David Gilliland pushed Ragan, his teammate, to the lead on the final circuit in a green-white checkered-flag finish that took Sunday’s Aaron’s 499 four laps past its scheduled distance of 188 laps. Gilliland came home second, followed by pole sitter Carl Edwards, Michael Waltrip and series leader Jimmie Johnson.

As Ragan put it, two Davids beat the Goliaths of NASCAR racing in one of the sport’s most unlikely finishes ever.

Ragan’s victory followed a massive wreck that took the race to overtime–and to near-darkness, in what truly was truly was a Talladega night. In fact, NASCAR gave the drivers a chance to change their tinted visors for clear ones during the final caution.

Afterwards, Ragan tried to put the win in perspective.

“I can only imagine what it felt like back in 1988 when Mark Martin got that first win for Jack Roush or when Geoff Bodine won that first race for Hendrick Motorsports,” said Ragan, who scored his only Sprint Cup win at Daytona in July 2011, his last season with Jack Roush. “I’m sure it was just as special.

“A lot of these guys have been to Victory Lane in the Sprint Cup Series and late model racing, short tracks, ARCA – all kinds of series – but to do it here at Talladega in 2013, like I said, it’s a true David vs. Goliath story. I couldn’t be more proud to play my own role.”

Ragan restarted 10th and Gilliland 11th for the final two-lap sprint. As the cars raced into Turn 1, they were barely visible from the frontstretch grandstand, but the teammates managed to find each other on the track. For the first time in NASCAR’s new Gen-6 car, Gilliland pushed another car through the corners–to the amazement of Edwards, whose jaw dropped in the post-race news conference as Gilliland described the final two laps.

“We got restarted there, and it was sprinkling, and it was dark and there was (speedy-dry) on the track so it got on the windshield where it was wet but I could see, and I could see David there and he came down,” Gilliland said. “Michael Waltrip was behind me, giving me a good run and just carried a lot of momentum up through there and got hooked up with David and figured he’s got the best chance of anybody sticking together with him out there and just worked our way up there.

“It got real tight getting into (Turn) 3 and 4 with Carl there. I know David was sideways and out of the gas, and Carl was right up on his door, and could have gone a number of ways. But, thankfully I just stayed on his bumper. I pushed him all the way through the corners. It’s the first time I’ve ever done that with this car, with these style of cars, because with these type of cars in practice I’ve pushed people down the back straight and it actually kind of gets underneath that little lip underneath the back bumper cover and I’ve always been kind of scared getting into the corner. As the front car compresses, the back part of the nose doesn’t have anywhere to go because the splitter is already on the racetrack.

“But I just pushed him all the way around there and Carl about stalled out a little bit, and we were just able to carry some good momentum and come home one-two.”

On Lap 183, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. tried a four-wide move to the outside, but contact with J.J. Yeley’s car triggered a multicar melee that wiped out Kurt Busch, Ryan Newman, Danica Patrick and Clint Bowyer, among others.

That set up the two-lap dash in overtime with Matt Kenseth in the lead and Edwards beside him on the front row. Kenseth, who led 142 laps dropped to eighth at the finish.

Michael McDowell blew a tire and hit the wall on Lap 174 to cause the fourth caution of the race and bunch a field that had become segmented during a series of green-flag pit stops that ended on Lap 168. When NASCAR threw the yellow, Johnson led a six-car breakaway that included Kenseth, Kurt Busch, Edwards, Bowyer and Waltrip.

The caution, however, brought 19 other lead-lap cars back into play and the massive wreck at the end of the backstretch changed the game completely.

NASCAR slowed the race on Lap 122 and stopped it after Lap 125 when showers that had been forecast for race day arrived shortly after 3 p.m. ET. Edwards had nosed ahead of Stenhouse moments earlier and was ahead at the last scoring loop the cars crossed before the yellow.

That left the Fords of Edwards, Stenhouse, Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski at the front of the field when NASCAR red-flagged the race, forcing drivers and fans to wait and see whether the event would resume.

After a stoppage of 3 hours, 36 minutes, the race restarted after pit stops, and Kenseth quickly surged to the front.

