As Sunday’s race wound to a finish, Blaney and Harvick found themselves swapping pushes and the lead.
With two of 188 laps remaining, Stewart-Haas driver Harvick – looking for his first win in his last full-time season – appeared to have control of the race but saw Blaney edge past him for the lead thanks to help from Riley Herbst.
Blaney and Harvick raced side-by-side for virtually the entire final lap but, as a wreck erupted behind them on the frontstretch, Blaney nipped ahead of Harvick’s No. 4 Ford by 0.012 seconds to earn his second win of the 2023 season.
The victory sends Blaney into the semi-final round of the playoffs regardless of his finish in next weekend’s race at the Charlotte Roval.
William Byron finished third, Denny Hamlin was fourth and Corey LaJoie rounded out the top five.
Completing the top-10 were Austin Cindric, Justin Haley, Chase Elliott, Ryan Preece and Herbst.
The four drivers lowest in the points without a win and therefore now most in danger of being eliminated from the playoffs with one race remaining in this round are Kyle Busch, Bubba Wallace, Ross Chastain and Tyler Reddick.
Blaney had earlier shown encouraging Talladega form by taking the Stage 1 win under caution as Chastain made contact with Busch and then slammed the wall on the final of 60 laps. The incident appeared to be triggered when Ricky Stenhouse Jr ran out of fuel and slowed dramatically.
Byron ended up second, Larson third, Elliott fourth and Alex Bowman rounded out the top five.
Brad Keselowski then held off a late charge from Byron to take the Stage 2 win by 0.07s. Joey Logano was third, Austin Dillon fourth and Elliott fifth.
Following the break between Stages 2 and 3, all the lead-lap cars pitted with Logano first off pit road, but there was a dramatic incident further back as Ty Gibbs drove off with his gas can still attached to his No. 54 Toyota and it caught fire after it dropped on pit road.
Logano remained out front when the race resumed with 63 laps to go while Gibbs had to start from the rear of the field for removing equipment from his stall.
With 50 laps remaining, Logano maintained a small lead over Keselowski and Elliott close behind in third.
Byron led the way from the inside lane as the pack briefly went four-wide with several cars dropping back through the field with 30 laps remaining.
Exiting off Turn 4 and coming down the frontstretch on lap 162, Keselowski got into the back of Carson Hocevar and turned him into the wall, which triggered a multi-car wreck that also collected Dillon, Chase Briscoe and Gibbs.
NASCAR was forced to red flag the race for nearly 10 minutes to clean the track of debris and repair an area of the SAFER barrier in the trioval.
All of the lead-lap cars pitted with Aric Almirola first off pit road. He led Harvick and Bowman when the race resumed with 20 laps to go.
Bowman led Blaney and Almirola on a restart with 13 laps remaining following a caution for debris in the racing groove on the backstretch.
Harvick then got a push into the lead from Blaney with 10 laps to go and the two engaged in a nip-and-tuck battle to the flag with Blaney ultimately prevailing.
Race result:
