Day captures first O'Reilly Series victory at Talladega

Corey Day claimed the first NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series victory of his career Saturday afternoon, driving to the yellow and checkered flags in the Ag-Pro 300 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway – his No. 17 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet leading only the last lap to earn his first trophy in his first full-time season.

The 20-year old Californian sprint car driver delivered the multi-time NASCAR Cup Series championship Hendrick team its first O’Reilly Auto Parts Series victory at Talladega and this weekend earned a win for a special “guest” crew member - former NFL great Jason Kelce - who dressed out in Hendrick blue and helped transport tires for the team on pit road Saturday.

“I sure as heck didn’t think it [first win] would be at a superspeedway,’’ said a grinning Day, who also won a sprint car race in Nebraska earlier this week. “My 17 guys just built a rocket ship.

“I feel like we’ve been close, had a good day at Rockingham (N.C. race) and had a couple other good days and just didn’t finish it off, so this is super cool.’’

Rookie Brent Crews finished a career best runner-up in the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota with Haas Factory Team driver Sheldon Creed scored third in a typical photo finish-type conclusion on the 2.66-mile Talladega high banks. Creed’s work was good enough to claim the $100,000 Dash 4 Cash incentive prize for his effort, the second straight week he did so.

“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.’’

JR Motorsports driver Sammy Smith was fourth in the No. 8 Chevrolet extending a top-10 streak for the team to 68 races, second best all-time in the series. Owner-driver Jeremy Clements was fifth in the South Carolina-based No. 51 Jeremy Clements Racing team Chevrolet, earning the independent team’s best showing since 2022.

Dean Thompson, Jesse Love, Brandon Jones, Parker Retzlaff and Austin Green rounded out the top-10 with J.J. Yeley earning the only Ford in the 38-car field an impressive 11th place finish.

Love started on pole position in the No. 2 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, led the most laps (37) and was out front late before getting shuffled backwards with six laps remaining. The field split his car high and low on track with Creed moving into the lead with five laps remaining.

Creed’s Haas Factory Team teammate Sam Mayer, who had been impressive throughout the afternoon, was scored the leader with two laps to go in a three-wide front row also featuring Creed and Day. And then as so often happens at Talladega, contact during the final frantic laps of competition shuffled the front pack, slammed Mayer’s No. 41 Chevy and two-time former winner Jeb Burton’s No. 27 Jordan Anderson Chevrolet into the outside wall.

Creed settled for 25th despite leading three times for eight laps on the day. Burton, a photo-finish runner-up last year in the race, settled for 26th.

JR Motorsports teammates Carson Kvapil (stage one) and Justin Allgaier (stage two) claimed the two wins but both were unable to recover from a mid-race green flag penalty for “impeding” cars on track during the final stage of racing.

The four caution periods was the fewest since 2022. The 38 lead changes were the most at the track since 2013.

Despite recording the lowest finish of the season (23rd), Allgaier retains the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series championship lead by 105 points over Creed.

The series moves to Texas Motor Speedway for next Saturday’s Andy’s Frozen Custard 340 (3:30 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Larson is the defending race winner. Day, Crews, Creed and Smith will be eligible for the $100,000 Dash 4 Cash award next week.

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