As the cars approached Turn 1 on lap 43, a tap from Kyle Busch’s No. 18 Toyota turned Kasey Kahne’s No. 5 Chevrolet into the outside wall and triggered a wreck that damaged 16 cars, among them the Chevys of Tony Stewart and Kevin Harvick, the Toyota of Brian Vickers (after a driver change with Denny Hamlin) and the Ford of Greg Biffle.

“I know I got in the back of the 5 (Kahne), and I guess I was trying to go to the outside of him,” Busch said. ‘But he just moved up in front of me, and I wasn’t expecting it, and I tried to go to the outside of him, and before I could get to the outside of him I got in the back of him.

“I just hate that I caused a hell of a melee for everybody. I hate that. A lot of cars got torn up, and it’s way too early in the race to be doing any of those sorts of moves, whether he made it or I made it. Just I hate it that we all got crashed in that deal.”

Both Kahne and Busch visited the infield care center after the wreck, and both were released in short order.

“I just kind of got shot through the center (of the field) there, just a lot of momentum coming from behind,” Kahne said of the action immediately before the crash. “Felt the No. 18 pushing me, and next thing I know, I was spinning.

“You just can’t push with these cars. We learned that at Daytona. He was pushing me and spun me in the wall, and then (it) happened again, so that is what it is.”

Kahne said he and Busch didn’t speak in the care center.

“No, I didn’t talk to him,” Kahne said. “I think we both probably understand what happened, and we’ll figure it out from there.”

Notes: Johnson’s margin in the Cup standings over second-place Edwards shrank by two points to 41. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (17th Sunday) is third, 59 points behind his Hendrick Motorsports teammate… Paul Menard finished 26th with a sour engine but gained two spots to eighth in the standings because other drivers in Chase-eligible positions had bigger issues… Ragan and Gilliland won a combined $608,261 for their 1-2 finish, a welcome payday for a team run by owner Bob Jenkins predominantly out of his own pocket.

With a push from teammate Kasey Kahne, Smith roared out of the pack during the final 400 yards of a green-white-checkered-flag finish and won a race decided when NASCAR called the seventh and final caution an instant before the four cars battling for the win crossed the finish line.

Smith was the leader as the field was frozen when NASCAR called the caution. Kahne was first across the stripe but was scored in third place behind Smith and Joey Logano, who were the two lead drivers when the caution lights came on.

This was the same Regan Smith who was deprived of victory in a race he thought he had won at Talladega in 2008, when NASCAR demoted him to the 18th position for passing Tony Stewart below the yellow boundary line as the cars approached the checkered flag.

“I was having flashbacks, sitting on pit road–I’m not going to lie–when they were making the decision,” Smith said. “I was like ‘Man, I hope we got it–I’m pretty sure we got it when the flag came out and I saw the lights come on… They only thing I didn’t know was if they took it all the way to the stripe.

“I don’t know if it’s vindication or not. I think I’d gotten over that and gotten past that, but I definitely wanted to win here … but you want to win every week, and it definitely helps wipe that bad memory away of sitting on pit road and finding out you’re 18th instead. So, yeah, that was kind of cool.”

Smith took over the series lead, by 27 points over Sam Hornish Jr. in a race whose start was delayed three hours because of rain. It’s the first time JR Motorsports has led the Nationwide Series standings. It was also the first victory as a crew chief for Greg Ives.

Kahne was surprised NASCAR called the final caution instead of letting the race play out to conclusion.

“I think there’s been plenty of times (when) there’ve been wrecks in (Turn) 4 or 3, and we’ve just raced to the line at the end,” Kahne said. “As soon as they started wrecking, I saw the caution. I still raced to the line, and we had a good enough run to get there and be first there, but I was surprised the caution came out.

“I knew I was third when the caution came out, and I knew I was first at the line… My spotter after the race was like, ‘I think we won,’ but I was thinking the whole time, ‘There’s no way. The caution was out.’”

Busch was leading on Lap 93 when contact between Hornish’s Ford and Eric McClure’s Toyota ignited a spectacular 12-car wreck that sidelined the series leader entering the race (Hornish), among others.

NASCAR then opted to shorten the race by 10 laps because of impending darkness, but four laps after a restart on Lap 101, Joey Coulter’s contact with the outside wall caused the sixth caution and set up the two-lap dash to the finish.

