NASCAR Blasts Into Talladega But Not Without Disappointment

NASCAR's first Talladega weekend arrived amid several eye-opening changes and in a season that has yet to arrest the sport's decline in ratings and attendances.    The continued popularity funk comes amid some reason for optimism down the road with aerodynamic issues now being addressed properly and the racing in 2018 being noticeably better than in recent years.   Once the weekend was over, though, more questions were left being asked about some of its rules sagacity.

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.

Talladega Legacy And Future

The 2017 Winston 500 weekend at Talladega opened with a surprising burden of legacy and ended with the arrival of an aspect of the future - a confluence that made for an interesting weekend.

The Busch/Xfinity Series opened things up with an exciting shootout in the Sparks 300 and Aric Almirola matched his Firecracker 250 win from last July by bagging this one.  


The burden of legacy for Talladega was two-fold  - Part I was this marked the 30th anniversary of the 1987 Winston 500 and the breakthrough victory of Davey Allison and the Ranier Racing team.   The second-generation Allison began one of the sport's most celebrated careers with that breakthrough victory as a rookie, ultimately winning nineteen races -  but the championship he wanted escaped him in the famous crash with Ernie Irvan during the 1992 Dixie 500, and a frustrating 1993 season ended in tragedy in the helicopter crash in Talladega's infield. 


The second part of Talladega's burden of legacy was unexpected - the retirement after 2017 of Dale Earnhardt Jr., a six-time Talladega winner and the Most Popular Driver for some sixteen years running.   There was a great deal of expectation when Dale Junior timed onto the front row for the Winston 500 - but it would be the pole-sitter who stole all the thunder.


Ricky Stenhouse won two Xfinity Series titles in Roush Fords, posting eight wins and thirty-two other top-fives in that process, but that left no one impressed as Stenhouse blundered his way through the Winston Cup wars from his rookie season in 2013 with just twenty-two top-10s in 158 starts to date - more damning is Stenhouse has led a paltry 58 laps for his Cup career to date.    Making him seem even more of a joke is his well-known romance with Danica Patrick.

Yet Stenhouse wound up serving up the future in the 2017 Winston 500, and like Davey Allison, Phil Parsons, and Brad Keselowski  made this race the breakthrough for his Cup career.   It marked the first Roush victory at the Winston Cup level in 101 starts and it also marks the seventh-straight plate race won by a brand other than Chevrolet, which so dominated restrictor plate racing from 1990-2015 it wasn't funny - adding insult to injury Chevrolet led a whopping eleven laps in this 500 and Dale Junior finished an inglorious 22nd.   Jamie McMurray salvaged some pride for Chevy by finishing second and Kasey Kahne showed up the rest of Hendrick Motorsports by finishing fifth.  

It also marks the third Ford team to win in the 2017 Cup season, an important breakthrough for the competitive depth of the renewed Ford effort that began with the acquisition of Stewart-Haas Racing from Chevrolet; SHR, Penske, and now Roush have won, with Richard Petty's team and Wood Brothers Racing no longer just also-rans but legitimate contenders for a win or two.  

The other striking aspect from the manufacturer standpoint is Toyotas led 95 laps and had just one top-ten finisher to show for it, furthering the concern about Toyota's true strength as 2017 proceeds.   It also raises the issue of whether Toyota's approach where it is basically just one organization - Joe Gibbs Racing, with Barney Visser's two-car outfit (both crunched in the backstretch mess) just an extension of JGR - is sufficient; clearly there seems need for Toyota to add two more organizations to its Winston Cup fleet - especially as the Honda and Dodge rumor for NASCAR still exists, albeit has stayed underground.

People gripe about the crashes at Talladega - well there were plenty of them yet again.


The racing was good, though it seemed passing the leader in the 500 was too much of a chore compared to Daytona, which struck me as surprising, especially with the bonus points awarded for segment finishes which have created more incentive to lead and sparked manifestly greater intensity for Speedweeks.  


In all it shook out as a memorable Talladega weekend with the promise of October to come as well and with the rest of the NASCAR season beckoning.  

Talladega Criticism Remains Wrongheaded

Matt Kenseth's melee has helped set off more criticism of Talladega racing

By now we've all seen them.





