The Geico 500 weekend began with an eye-popping crash involving former Talladega winner Jamie McMurray, whose blown tire set off the nastiest tumble in years and raised questions about the wisdom of allowing speeds in the 200 MPH bracket - Daytona's recent bad melees involving catchfencing both involved speeds in the 200 range, this after decades of experience that 194 is realistically the cut-off point for keeping the cars on the ground. NASCAR made a restrictor plate change after this wreck that was the weakest form of window-dressing and which thus didn't really solve anything, leaving the question about the restrictor plate size come the Firecracker weekend in July. A larger spoiler and smaller plate would seem a no-brainer; the curiously unexamined angle is the draft duct package now in use on the flat superovals and beginning at Charlotte in the All-Star Race; one would think down the road that will become a part of the package at the plate tracks as well.
The weekend accelerated with ARCA's General Tire 200 - this coming after the stunning announcement that NASCAR has purchased the sanctioning body.
Reaction to NASCAR's purchase of ARCA was negative, with angry citation of NASCAR's purchase of the ARTGO and All-Pro tours as evidence against the purchase. As Matt Weaver of Autoweek put it, this buyout is basically a case of the pie being too small for the two bodies - longtime quasi-allies - not to merge. Given ARCA's experience with superspeedways I doubt it will affect that series that much and may have been inevitable.
As for the General Tire 200, once again the policy of not racing to the flag came back to ruin what was a terrific race with a terrific finish won by Zane Smith. Sheldon Creed in the Ranier/MDM #28 and Sean Corr in the Petty-affiliated Empire car - this time #46, the number normally used by Petty's grandson Thad Moffitt - were as at Daytona in the thick of the fight for the win, and once again a race-ending wreck left Corr with the worst of it. The racing was awesome with the sidedraft for the lead raging pretty much wire to wire.
The weekend also saw a major Late Model race at Five Flags Speedway that was even uglier than the crashing at Talladega with a nasty encounter between racers Stephen Nasse and Donnie Wilson, a set-to where Nasse punched out Wilson while Wilson was still in his car; Wilson then got out and the brawl was on. The track PA announcer supposedly said, "Nasse is known as a hothead" and Kyle Plott said, "That's Nasse's fault. He started that. That's stupid as hell." When it was all over Bubba Pollard stormed to the win over Casey Roderick and Chandler Smith, who gagged on the last restart.
Nasse for his part spoke afterward.
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The other big story entering the weekend was the announcement that Matt Kenseth - idled since JGR released him after 2017 - will drive for Roush-Fenway Racing in replacement of Trevor Bayne in the #6 starting at Kansas. With reports that Roush was working on some sort of long-term deal for Kenseth, the change is suggestive that Roush has given up on the mostly-unsuccessful Bayne, who won the Daytona 500 in the Wood Brothers #21 in 2011, managed four top ten finishes 2016-17, and won twice in Roush Busch-Xfinity Fords, but has overall accomplished nothing - ironically illustrated in being eliminated in a wreck in the Geico 500.
The seeming failure of Bayne raises anew concern that the much-vaunted Young Guns simply lack the ammunition as racers. Chase Elliott has run strongly, including second at Richmond, but overall has not shown evidence he is actually learning how to win. He also has been in essence the only Chevrolet doing anything in a season monopolized by SHR Fords, Penske Fords, and JGR Toyotas.
That Elliott is the only Chevrolet in this sea of Fords and Toyotas is the lone highlight for what looks more and more like a season where the Daytona 500 is the only win the Bowtie Brigade will get. Talladega showed anew how outclassed the Chevrolet fleet is, with the Chevys basically dragged along from pillar to post.
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Fans also got a front-row seat to the downside of modern racing. In the Sparks Energy 300 and in the Geico 500 the drivers were capable of passing yet didn't do it. In the Sparks 300 almost the only combat was the two-lap finish where Spencer Gallagher, who's been kicking around the Xfinity and Truck Series as well as the K&N Series and ARCA since 2011, blasted to the win, his second career win anywhere after his ARCA win at Kansas, both times in Maury Gallagher Chevrolets.
The Geico 500 was actually worse. NASCAR's liberalized ride-height rule may have backfired with racecars noticeably unstable and drivers were focused more on short-pitting - which so staggered the field as to make it a mess, this even without the rash of pit speeding penalties that permeated pit sequencing - than on actually leading the race. Even though the battle for the lead in spots swelled to epic proportion - i.e what Talladega is supposed to be - it simply wasn't a case of drivers committed to going for the lead.
Thus was the melee started by a sideways Jimmie Johnson racing for about fifteenth all the more ironic, a confluence of the worst aspects of racing - unstable racecars and drivers almost scared to pass anyone (and yet getting wrecked anyway).
And in the end Joey Logano grabbed his first win since the Richmond 400 in 2017, a surprising thirty-six race slump. The starkest contrast in this slump is Logano managed just eight top tens the rest of 2017 while nailing eight top tens before the Talladega win - in contrast teammates Brad Keselowski and Ryan Blaney have managed just two top-tens combined in the last four races.
So Talladega blasted through its first race weekend of the season and the patterns of the season appear now to be set with Dover coming up.
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