Talladega Never Disappoints

Like it or not, when the Cup cars go to Talladega, it's going to be 3 hours of chess followed by 30 laps of bedlam. The end result is usually at least one big crash that takes a bunch of the field out of contention and at least one last lap pass.

Sunday was no exception. In the last 2 laps, Carl Edwards was pushed past Ryan Newman and Dale Jr. by Brad Keselowski to the lead. Then just when I thought it was over (and was yelling at Jr. for letting them go by and not pulling out to catch their draft and contend for the win) everyone got a glimpse of why Talladega is different than everywhere else they race.

Aside from being the biggest, fastest track on the circuit there is one other peculiarity that came into play on Sunday. The Start-Finish line is all the way down by turn one. What this means is that when they come off turn 4 it's still a really long way to the finish line. Had this race taken place at Daytona (a very similar track where the Start-Finish line is in a more traditional place in the tri-oval), Carl Edwards would have probably been the winner, quite possibly in mid-flip.

Back to the finish. Keselowski looked high, Edwards moved to block, Keselowski went low and managed to get a nose under Edwards (think Cole Trickle's last lap pass at Daytona in Days of Thunder). At Talladega you can't go below the double-yellow line to advance your position, so when Edwards started down to block Keselowski who was partially along-side him now there were 3 options for Keselowski:
1. Lift (slow down) and take 2nd
2. Go below the line and take 2nd (or worse depending on how NASCAR viewed the move)
3. Hold his ground and see what happened

Let me be crystal clear about the following, what Keselowski did was not dirty (see Carl's post race interview). He had every right to put his nose down there. Carl is the one that turned down across him. Carl was quick to say, I just didn't realize he had gotten along-side me that quickly. At another track, Keselowski would have gone below the line and it would have been a photo finish. Instead, Edwards went flying, got hammered by Newman and landed short of the finish line with the car on fire. He then proceeded to get out of the car and jog across the finish line (I'm told Ricky Bobby did did that in - ironically - Talladega Nights, but I haven't seen the movie. Please spare me your shock at that fact unless you want to hear why.).

Keselowski went on to win the race (his 1st win in only his 5th career start) with his racing mentor Dale Jr. coming home second.

It was a great finish - from an excitement standpoint - but you never want to see wrecks like that. At least 8 fans were injured by debris from Edwards car flying into the stands. None of the injuries were life-threatening. You need to see the video to see what a great job the retaining fence did of keeping the car on the track and the entire thing not landing in the third row. Just like in baseball where balls and bats can enter the stands, in auto racing there can be injuries. NASCAR does everything they can to protect the drivers and the fans.

Long live the big tracks! Next weeekend back to short-track racing. :(