Chris Buescher gets tumbled

Kevin Harvick's day ended on his side as Brad Keselowski seized his fourth win in the last sixteen Talladega races


The criticism of Talladega racing has renewed with these three melees, yet the criticism remains wrongheaded. We've seen pieces from Tom Jensen of FOX Sports and an especially moralistic phillipic from Dustin Long at the NBC Sports NASCAR page. "The clock is ticking on the human toll," Long sanctimoniously writes. "When is enough enough with this type of racing?"

Never, Dustin Long.

For one, Landon Cassill put Kevin Harvick in his place responding to Harvick blaming Cassill for the last-lap melee. "His reputation is pretty thin-skinned," Cassill said. And he's not only right, he's right about a lot of other "star" drivers.   The level of sanctimony and thin-skinned cowardice masquerading as attitude has long been an underreported problem with drivers like Harvick, the Busch brothers, Tony Stewart, Danica Patrick, etc.

The criticism of Talladega and restrictor plate/pack racing has lasted a long time and has always been grossly flawed because its premise is wrong.   Daytona and Talladega are NOT the tracks to be scared of -  it's the OTHER tracks that are ostensibly "less" dangerous but which have been the ones with the worst wrecks.   People like to cite Dale Earnhardt's death as spurring a safety revolution - ignoring that Adam Petty, Kenny Irwin, Tony Roper, and Blaise Alexander were also killed in that ugly 2000-2001 period and were killed on NON-pack race tracks.

People also forget serious injuries to Sterling Marlin, who suffered a very serious neck injury at Kansas in 2002, or Jerry Nadeau, badly injured in 2003 at Richmond.   The incidence of bad wrecks on non-plate tracks more than makes nonsense of the criticism of Daytona/Talladega racing and other pack/superdraft racing such as in Indycars.

When people cite that 33 to 35 cars in the 40-car field at Talladega were involved in crashes, they ignore that 21 of them not only finished on the lead lap but were in shooting distance of the win.   Indeed the funniest image of the weekend is the banged-up Austin Dillon Chevy that finished third all taped up, which begs the question of why spend so much money on aero when the draft is the ultimate equalizer.


Not that there shouldn't be changes - NASCAR needs to change these Generation Six racecars so the "beachball" aero impediment effect noted by Jamie McMurray and others during the weekend is eliminated and the drivers can push-draft more effectively and more often - perhaps with a larger spoiler; it also needs to take away the no-push-drafting rule in the Xfinity and Truck Series (and so does ARCA); the Aric Almirola-Brendan Gaughn penalty Saturday showed anew the futility of NASCAR's animus against push-drafting; NASCAR's yellow-line out-of-bounds rule has served no purpose and needs to change - being able to pass below the yellow line can only make it safer as opposed to sardine-canning the field with artificial limits on room to race; NASCAR also needs to start talking to drivers about holding their line better.

The ARCA drivers at Talladega put on a terrific battle for the lead and showed noticeably more lane discipline than the NASCAR guys


The image that stands out from the weekend is the twin image of the ARCA General Tire 200 and also Joey Logano swerving Elliott Sadler and thus getting blasted on the final half-mile of the Sparks 300.  Blocking has become more of an issue in recent years with passing so much harder now than several years ago.   That the ARCA drivers showed more discipline than the NASCAR guys should say something.

NASCAR achieved a strikingly perfect balance of tandem-drafting and conventional pack-racing in 2012's Daytona Shootout and it showed how sidedrafting became really effective again.  It was the kind of balance that makes great racing



NASCAR and drivers also need to address a completely overlooked angle - the fact they're breaking 200 MPH in these races again.  People wonder why the roof flaps didn't work in this Talladega race - that they're at or over 200 when 194 was long ago established as the cut-off point for the roof flaps to work - and perhaps 191 is the more true cut-off point there.   Stock cars simply don't need 200 MPH speeds and we're seeing that again the last couple of seasons.


With Kansas coming up, the hypocrisy of the Talladega criticism warrants one more look.   If Kansas sees racing akin to what happened at Talladega - and in the Truck races in 2013 and 2014 the racing was such that Dave Moody compared it to Talladega racing - I suspect a lot of people would be awed by it - as they should be if the racing does increase in competitiveness to Talladega level.

