October 15, 2017 By Reid Spencer NASCAR Wire Service TALLADEGA, Ala. – On the Longest Day at Talladega—in a war of attrition that required three red flags and left 14 cars running at the finish—Brad Keselowski powered his No. 2 Team Penske Ford past the No. 31 Chevrolet of Ryan Newman on the final lap to win Sunday’s Alabama 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. Two laps after the final restart on Lap 186 of 188, Keselowski and teammate Joey Logano ganged up on Newman, who held the runner-up position after Keselowski shot past him. Trevor Bayne ran third in a damaged No.…

By Jared Turner Martin Truex Jr. has accomplished virtually everything else this year, so why not add a restrictor-plate victory to his crowded 2017 resume? A four-time Talladega winner, Brad Keselowski has been NASCAR’s most consistent restrictor-plate racer over the past few years. There’s no track in NASCAR where Dale Earnhardt Jr. has been more successful or is more adored than Talladega. Jamie McMurray, whose quiet consistency in 2017 has taken him farther than many expected, is one of NASCAR’s most underrated restrictor-plate racers. Thanks to wins in the two most recent restrictor-plate races, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. arrives at Talladega in the…

By Jared Turner Buckle your seatbelts. The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series playoffs are about to get wild. With one race down and two to go in the Round of 12, Sunday’s race at Talladega Superspeedway has all the potential in the world to be a game-changer. As the only restrictor-plate race in the playoffs, Talladega narrows the playing field between the haves and the have-nots in such a way that virtually anyone can end up in Victory Lane. All things considered, a more equal playing field is not a bad thing. However, the downside to competing at the high-speed 2.66-mile track…