Hendrick hotshot Corey Day is officially a winner in NASCAR after his first triumph came where he didn't think it was going to: Talladega Superspeedway.
LINCOLN, Ala. -- Hendrick hotshot Corey Day is officially a winner in NASCAR after his first triumph came where he didn't think it was going to: Talladega Superspeedway.
Day sliced and diced through the pack in the final laps to take the lead for the first time all day on lap 113, the final lap, before a caution came out and made him the winner for the first time in the NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series.
“I sure as heck didn’t think it [first win] would be at a superspeedway,’’ Day said. "Thank you Mr. Hendrick so much for believing in a sprint car kid from California that had never run a pavement car in his life before two years ago."
Day's breakthrough is remarkable but proves Kyle Larson, Jeff Gordon and Rick Hendrick right in quickly elevating a relatively-inexperienced driver to NASCAR's second-tier division, now that he has won on a track so far removed from his repertoire.
"[As a dirt guy,] there's nothing that translates but he did a great job. Tyler [Monn, spotter] steered that thing forward and kept him up front, " Larson said. "He's been getting better and better on all other style tracks too so hopefully we'll see him win a lot more."
Day had some assistance from retired NFL player Jason Kelce, who helped the No. 17 Hendrick Motorsports pit crew behind the wall Saturday.
To become the 184th winner in NOAPS history, Day had to pass the 183rd -- Sheldon Creed. He ended up third, with a little extra cash, after claiming the Dash4Cash bonus Saturday.
“Hard to be too mad at second here when so much happens and very easily could have been in one of those crashes at the end. Getting to take home the Dash 4 Cash is really special and thank the guys in the shop for that.," Creed said.
Day, Creed, Brent Crews and Sammy Smith will run for the Dash4Cash bonus next Saturday, May 2, at Texas Motor Speedway.
Crews earned his place in the Dash4Cash with a career-best second-place finish despite getting right-front damage during his final pit stop. Teammate William Sawalich had issues getting slowed for pit road and side-swiped Crews' No. 19 car. The team had concerns about the damage but a little "IOU" from Sawalich to push Crews through the pack boosted the 18-year-old to a career-best finish.
"I learned a lot there at the end and to have damage and still go up there and build runs and wind up second was super cool," Crews said.
Behind Day, Crews and Creed, Sammy Smith, Jeremy Clements, Dean Thompson, Jesse Love, Brandon Jones, Parker Retzlaff and Austin Green rounded out the top-10 finishers.
Clements, who is set to break the record for most NOAPS starts all-time, earned his first top-five finish since winning at Daytona in August 2022.
Just outside of the top-10, JJ Yeley finished 11th in the only Ford in the field, for Hettinger Racing.
The big story came two positions back. Austin Hill finished 13th after Richard Childress Racing struggled throughout the race, despite almost winning with Love. After sweeping the stages and the race wins at Talladega last year, RCR's cars only earned a combined three stage points: Two for Love in the first stage, one for Hill in the second stage.
After the second stage, Love's team even talked about coming to pit road and putting the hood up to see if they had engine issues.
While they didn't do that, something clicked for them in the final stage.
Love worked his way to the lead with no teammate support after pit stops cycled around on lap 79. He led for 25 of the next 29 laps before Sheldon Creed got to his right-rear corner and shuffled him back for good with six laps to go.
"Nobody could get to my bumper and I couldn't get to theirs and if I tried to get help, I slowed the mph down and couldn't really get a hookup or connection," Love explained.
Love won the pole, indicating nothing was wrong for RCR but the race proved otherwise.
"We have our single car speed but maybe it's shifting away from that? Maybe there's more to it in the race than having raw speed? Maybe it's how you're manipulating the bubble and how you can break through the bubble with the cowl pressure? That's something we have to look at."
Love's car will return to the R&D center, along with Crews and Smith's cars.
The second-biggest problem Love had Saturday were JR Motorsports drivers Carson Kvapil and Justin Allgaier blocking him at a much slower speed as they exited pit road. NASCAR ordered Kvapil and Allgaier to do a drive-through penalty for the maneuver, drawing confusion and dismay from the teams, including Allgaier's.
"I've never heard them call anything like that before what is going on?"
"They gotta make the championship a little better. It's alright."
NASCAR warned teams about penalizing for that maneuver. They followed through, leading to Kvapil and Allgaier finishing 22nd and 23rd, respectively.
"I had never heard of that but that was on me for not keeping up with the rules. I hate it for my guys," Kvapil said post-race.
The penalty kept the JRM cars out of two final-lap wrecks that involved contenders Sam Mayer and Jeb Burton plus others.
"I felt like it was going to be a really good finish. I know the 00 was up there so it was going to be awesome," Mayer said after finishing 25th.
Burton finished 26th, just ahead of cousin Harrison Burton who also crashed hard in turn three on the final lap.
JRM driver Rajah Caruth also finished off the lead lap, in 30th, after a speeding penalty.
Aside from the stage breaks and the final-lap crashes, the race went caution-free after a lap 1 crash involving Patrick Staropoli, David Starr and Tyler Ankrum. That didn't stop the action as 16 drivers traded the lead 38 times Saturday.
Here are the full results for the race and the points standings afterward.