On Lap 14, Danica Patrick spun off the bumper of series rookie Kyle Larson, her Turner Scott Motorsports teammate-for-a-day and slid though the waterlogged infield grass, damaging her No. 34 Chevrolet extensively. After losing a lap on pit road, Patrick brought the car to the garage and called it a day.

Patrick, hardly a grizzled veteran herself, attributed the wreck to Larson’s inexperience with the tandem racing that characterizes the Nationwide Series at restrictor-plate tracks. Larson, who was attempting to push Patrick’s car when the wreck occurred, found trouble of his own on Lap 35, when he blew a tire, spun and took Jeffrey Earnhardt’s Ford with him.

The hardest hit of the race, however, came on Lap 71 when pole sitter Travis Pastrana nosed into the outside backstretch wall during a three-car incident that started when Brian Scott turned the Ford of Reed Sorenson.

Sorenson hit the outside wall and spun back across the track into Pastrana’s path. Pastrana blamed himself for being in harm’s way and for not reacting quickly enough when he saw Sorenson spin.

“I just get an award for being stupid,” Pastrana said after leaving the infield care center. “We had the two fastest cars on the track (with Roush Fenway Racing teammate Trevor Bayne). We could have been a half-lap down just pushing each other, not worrying about anything.

“We all said we were going to sit back the whole race, and then, all of sudden, we’re up there racing just like a bunch of fools up front… Everything kind of happened.”

Hamlin, who practiced for 16 laps at Talladega, said afterwards that he was happy to be back in the car, and he thanked Brian Vickers and Mark Martin who filled in for him.

Hamlin said he didn’t experience discomfort once he was in the car, but it did hurt getting into and out of the car through the window. So, he will be entering and exiting the car through the roof.

The plan seems to be for Hamlin to start the race, and climb out of the car at the first caution. He said that he will keep himself out of harms way to ensure that he makes it to the first caution without causing one himself.

Hamlin and his team have practiced the driver swap with Brian Vickers several times. He says that they have it down to about a minute, which should be enough to keep them on the lead lap.

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In the closing laps of the race, Scott was limping to a 15th-place finish when he got together with Nelson Piquet Jr, which knocked Scott out of the groove in Turn 2. Scott dropped from 15th down to 20th.

On the cool down lap, Scott, of Richard Childress Racing,  cut in front of Piquet, or Turner Scott Motorsports.

When the two cars stopped on pit road and exited their cars, Piquet pushed and kicked Scott, a kick Scott called “below the belt.” The two crews almost came to blows.

Scott said:

I was just showing my displeasure with him after the race and then things escalated. I went to talk to him, I was a little heated and the camera probably shows it, but he kicks me right below the belt, which I think is a below-the-belt type of shot.

Scott and Piquet were called to the NASCAR hauler.

Evidently, an earlier incident between Dillon, also of RCR, and Allgaier, of TSM, caused the tension between the two teams. The incident between Scott and Piquet only intensified the tension.

Later, Henrico County police were called to the driver/owner lot at Richmond and two RCR crew members were arrested. Michael A. Scearce and Thomas F. Costello, of RCR’s No. 2 team, the car driven by Scott, were taken into custody for their part in an alleged assault in which two adult males were injured. Both were charged with misdemeanors and released.

Richard Childress talked about the incident:

I didn’t witness what took place last night outside of the race track. Our team members were walking to their cars and words were exchanged with members from another team, which led to an altercation. I am still learning all the exact details and, because it did happen outside of the track, local authorities became involved. We are working with them to resolve this matter.

Turner Scott Motorsports released a statement:

Turner Scott Motorsports can confirm that an incident occurred near the Driver/Owner parking lot of Richmond International Raceway following the NASCAR Nationwide Series race on Friday, April 26th. Several members of another race team confronted a group that included Nelson Piquet Jr., resulting in the arrest of two individuals from the other race team. TSM will have no further comment on the incident as the matter is an active case with the Henrico Police Department.

One of the engines was going to be his primary engine in the Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond International Raceway. The other two were his primary and backup engines for the Aaron’s 499 at Talladega Superspeedway.

David Wilson, of TRD, said:

We took every connecting rod in our inventory and removed anything that was too close for comfort.

The review revealed that one connecting rod in each of the three recalled engines was too close to NASCAR thresholds for comfort.

According to reports, the connecting rod in Kenseth’s race-winning Toyota was outside of the tolerances the manufacturer allows on weight before it was shipped. TRD employees missed it, despite the fact that the connecting rod came with paperwork that clearly stated its weight.

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Harvick beat Clint Bowyer to the finish line by .343 seconds to win his first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race of the season, his second at Richmond and the 20th of his career.

Joey Logano ran third, Juan Pablo Montoya came home fourth after leading until the final caution, and Jeff Burton finished fifth after staying out on old tires for the final two-lap run that took the event six laps beyond its posted distance.

Harvick came to pit road for tires on Lap 396, after Brian Vickers’ slapped the Turn 3 wall to cause the 11th caution of the race. Harvick’s No. 29 Richard Childress racing Chevrolet made short work of three drivers who had stayed out after the race restarted on lap 405.

Though he lost the chance to break a 94-race drought since his Cup victory at Watkins Glen in August 2010, Montoya was elated just to get a top-five finish after struggling mightily for more than a year.

Not so elated were Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart, who repeatedly swapped shots with their Chevys on the cool-down lap. Stewart was fifth on the final restart but dropped to 18th at the finish after Busch rubbed him out of the racing groove during a two-lap free-for-all that saw prolific contact throughout the field.

Harvick, however was all smiles when he climbed out of his car in Victory Lane.

“My car launched, and I was able to drive it in the first corner and hope for the best down there,” said Harvick, who surged into the lead through Turns 3 and 4 after establishing his position in the first corner on the final restart. “I figured four, eight, 12…how many ever tires that were on the outside of me would be better than none. It all worked out, and here we are.”

The decision to come to pit road for tires under the final caution was a no-brainer, as Harvick and crew chief Gil Martin saw it.

“When the tires fall off almost two seconds, you’ve got to come in and get tires,” he said. “There’s not very many guys that stayed out. It all worked out tonight. We’ve been on the other side of it this year, so to be in Victory Lane is great.”

Bowyer led 113 laps but didn’t have a car that could stay with Harvick at the end.

“We had a good car—we just didn’t have a great car,” Bowyer said. “It seemed like we were just too tight on the throttle. It would quite turn and come up off (the corner). It really got wild there at the end. I was just lucky enough to be on the bottom (for the final restart).

“They started making holes up there in front of me, and the seas parted, and I just followed suit behind Harvick. It was a good run.”

What remained a two-man battle for more than half the race evolved into an unpredictable nexus of varying strategy and unexpected attrition.

When Kyle Busch passed Matt Kenseth for the top spot on Lap 254, that was the first time all evening that a driver other than Kenseth or Bowyer had led a lap. Busch made it stick, leading 39 straight laps under green until Travis Kvapil smacked the wall on Lap 292 to cause the sixth caution of the night.

But brother Kurt Busch won the race off pit road under the yellow and led the field to a restart on Lap 299. Busch held the point during an intense battle against Carl Edwards until NASCAR called the seventh caution on Lap 308 when Kvapil’s car dropped fluid on the track.

Kurt Busch, Carl Edwards, Kenseth and Ryan Newman stayed out under the yellow on 16-lap-old tires. Jimmie Johnson paced the rest of the lead-lap cars to pit road and took two tires. Six laps after a restart on Lap 321, the entire tenor of the race changed dramatically.

After contact with Martin Truex Jr.’s Toyota on the restart, Johnson faded on the restart. Running to the inside of Johnson on entering Turn 1 on Lap 327, Tony Stewart slid sideways into Johnson’s Chevrolet. As Johnson slid to the inside of the track in Turn 2, Kyle Busch’s Toyota nosed into him.

That was just the start of frenetic action at the .75-mile high-speed short track. Montoya led a pack of six cars who stayed out under the caution to a restart on Lap 334, but on Lap 338, a brutal wreck off Turn 2 involving Mark Martin, Kasey Kahne and Brian Vickers slowed the field again.

One lap after a restart on Lap 344, Truex spun in Turn 3 while battling Kurt Busch in close quarters for the second position. Montoya retained the lead until Brian Vickers’ wreck on Lap 395 set up the overtime.

