Earnhardt wasn’t able to give Keselowski enough of a push to clear Newman, allowing Newman to surge to the lead with Hamlin’s assistance on the outside.
Once Newman was out in front, he was able to stay there all the way through to the white flag, but he was so far out ahead of his pursuers that when the Fords of Keselowski, Logano and Aric Almirola got hooked up in the draft coming down the backstretch for the final time, it gave Keselowski a huge run on Newman entering Turn 3.
Keselowski was then able to work clear of Newman and hold on, despite a wild run through the tri-oval that nearly saw the leading trio of Keselowski, Newman and Logano almost all crash coming to the finish line.
Newman ultimately crossed under the checkered flag in second, but was disappointed that he wasn’t able to keep Keselowski at bay on the final lap.
“We tried to play it smart and in the end we were close, but not close enough,” Newman lamented. “I got double-teamed with the (No.) 2 and the (No.) 22 (Keselowski and Logano). That was the difference.”
Trevor Bayne came back from being involved in the second big crash with 11 to go to finish third, followed by Logano and Aric Almirola.
Hamlin faded to sixth after pushing Newman to the lead, while Earnhardt came home seventh in his final Talladega start, all after narrowly avoiding each of the three big crashes that punctuated the closing stages.
“We got lucky,” Earnhardt said after the race. “That was just luck being in the right place at the right time and not getting swept up in any of those wrecks. We had one there that knocked the splitter down really bad on the right-front and that’s why we couldn’t do anything at the end. The car was just dragging the ground and wouldn’t go, wouldn’t take off, so it was a little wounded out there at the end.”
“All in all, we still got a decent finish and came out of here in one piece. Today for us was better than the last couple of trips here; the last couple of trips we had a lot of trouble in wrecks and hadn’t been able to come home with a decent finish. I would have loved to have won the race for all the fans that came out here, though. I know a lot of folks came to see this race … just for the fact that it was my last plate race, and trust me, I wanted to win it for all those folks even more than myself. Just wasn’t meant to be, I guess.”
Of note, rookie Gray Gaulding scored a career-best ninth place finish for BK Racing in just his 26th-career Cup start.
The second round of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series playoffs concludes with the Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway on Oct. 22 (3 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM).
Full race results can be viewed on the next page…
