The 2017 GEICO 500 was a Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race held on May 7, 2017, at Talladega Superspeedway in Lincoln, Alabama.

A tri-oval, the track was constructed in 1969 by the International Speedway Corporation, a business controlled by the France family.

Clint Bowyer was the fastest in the first practice session with a time of 48.653 seconds and a speed of 196.822 mph (316.754 km/h).

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. scored the pole for the race with a time of 49.993 and a speed of 191.547 mph (308.265 km/h).

[12] Describing the thought of leading the field to green "nice," Stenhouse said his crew "worked really, really hard on these cars.

With his dad, Robert, not doing as well as we would like, it would be cool to dedicate this one to him and all the hard work that the engine shop does.

The first caution of the race flew on lap 17 when Kyle Larson, two laps after he made contact with the wall exiting Turn 2, thanks to an awkward push from teammate Jamie McMurray, suffered a right-front tire cut and slammed the wall in Turn 1.

Kyle Busch rode a push from the top line to take the lead exiting Turn 2 on lap 28.

The third caution flew the following lap when Reed Sorenson suffered a right-front tire blowout and slammed the wall in the tri-oval.

[14] The fifth caution flew with 28 to go when Ryan Blaney was turned on the backstretch, by contact from Stenhouse, and collected the outside wall.

Blaney made it back to the pits, but had heavy damage that could not be fixed within the 5-minute "crash clock", relegating him to a 39th-place finish.

With 20 to go, A. J. Allmendinger was giving Chase Elliott a push exiting Turn 2 when he turned Elliott's car up the track, triggering a multi-car wreck (known as "The Big One") and bringing out the sixth caution (which also brought out a 26-minute and 51-second red flag for cleanup).

He had a big run and he kind of got to my bumper and just happened to be in a bad spot coming up off the corner, skewed a little bit to my left rear.

Busch took back the lead on the restart and Dale Earnhardt Jr., who was running third, dropped off the pace due to a loose tire.

"[22] The seventh caution flew with 10 to go for Landon Cassill, who had broken a drive shaft and was unable to coast off the track.

Man, to finally get that win for Jack (Roush) and everyone on our team is really special.”[24] Jamie McMurray, who threaded the needle between Busch and Johnson exiting Turn 2 on the final lap and edged Busch at the line to claim a runner-up finish, said "it’s really circumstantial as to what the guys do in front of you and what is happening behind you.

17 (Stenhouse) was going to get a little bit further out, but when we were coming to the line it just seemed like his car wasn’t going at that point, so it was a good finish.

We had good pit stops and the guys did a great job.”[25] Busch, who led a race high of 48 laps on his way to a third-place finish, said Stenhouse "got a run from behind off Turn 2, and I don't know what his help was or anything like that but he actually ran into the back of me, and then you'd think that that momentum would propel me forward some, and he just turned left and went right by.

Jamie Little, Chris Neville, Vince Welch and Matt Yocum handled the action on pit road for the television side.

Alex Hayden, Winston Kelley, Kim Coon, and Steve Post worked pit road for the radio side.