Notes: Despite Johnson’s troubles, the five-time champion gained ground on his closest pursuers in the standings with a 12th-place finish at RIR. He now leads second-place Carl Edwards (sixth Saturday) by 43 points and Kahne and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (10th at Richmond) by 46… Reigning Cup champion Brad Keselowski finished 33rd on the bottom end of a roller-coaster day that saw him recover from a scrape with the turn 2 wall only to drop a cylinder in the late going.

Keselowski passed Kyle Busch to the lead with nine laps left, with Harvick following into second place a lap later. Keselowski crossed the finish line .718 seconds ahead of Harvick with Busch rolling home in third.

The victory was Keselowski’s first of the season in the Nationwide Series and the 21st of his career. Brian Vickers finished fourth, followed by Regan Smith.

The victory was a breakthrough of sorts for Keselowski, who won for the first time this year in either the Nationwide or Sprint Cup Series, after Penske Racing switched from Dodge to Ford during the offseason.

“It’s very gratifying,” Keselowski said. “We’ve had a lot of seconds this year (two in the Nationwide Series), and we’ve been really close on the Cup side. We just haven’t been able to get that win. We’ve struggled here at Richmond, too, both in the Cup and the Nationwide cars, so it’s great to get that turned around and finally get to Victory Lane in a Ford.

“This is a Mustang (in NNS). Now we’ve got to win a Fusion (in Cup). The Fords have been really fast, and new finally closed one out today.”

Harvick’s car was superior over long runs, but he didn’t have time to Keselowski over the final run.

“Our car was pretty good on the longer runs,” Harvick said. “The 22 (Keselowski) was really good for the short runs, and I had to try to fend him off as good as I could… All in all, it was a fun night. He just had a better car for the short runs. I enjoyed the race, back and forth. I always want to win, but it was still enjoyable.”

Harvick dominated a long green-flag run from Lap 107 until NASCAR called the third caution for Juan Carlos Blum’s contact with the Turn 2 wall on Lap 151. After pit stops under the yellow, however, Keselowski wrested the lead from Harvick on Lap 158 powering his No, 22 Ford to the inside of the No. 33 Chevrolet.

Keselowski’s lead was short-lived. On lap 170, Harvick regained the top spot near the start/finish line. After two laps of intense racing, Busch took over the second spot from Keselowski on Lap 177 but trailed Harvick by 1.763 seconds.

Busch was closing the gap when Tanner Berryhill’s spin in Turn 2 brought out the fourth caution on Lap 190. Harvick was off pit road first for a restart on Lap 197, and he, Keselowski and Busch were running 1-2-3 when Kevin Swindell spun in Turn 2 to cause the fifth yellow on Lap 201.

Keselowski grabbed the lead after the subsequent restart on Lap 210, but one lap later, a hard wreck in Turn 3 involving series championship hopefuls Austin Dillon, Brian Scott and Justin Allgaier slowed the field once again and set up a Lap 221 restart with Keselowski at the point.

Harvick passed Keselowski to the outside off the restart, but on Lap 225, as Harvick went to the inside to block Keselowski, Busch powered around both cars to the outside to take the lead before the seventh caution slowed the race on Lap 228.

Note: Seventh-place finisher Sam Hornish Jr. retained the series lead by one point over Smith… Scott and Nelson Piquet Jr.—and their crews—skirmished after the race after repeated contact between their cars in the closing laps.  Scott accused Piquet of kicking him below the belt. Both drivers were called to the NASCAR hauler for further discussion.

Following the race, NASCAR officials confiscated the fuel cell from the No. 98 ThorSport Racing truck.

The officials found that the team  violated Sections 12-1 (actions detrimental to stock car racing); 12-4K (if in the judgment of NASCAR Officials, race equipment that has been previously verified or previously approved and/or sealed by NASCAR for use in an event, pursuant to sub-section 8-6 and/or 8-12, has been altered, modified, repaired, or changed in any manner); 20B-16 (once a fuel cell or fuel cell components have been certified, modifications of any kind will not be permitted to the fuel cell or fuel cell components); and 20B-16.1B (standard black, safety foam with minimum free-standing height of eight (8) inches, acceptable to NASCAR Officials, and used as provided by an approved fuel cell manufacturer, must be used: Fuel cell safety foam modification.) of the 2013 rule book.

Crew chief Joel Shear has been fined $10,000 and suspended from NASCAR competition for the next four Trucks Series races. He has also been put on probation to the end of the calendar year.

Johnny Sauter was penalized with the loss of 25 championship driver’s points. And, owner Mike Curb has been penalized with the loss of 25 owner’s points.

The penalty cost Sauter the points lead. He is now tied with Jeb Burton, 13 points behind new leader Matt Crafton.

Unfortunately I won’t be racing this weekend at Richmond. It kills me to not be in the car for my team and… twitpl.us/t/9JT

— Denny Hamlin (@dennyhamlin) April 24, 2013

Hamlin had hoped to be back in the car at Richmond.

Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano got together while racing for the win in the Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway. Hamlin’s car made hard contact with the inside wall.

Tests revelealed a fractured L1 vertebra that could sideline Hamlin for up to six weeks. Mark Martin and Brian Vickers have filled in for Hamlin in Joe Gibbs Racing’s No. 11 Toyota.

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NASCAR found the No. 20 violated Sections 12-1 (actions detrimental to stock car racing); 12-4J (any determination by NASCAR officials that the race equipment used in the event does not conform to NASCAR rules); and 20-5.5.3 (E) (Only magnetic steel connecting rods with a minimum weight of 525.0 grams will be permitted; connecting rod failed to meet the minimum connecting rod weight) of the 2013 NASCAR rule book.

As a result, crew chief Jason Ratcliff has been fined $200,000 and suspended for the next six NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship points events, including the Sprint All-Star Race. He has also been placed on probation until Dec. 31.

Car owner Joe Gibbs has been penalized with the loss of 50 championship car owner points; the first-place finish from the Kansas will not earn bonus points toward the accumulated aggregate car owner points total after the completion of the first 26 events of the current season and will not be credited towards the eligibility for a car owner Wild Card position. Gibbs’ license for the No. 20 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series car suspended for the next six championship points events, which means the car will not receive owner points during that period.

Driver Matt Kenseth was also penalized with the loss of 50 championship driver points; the Coors Light Pole award from Kansas will not be allowed for eligibility into the 2014 Sprint Unlimited; the first place finish from Kansas will not earn bonus points toward the accumulated aggregate driver points total after the completion of the first 26 events of the current season and will not be credited towards the eligibility for a driver Wild Card position.

NASCAR has also penalized the manufacturer with the loss of five manufacturer championship points.

Following the penalty, JGR issued a statement:

Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) is aware of the penalty issued by NASCAR today regarding the engine in our No. 20 car used in last week’s Sprint Cup Series race in Kansas. It is our understanding that one of the eight connecting rods on the engine was ruled too light. We are working with our partners at TRD on this issue. In the meantime we will plan to appeal the penalty.

Toyota Racing Development issued a statement:

During NASCAR’s routine post-race tear down of Matt Kenseth’s race-winning car and engine from Kansas Speedway, one of our engine connecting rods weighed in approximately three grams under the legal minimum weight of 525 grams. None of the other seven connecting rods were found to be under the minimum weight. We take full responsibility for this issue with the engine used by the #20 Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) team this past Sunday in Kansas — JGR is not involved in the process of selecting parts or assembling the Cup Series engines. It was a simple oversight on TRD’s part and there was no intent to deceive, or to gain any type of competitive advantage. … The goal of TRD has always been — and will continue to be — to build high-performance engines that are reliable, durable and powerful, and within the guidelines established by NASCAR.

Update: Matt Kenseth spoke with the media regarding the penalty. He said:

I think the penalties are grossly unfair. I think it’s borderline shameful. There’s no argument the part was wrong. They weighed it and it was wrong. However, there is an argument that there certainly was no performance advantage. If you can find any unbiased, reputable, knowledgeable engine-builder and if they saw the facts, what all the rods weighed. The average weight of all the rods was well above the minimum — 2.5 (grams) above the minimum at least. There was one in there that was way heavy. There was no performance advantage, there was no intent, it was a mistake. JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) had no control over it.

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