Overview
- Sunday's 188-lap YellaWood 500 starts at 2 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock, with three stages of 60, 60 and 68 laps at Talladega Superspeedway.
- Michael McDowell qualified first at 182.466 mph, with Chase Briscoe second; Christopher Bell and Ryan Blaney start seventh and eighth, while Kyle Larson rolls off 19th and Chase Elliott 25th.
- Denny Hamlin is already locked into the Championship 4 after winning Las Vegas, leaving Kyle Larson (+35), Christopher Bell (+20) and Chase Briscoe (+15) above the cut and William Byron (-15), Chase Elliott (-23), Joey Logano (-24) and Ryan Blaney (-31) below.
- Talladega has produced 10 different winners in the past 10 races and often features multi-car wrecks, making stage points valuable even though stage winners seldom take the checkered flag here.
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr. is the defending race winner and starts 37th, while earlier in the weekend Jesse Love earned the Xfinity pole for the United Rentals 250 on The CW.