NASCAR Cup: rain forces postponement of Talladega Superspeedway race after 57 laps

By AMANDA VINCENT

After the completion of 57 laps of the 188-lap 1000Bulbs.com 500 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway on Sunday, rain forced the postponement of the remainder of the second race of the second round of the 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series playoffs until 1 p.m. CT Monday. William Byron is the race leader.

Because of the postponement, TV coverage of the race will move from NBC to the NBC Sports Network.

After taking the lead on lap 51, Byron was up front when the first stage ended on lap 55 for his second-career stage win. The caution at the end of stage one turned into the red flag that remains over the race until Monday afternoon..

Despite Hendrick Motorsports claiming the top-four starting positions on the grid, led by Chase Elliott on the pole and Byron in third, Brad Keselowski led the opening lap. Kyle Busch, Austin Dillon and Kurt Busch also led laps before Ryan Blaney looked to take control of the race on lap 19.

Blaney led 15 laps before spinning as got onto pit road at the start of a green-flag cycle of stops on lap 35. His Team Penske teammate Brad Keselowski was up front for a restart after a caution that came out two laps later when Spencer Boyd stalled on the track.

Ryan Newman, Kurt Busch, Elliott and Daniel Hemric also led before Byron took what wound up being his stage-winning lead.

Pit road had yet to open during the caution, so the running order remains the same as the stage-one finishing order. The remainder of the top-10: Joey Logano, Bowman, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Keselowski, Kyle Larson, Jimmie Johnson, Daniel Suarez, Kurt Busch and Blaney.

NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series driver Matt Crafton will be in the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford in place of Paul Menard. Menard completed the first stage but will be sidelined the remainder of the race by an ongoing neck issue.

“I’m getting old,” Menard said. “It’s all part of what you sign up for when you’re born, I guess. My neck has some disc issues and things that if I were to get upside-down it would be pretty bad. Normal hits aren’t bad, it’s upside-down things that are bad.”

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Posted by ard2012 on October 13, 2019. Filed under Breaking News,Featured,Monster Energy NASCAR Cup,NASCAR. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry