The 2012 NASCAR season enters the first of two weekends at its greatest speedway. Daytona, Charlotte, Pocono, and Michigan all have rich competitive history - Ontario Motor Speedway built a very memorable competitive history cut short far too early - but for sheer competitive ferocity nothing compares to Talladega Superspeedway.
But entering this Winston 500 weekend we've gotten reminder that this 2012 season has already been a season of frustration and ineptitude. The Richmond 400 weekend began with a surprising comeback win by Kurt Busch in the Nationwide 250 but it ended with a scoring breakdown and foolish officiating, resulting in a penalty to race contender Carl Edwards and a strikingly anticlimactic win by Kyle Busch. Scoring controversies are not new to NASCAR and officiating controversies are not new, either, yet neither should be happening today between electronic scoring and the far greater sophistication involved in racing in all its aspects.
Making it worse, the sport in a sense returns to the scene of the first crime of the season. Talladega returns the absurd rules package designed to limit tandem drafting at restrictor plate races - an absurdly small spoiler and even more absurdly small radiator, designed to make the drivers breathe the cars instead of race. The package came because Brian France of NASCAR claimed a fan poll showed overwhelming opposition by fans of tandem drafting, yet as Bob Pockrass pointed out earlier this year there never was any evidence of widespread fan distaste for tandem drafting. This package came because Brian France and no one else hated tandem drafting.
Of course Dale Earnhardt Jr. became hypocritically critical of tandem drafting (people forget he brought to the mainstream in 2009 in the Winston 500, though it had been building for years before) and the arguments against it remain insufferable - Junior's talk about drivers not controlling their own destiny is insulting because tandem drafting creates a power to pass unprecedented in racing history - and this is by definition having a measure of control of your own destiny.
Do you want to control your destiny or do you want ability to pass people? Racers are supposed to want ability to pass; it makes Junior's verbiage utterly without credibility. It of course was telling that all the racing before the 500 was decided by tandem drafting - the Busch Clash, both 150s, and the N'wide 300 (which runs the "old" spoiler and radiator package), by far the best race of Speedweeks.
Given that Talladega is different from Daytona, the poor quality of racing seen in the Daytona 500 may not be replicated, but the 500 set in motion a general sense of ennui in the drivers - the infamous non-finish by Greg Biffle and Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the 500 has been replicated in spirit if not in literal sense in the racing in general, a fact that has helped ignite real controversy that has taken Carl Edwards for one by surprise.
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The end result remains an indictment of Brian France. His reign as NASCAR president has been abysmal between the mass exodus of sponsors, controversies over exclusivity deals, the draining of life out of the racing not just by the sport's technology arms race but by its ever-growing emphasis on points instead of actual racing, and running rules packages hoisted by France and by his Cup director John Darby that have consistently failed - running battles against downforce, frequent changes to the cars between spoilers and sway bars, and the net result is worsened racing.
Brian France has proven he isn't qualified for his job, and no matter how the Winston 500 weekend turns out it will indict him more - the Alabama 312 for the Nationwide series runs the "old" spoiler/radiator package so tandem drafting will predominate; it resulted in a new Daytona race record for lead changes for the series in February. This will illustrate what Speedweeks illustrated - the fundamental failing of Brian France's war against tandem drafts. If the Winston 500 turns out as mediocre as the Daytona 500 it proves France's rule change is a failure; if Talladega is a great race it will show France's changes didn't take away tandem drafting after all (remember, the Clash and 150s were all decided by tandem drafting) - either way he can't win here.
He can't win, and he keeps proving he can't win in general. Richmond's officiating controversies merely add to his legacy of ineptitude.
Showing posts with label Talladega. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Talladega. Show all posts
Monday, April 30, 2012
Monday, October 15, 2007
COT Still Makes No Sense
The COT ran at Talladega in early October and the resulting race was hardly a ringing endorsement of the car, despite some excellent racing overall. This was supposed to be the big proving ground of success with the COT and it wasn't. Which isn't surprising as the car has consistently failed at literally every goal assigned to it.
For Talladega, one goal was to eliminate expensive restrictor plate intake manifolds; the opposite is happening as teams build new such manifolds, making nonsense of the car's advertised cost reductions in that area.
And with ratings and attendence continuing to slip, the sport's COT gamble is proving a bad one. What NASCAR does now remains a mystery given the seeming lack of idea how to handle failure like this that permeates the sanctioning body.
For Talladega, one goal was to eliminate expensive restrictor plate intake manifolds; the opposite is happening as teams build new such manifolds, making nonsense of the car's advertised cost reductions in that area.
And with ratings and attendence continuing to slip, the sport's COT gamble is proving a bad one. What NASCAR does now remains a mystery given the seeming lack of idea how to handle failure like this that permeates the sanctioning body.
Monday, April 30, 2007
NASCAR, Stop Playing Favorites
The recent controversy over Tony Stewart's questions about the integrity of NASCAR's yellows has garnered continuing examination, but amid this recent examination, missed is what may be the real point of at least some of this controversy.
At at Alabama 500 we saw some more questionable timing of a late yellow as well as continued proof of the absurdity of freezing the field. When David Reutimann blew up in the trioval, the yellow did not fly until after Jeff Gordon had retaken the lead, even though Reutimann had erupted halfway through the trioval, well before Gordon and the other leaders had even reached the stripe. This of course was followed by a green-white-checker finish that got aborted as soon as the field hit the backstretch after Johnny Sauter punched the second-turn wall. What followed was graphic evidence that a key argument against racing to the yellow - to prevent crashes - is nothing but safety-overkilling hot air, as Tony Stewart got blasted into the inside wall even with the yellow flying.
This controversy is but a small part of larger continuing controversies over how NASCAR officiates races. Amid the controversies lies what should be a key point of criticism - the fact that far too often officiating calls go to the "favorites."
It isn't a new controversy; it has been ongoing. I remember John Andretti pitting too early under a yellow at New Hampshire in 2001 but beating the pace car to the pit exit stripe, yet NASCAR ruled he was put a lap down. When does a penalty like that ever hit a "favorite" like Jeff Gordon or Dale Junior? Talladega's yellow-line rule only seems to apply to "field fillers" like Mike Skinner, who got flagged in 2001 in Bobby Hamilton's win, but let Dale Junior pass on the apron entering Three and NASCAR contrives a lame excuse that he'd "completed the pass" when he went below the line, never mind that the rule means clearing a car by going below the line and Earnhardt was nowhere close to such before he went below the line.
These are but two of a myriad number of examples observors can find that show that NASCAR officiating too often benefits the big drivers and teams.
The point of controversy like this is that most people want NASCAR to stop playing favorites. There have to be situations where the big names like Gordon and Junior and Jimmie Johnson are the ones who get penalized and the "smaller" names who wind up the beneficiary. We see the opposite too often. People will regain a lot of confidence in the sanctioning body when they can see that the superstars get hit in the gut with penalties, too.
At at Alabama 500 we saw some more questionable timing of a late yellow as well as continued proof of the absurdity of freezing the field. When David Reutimann blew up in the trioval, the yellow did not fly until after Jeff Gordon had retaken the lead, even though Reutimann had erupted halfway through the trioval, well before Gordon and the other leaders had even reached the stripe. This of course was followed by a green-white-checker finish that got aborted as soon as the field hit the backstretch after Johnny Sauter punched the second-turn wall. What followed was graphic evidence that a key argument against racing to the yellow - to prevent crashes - is nothing but safety-overkilling hot air, as Tony Stewart got blasted into the inside wall even with the yellow flying.
This controversy is but a small part of larger continuing controversies over how NASCAR officiates races. Amid the controversies lies what should be a key point of criticism - the fact that far too often officiating calls go to the "favorites."
It isn't a new controversy; it has been ongoing. I remember John Andretti pitting too early under a yellow at New Hampshire in 2001 but beating the pace car to the pit exit stripe, yet NASCAR ruled he was put a lap down. When does a penalty like that ever hit a "favorite" like Jeff Gordon or Dale Junior? Talladega's yellow-line rule only seems to apply to "field fillers" like Mike Skinner, who got flagged in 2001 in Bobby Hamilton's win, but let Dale Junior pass on the apron entering Three and NASCAR contrives a lame excuse that he'd "completed the pass" when he went below the line, never mind that the rule means clearing a car by going below the line and Earnhardt was nowhere close to such before he went below the line.
These are but two of a myriad number of examples observors can find that show that NASCAR officiating too often benefits the big drivers and teams.
The point of controversy like this is that most people want NASCAR to stop playing favorites. There have to be situations where the big names like Gordon and Junior and Jimmie Johnson are the ones who get penalized and the "smaller" names who wind up the beneficiary. We see the opposite too often. People will regain a lot of confidence in the sanctioning body when they can see that the superstars get hit in the gut with penalties, too.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Talladega: Racing Perfection And Controversy
The Autumn 500 at Talladega was everything that is good about racing - racing as it is always supposed to be. Talladega saw 63 lead changes among 23 drivers, the first time in 22 years that a NASCAR race broke the 60-lead-change barrier. The new surface at Talladega worked perfectly after some concern following the Truck 250 that the bottom would be faster than the top - indeed, the most striking aspect of the Autumn 500 was that the bottom groove, while fast, was avoided by most of the cars, which preferred the middle and top grooves.
Talladega, however, also saw a lot of controversy. The lamest was Jeff Gordon's whine act about push-drafting after his wreck. The big controversy, however, came in a last lap that brought back memories of the 1986 Talladega 500 (the whole race brought back memory of that '86 event, the first in motorsports history to break the 20-leader barrier and still tied for all-time most leaders at 26) and also memoriy of the 1979 Daytona 500, a race ironically run on a newly-repaved track. Charlotte Motor Speedway hired extra security for Brian Vickers after he kicked teammate Jimmie Johnson into Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the last lap only added to a controversial career for Vickers, hired by Rick Hendrick to drive his BGN car managed by Ricky Hendrick. After Vickers won a BGN title he was promoted to the #25 Winston Cup car, a car long jinxed by the ghost of Tim Richmond, and nearly got himself fired in May 2005 after a year and a half of subpar effort. He became a lame duck when he signed to drive for Toyota in 2007 and was even barred from team meetings earlier this season, and now he has a Winston Cup victory.
The controversial finish renewed attention to NASCAR's absurd field-freeze rule, as the winner was declared in Turn Three instead of at the start-finish line, never the right way to go about so momentous a decision. It also brought back memory of the Firecracker 250, where DEI teammates Michael Waltrip and Dale Junior were taken out by Jason Leffler on the final lap and Mike Wallace shot into the win - and NASCAR let the field race to the flag. Why they could not let the field race to the line here at Talladega - and this is the second year in a row where the Autumn 500 winner was declared in Turn Three instead of at the checkered flag - is a mind-boggling question not just of inconsistency but of basic competence.
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Lost amid the controversy was that the Autumn 500 had a lot of subplots. Carl Edwards and Bobby Labonte, for one, finished at the tail-end of the top ten. Edwards got tagged entering One and swerved into Jeff Gordon, setting off Gordon's melee. Edwards' rally from there to finish ninth was a good effort in a difficult year for the Roush #99.
Labonte, meanwhile, wins the "Where Did He Come From?" award and may rethink the strategy of laying out back all race long - it got him, Kyle Petty, and Dale Jarrett lapped when Elliott Sadler blew a tire and they lost the draft dodging Sadler's errant car. Labonte got his lap back and restarted 22nd in the final ten laps, and posted his sixth top ten of the year, but what may be the most important top ten, for it came on a track where the Petty organization has periodically been very stout but rarely in contention in the restrictor plate era - this was only the Petty effort's sixth top ten in the modern plate era at Talladega.
Now comes Charlotte's National 500, and with 14-gallon fuel cells for this track as well as Talladega, extra pitstops come into play again and a lot of drivers look to salvage something after what this curious season has wrought already.
Talladega, however, also saw a lot of controversy. The lamest was Jeff Gordon's whine act about push-drafting after his wreck. The big controversy, however, came in a last lap that brought back memories of the 1986 Talladega 500 (the whole race brought back memory of that '86 event, the first in motorsports history to break the 20-leader barrier and still tied for all-time most leaders at 26) and also memoriy of the 1979 Daytona 500, a race ironically run on a newly-repaved track. Charlotte Motor Speedway hired extra security for Brian Vickers after he kicked teammate Jimmie Johnson into Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the last lap only added to a controversial career for Vickers, hired by Rick Hendrick to drive his BGN car managed by Ricky Hendrick. After Vickers won a BGN title he was promoted to the #25 Winston Cup car, a car long jinxed by the ghost of Tim Richmond, and nearly got himself fired in May 2005 after a year and a half of subpar effort. He became a lame duck when he signed to drive for Toyota in 2007 and was even barred from team meetings earlier this season, and now he has a Winston Cup victory.
The controversial finish renewed attention to NASCAR's absurd field-freeze rule, as the winner was declared in Turn Three instead of at the start-finish line, never the right way to go about so momentous a decision. It also brought back memory of the Firecracker 250, where DEI teammates Michael Waltrip and Dale Junior were taken out by Jason Leffler on the final lap and Mike Wallace shot into the win - and NASCAR let the field race to the flag. Why they could not let the field race to the line here at Talladega - and this is the second year in a row where the Autumn 500 winner was declared in Turn Three instead of at the checkered flag - is a mind-boggling question not just of inconsistency but of basic competence.
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Lost amid the controversy was that the Autumn 500 had a lot of subplots. Carl Edwards and Bobby Labonte, for one, finished at the tail-end of the top ten. Edwards got tagged entering One and swerved into Jeff Gordon, setting off Gordon's melee. Edwards' rally from there to finish ninth was a good effort in a difficult year for the Roush #99.
Labonte, meanwhile, wins the "Where Did He Come From?" award and may rethink the strategy of laying out back all race long - it got him, Kyle Petty, and Dale Jarrett lapped when Elliott Sadler blew a tire and they lost the draft dodging Sadler's errant car. Labonte got his lap back and restarted 22nd in the final ten laps, and posted his sixth top ten of the year, but what may be the most important top ten, for it came on a track where the Petty organization has periodically been very stout but rarely in contention in the restrictor plate era - this was only the Petty effort's sixth top ten in the modern plate era at Talladega.
Now comes Charlotte's National 500, and with 14-gallon fuel cells for this track as well as Talladega, extra pitstops come into play again and a lot of drivers look to salvage something after what this curious season has wrought already.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Pre-Talladega Miscellenia
With the Autumn 500 at Talladega weekend proceeding, some miscelleneous comments -
1 - To no one's surprise, NASCAR before 500 qualifying mandated smaller restrictor plates when drafting speeds jumped to 198 and change on Friday. They of course have done this before, notably in October 2000 when the roof spoiler package, making its debut, made the draft so strong that speeds jumped some 13 MPH from qualifying practice to the draft.
Perhaps the hardest-racing car in Friday practice was Bobby Labonte, who slugged it out with Jeff Gordon and others in a tight eight-car draft and looked to be passing pretty much anyone he wanted. His qualifying run, though, wasn't so spectacular, which at Talladega isn't something to bat an eye over. In race trim, Labonte looked stout.
His teammate Kyle Petty, meanwhile, continued his enormous improvement in qualifying with a strong lap. Now that qualifying has improved, Kyle needs to improve in race trim and show the kind of fight Labonte has shown this season and particular in that practice session.
2 - To no one's surprise, RCR announced that Goodwrench will no longer be primary sponsor of Kevin Harvick's #29, with Shell oil picking up the slack and Hershey's candies occassionally taking over as well. How times have changed in NASCAR - it used to be STP versus Purolator versus Valvoline; now it's Hershey's versus M&Ms - a symptom of what blogger MD80891 calls "market racing."
3 - To a lot of people's surprise came Mark Martin's decision to quit Roush Racing after 2006 and run a 22-race Winston Cup sked for Robert Ginn's MB2 Chevrolet team. The loss of the face of his organization leaves some questions worth asking about Jack Roush and what went wrong with what looked to be a smooth transition for Martin to the Truck series. Though the Roush organization probably won't skip a beat with Martin's departure, the sight of Martin driving for someone else will takes time to get used to.
Talladega thus prepares for its big show on Sunday.
1 - To no one's surprise, NASCAR before 500 qualifying mandated smaller restrictor plates when drafting speeds jumped to 198 and change on Friday. They of course have done this before, notably in October 2000 when the roof spoiler package, making its debut, made the draft so strong that speeds jumped some 13 MPH from qualifying practice to the draft.
Perhaps the hardest-racing car in Friday practice was Bobby Labonte, who slugged it out with Jeff Gordon and others in a tight eight-car draft and looked to be passing pretty much anyone he wanted. His qualifying run, though, wasn't so spectacular, which at Talladega isn't something to bat an eye over. In race trim, Labonte looked stout.
His teammate Kyle Petty, meanwhile, continued his enormous improvement in qualifying with a strong lap. Now that qualifying has improved, Kyle needs to improve in race trim and show the kind of fight Labonte has shown this season and particular in that practice session.
2 - To no one's surprise, RCR announced that Goodwrench will no longer be primary sponsor of Kevin Harvick's #29, with Shell oil picking up the slack and Hershey's candies occassionally taking over as well. How times have changed in NASCAR - it used to be STP versus Purolator versus Valvoline; now it's Hershey's versus M&Ms - a symptom of what blogger MD80891 calls "market racing."
3 - To a lot of people's surprise came Mark Martin's decision to quit Roush Racing after 2006 and run a 22-race Winston Cup sked for Robert Ginn's MB2 Chevrolet team. The loss of the face of his organization leaves some questions worth asking about Jack Roush and what went wrong with what looked to be a smooth transition for Martin to the Truck series. Though the Roush organization probably won't skip a beat with Martin's departure, the sight of Martin driving for someone else will takes time to get used to.
Talladega thus prepares for its big show on Sunday.
Talladega Truck 250 Anticlimax And Rule Fiasco
Talladega debuted the Craftsman Trucks amid natural hype given the track's new pavement and the prospect of ferocious slicing and dicing for the win by the Trucks. Mark Martin, suddenly a lame duck with Ford, had the pole and looked to be the only chance to deny Toyota a Talladega win. As for those Toyotas, with so many of them and so few competitive Trucks of other makes, one could have expected another Toyota rout.
But then the green flag waved and all the prerace theories began falling apart. Mark Martin took off and held the lead, as most could have expected, but Talladega's form chart has been that the lead changes back and forth in lap after lap of sidedrafting. Out back there was plenty of four-abreast slicing and dicing for position and the field never split into two or more groups; the field stayed together in one huge fleet.
But the form chart was missing something big - the leader was hogging the bottom groove all the way around, and seemingly no one could attack outside and slice into the point. Martin had to pit to get a tear-off off his grille and he lost a lap only to get it back on one of the race's infrequent yellows. Johnny Benson led after the first yellow and pretty much held it with an authority rare for Talladega.
The lead changed hands, but despite some very aggressive push-drafting and some spectacular three-wide passing, taking the lead proved to be exceptionally difficult, with only 12 lead changes among nine drivers - and this segues into the race's signature blown call. After Martin swerved like Ernie Irvan to take away Todd Bodine's passing lane in the final 25 laps, Bodine finally got past but clipped the yellow line before One and got blackflagged.
The yellow line rule has been a problem since its first race in 2001, as a region of the racetrack that had never caused problem before when used as a passing lane is used to eliminate a potential winner from the race. NASCAR has to rethink this rule long and hard because it basically ended the race right there.
Talladega's debut with Craftsman Trucks proved decidedly anticlimatic. One can hope for a lot better from the Trucks come 2007.
But then the green flag waved and all the prerace theories began falling apart. Mark Martin took off and held the lead, as most could have expected, but Talladega's form chart has been that the lead changes back and forth in lap after lap of sidedrafting. Out back there was plenty of four-abreast slicing and dicing for position and the field never split into two or more groups; the field stayed together in one huge fleet.
But the form chart was missing something big - the leader was hogging the bottom groove all the way around, and seemingly no one could attack outside and slice into the point. Martin had to pit to get a tear-off off his grille and he lost a lap only to get it back on one of the race's infrequent yellows. Johnny Benson led after the first yellow and pretty much held it with an authority rare for Talladega.
The lead changed hands, but despite some very aggressive push-drafting and some spectacular three-wide passing, taking the lead proved to be exceptionally difficult, with only 12 lead changes among nine drivers - and this segues into the race's signature blown call. After Martin swerved like Ernie Irvan to take away Todd Bodine's passing lane in the final 25 laps, Bodine finally got past but clipped the yellow line before One and got blackflagged.
The yellow line rule has been a problem since its first race in 2001, as a region of the racetrack that had never caused problem before when used as a passing lane is used to eliminate a potential winner from the race. NASCAR has to rethink this rule long and hard because it basically ended the race right there.
Talladega's debut with Craftsman Trucks proved decidedly anticlimatic. One can hope for a lot better from the Trucks come 2007.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
ARCA Puts On A Show At Talladega
The Automobile Racing Club of America became the first racing series to christen Talladega Superspeedway's new pavement in competition - NASCAR's Winston Cup cars were the actual first cars to test the new surface, but that was in their practice sessions; "We're talking about practice," to coin an Allen Iverson catchphrase - and ARCA did so by putting on a show.
And what a show it was. Most media attention was focused on Juan Montoya, the ex-CART champion and ex-F1 driver who timed second for the ARCA Alabama 250 in his stock car debut, the ride of course being preparation for his Winston Cup debut for 2007. The media, though, seemed to forget about Bobby Gerhart, a consistent threat at Talladega and the Alabama 250's pole-sitter; they also forgot about perennial ARCA champion Frank Kimmel, trying for a win at Talladega for more years than he may care to acknowledge.
There were some other subplots to this race as well, such as the Wallace Family Feud between Rusty's son Steven, quickly rising through stock car ranks, and Rusty's brother Mike, driving the James Finch #09 Dodge; both Wallaces put on a show battling for and drafting to the lead, and that subplot mixed perfectly into the big story of this race - the astonishing competitive depth of the race itself.
ARCA is a proud sanctioning body with rich racing history and has seen an astonishing twelve first time winners in 2006. However, there is the hard reality that very few cars in ARCA can acquire the resources needed to run well week in and week out, and for ARCA's Talladega races this has mostly meant a disappoining paucity of competitive cars.
For 2006, however, the ARCA field flexed some unexpected muscle, as the battle for the lead swelled into a 25-car slugfest, the deepest competitive field seen in an ARCA race in years and the tightest, most ferocious battle for the lead seen in ARCA in even more years.
Most attention of course centered on Montoya, racing the field in one of Chip Ganassi's Dodges. He showed the kind of tentativeness at times that is common to rookies but overall handled himself well, especially after barely escaping a scary wreck involving Doug Reid off Turn Four in which Bryan Silas lifted backward off the ground and never scrubbed off any speed as his #11 plowed into the inside SAFER. Montoya got hit in the door but escaped major damage and finished third as the race ended under yellow following a ten-car melee off Four.
Frank Kimmel stormed into the lead just before that wreck and thus nailed down a win at Talladega, and one can expect him to celebrate this win more than most given his quest to win here and also given how ferocious this race was. Juan Montoya, meanwhile, got a lesson in stock car racing he can be expected to put to good use as his new racing chapter turns its pages into 2007.
And what a show it was. Most media attention was focused on Juan Montoya, the ex-CART champion and ex-F1 driver who timed second for the ARCA Alabama 250 in his stock car debut, the ride of course being preparation for his Winston Cup debut for 2007. The media, though, seemed to forget about Bobby Gerhart, a consistent threat at Talladega and the Alabama 250's pole-sitter; they also forgot about perennial ARCA champion Frank Kimmel, trying for a win at Talladega for more years than he may care to acknowledge.
There were some other subplots to this race as well, such as the Wallace Family Feud between Rusty's son Steven, quickly rising through stock car ranks, and Rusty's brother Mike, driving the James Finch #09 Dodge; both Wallaces put on a show battling for and drafting to the lead, and that subplot mixed perfectly into the big story of this race - the astonishing competitive depth of the race itself.
ARCA is a proud sanctioning body with rich racing history and has seen an astonishing twelve first time winners in 2006. However, there is the hard reality that very few cars in ARCA can acquire the resources needed to run well week in and week out, and for ARCA's Talladega races this has mostly meant a disappoining paucity of competitive cars.
For 2006, however, the ARCA field flexed some unexpected muscle, as the battle for the lead swelled into a 25-car slugfest, the deepest competitive field seen in an ARCA race in years and the tightest, most ferocious battle for the lead seen in ARCA in even more years.
Most attention of course centered on Montoya, racing the field in one of Chip Ganassi's Dodges. He showed the kind of tentativeness at times that is common to rookies but overall handled himself well, especially after barely escaping a scary wreck involving Doug Reid off Turn Four in which Bryan Silas lifted backward off the ground and never scrubbed off any speed as his #11 plowed into the inside SAFER. Montoya got hit in the door but escaped major damage and finished third as the race ended under yellow following a ten-car melee off Four.
Frank Kimmel stormed into the lead just before that wreck and thus nailed down a win at Talladega, and one can expect him to celebrate this win more than most given his quest to win here and also given how ferocious this race was. Juan Montoya, meanwhile, got a lesson in stock car racing he can be expected to put to good use as his new racing chapter turns its pages into 2007.
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