At Talladega, the thrill of victory often comes down to the wire, with seven of the last eight races clinched with a last-lap pass. This year’s race was no different, and it had an extra layer of excitement, with Kevin Harvick looking like a strong contender for the win. But, in a nail-biting finish, Ryan Blaney edged past Harvick at the Talladega Superspeedway finish line by a mere 0.012 seconds on the eventful Sunday. This victory propelled Blaney into the round of eight in NASCAR’s playoffs and dashed Harvick’s hopes of a win in his swan song season, back in October.

But now, adding to the intrigue, Ryan Blaney shared some insights during a chat with Sirius XM NASCAR Radio. He reflected on his previous victories at the track, noting that the finishes in those races were even tighter than this latest triumph. It seems like at Talladega, often the difference between first and second can be as thin as a razor’s edge!

Ryan Blaney reflects on his edge-of-the-seat win at Talladega

Let’s sidestep for a second the fact that Kevin Harvick’s car didn’t pass the post-race inspection at Talladega, after trailing Ryan Blaney by just a whisker. The finish this season was legendary. It’s Talladega, after all, which is renowned for its heart-stopping finishes, making any victory there hard-fought.

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However, Ryan Blaney begs to differ somewhat. He reminisced about his previous nail-biters at Talladega in 2020 and 2019, where he pipped Ricky Stenhouse Jr and Ryan Newman to the post by a thin margin of .007 seconds in both races.

But this time, with Harvick lagging by 0.012 seconds, Blaney quipped how racing Kevin Harvick for the win was way easier than his last two wins. He said, “The other two we won there was way closer than that. So, this one was easy. But they’re always close and you never know if you’re gonna be on the good side of them or the bad side of them and fortunately for us, we were on the good side of it.”

Blaney’s winning move was a masterful crossover from the outer to the inner lane, edging past Harvick with just two laps to go. In what turned into a high-speed duel, Blaney, driving for Team Penske, and Harvick, representing Stewart-Haas Racing, were neck and neck, neither willing to back down as chaos erupted behind them. The mayhem was triggered just shy of the finish line when Riley Herbst, tailing Harvick, was sent spinning by Corey LaJoie.

But which other races at Talladega have left fans on the edge of their seats with such excitingly slim finishes?

Talladega’s heart-stopping photo finishes

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Let’s dive into some of the most breathtaking finishes that Talladega has witnessed, where victories were clinched by the slimmest of margins.

Topping the chart is the 2011 Aaron’s 499, a pivotal race in the 2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. In this electrifying eighth race of the season, Jimmie Johnson, with a push from Dale Earnhardt Jr, snatched victory from Clint Bowyer by a hair’s breadth – a mere .002 seconds. This pulse-pounding finish still stands as one of the closest in Sprint Cup history, tying with the 2003 Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 at Darlington Raceway since the advent of electronic timing in 1993.

Rewind to the 1993 NASCAR Winston Cup Series, marking the 45th season of professional stock car racing in the United States. This year was notably the first without the legendary Richard Petty since 1957. In a race that kept fans on the edge of their seats, Dale Earnhardt Jr edged out Ernie Irvan by just .005 seconds.

Not to be outdone, Ryan Blaney claims both the third and fourth spots with his nail-biting finishes in 2019 and 2020. Rounding out the top five is the 2010 showdown, where Kevin Harvick ended a 115-race drought by beating Jamie McMurray to the finish line by a 11 one-thousandths (0.011) of a second.

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Each of these finishes was a spectacle in itself, leaving fans breathless. Do you recall witnessing any other edge-of-your-seat moments live?