And remember when Bristol was a demolition derby, and now people criticize it because now there's actual room to race?


Talladega is racing at its most competitive - period.

Talladega Postscript

Matt Kenseth's melee was just one of three melees in a very frustrating Talladega race.

The Geico 500 has left a few people happy and seemingly everyone else anything but.   Talladega being what it is one expects the competition level to be a lot higher than other tracks and one also has seen, not just this weekend but in the past, how much circumstances natural and otherwise plague racers.

It was the most competitive Talladega Cup race since 2014, the overall racing was at times very good, and yet it left a lot to be desired, with Jamie McMurray for one noting it's even harder to pass now with this Generation Six car - anything but a good thing for the sport - and further noting the "beach ball" effect (Dale Junior's description) it generates that is hurting passing.

Some postrace observations -


* This looks more and more like a lost year for Matt Kenseth - Yes, we still have six and a half months of racing to go but by now one would think some momentum would go Kenseth's way.   Leading 347 laps so far this year one would think would be a sign of changing momentum - and all Kenseth has to show for it is two seventh-place finishes.  


* The Fords storm back against the Toyotas - Brad Keselowski pretty much had the lead to himself when it counted and both Penske cars, which had been somewhat quiet in recent races, asserting themselves.   The wildcard, though, was Trevor Bayne, making his first bid for a victory in a long time and the first bid for a Roush car since Carl Edwards left.    It was doubly amazing given Trevor didn't get any drafting help from the other Roush cars who wound up crunched up again at the end.    Bayne also all but doubled his career total for Cup laps led in this one race.


* Even with that the JGR Toyotas remain atop the Hendrick Chevrolets - Dale Junior's season took a decided turn for the worse with a mediocre run at Talladega - his best track - and a crash. After five top-eight finishes in a seven-race span Junior has struggled the last two weeks - and still has not led a lap since Phoenix - and he wasn't alone as Chase Elliott ran good but his teammates weren't around to see it.  

Not that JGR had much of a better day - Kenseth, Edwards, and Hamlin weren't around either, yet the JGR organization looks stronger still compared to the Hendrick fleet.

Stewart-Haas grabs a good day - Ty Dillon brought Tony Stewart's #14 home in the top ten to go with Kurt Busch's wildcard win bid.   It salved some of the damage of Harvick's near-tumble and yet another Danica melee.


* Some good paydays for smaller teams - Brad Daugherty, Bob Jenkins, Barney Vissar, and Jay Robinson all had solid finishes for their cars while HScott Motorsports entered the race amid mild controversy over harsh radio charter from Clint Bowyer about their cars in this, an interregnum season before he takes over Tony Stewart's car; the weekend ended with a solid finish for Bowyer.


* RCR Enterprises has a back-to-the-future moment - Austin Dillon has frankly been uninspiring so far in his Cup career; in Talladega he raced to finish third, while Paul Menard actually challenged for a win.  


* Maybe people need to start questioning Chris Buescher - Buescher tumbled down the backstretch, what became the first of three off-the-ground wrecks, and looking back over the last few seasons, wrecking looks like a pattern with him.


* When it's not your day.... - Aric Almirola looked like an unsung hero as he rallied from a spin, from dodging the Turn One melee, and drafting into the top-ten - then the hole slammed shut in the Kenseth melee.  


* ....it's not your day - Matt DiBenedetto didn't have much to write home about with engine failure.


With Talladega idle until October, the Cup guys head to Kansas City for a Mother's Day eve spectatcular.  

From Richmond And Stafford To Talladega

Talladega is the most competitive track in racing - as shown here

The superspeedway swing of NASCAR resumes this weekend as the Winston 500 weekend beckons, this coming off Richmond's most competitive race since 2007 and an eye-opening finish.   A look at some issues -


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The issue of lugnut rule enforcement (or lack thereof) by NASCAR was finally acknowledged when NASCAR sent a post-Richmond memo to teams in essence requiring them to tighten all five lugnuts per tire. The brouhaha led to a pair of interesting points made amid prerace chatter at Stafford.  One is that part of NASCAR's motive for allowing teams not to tighten all five lugnuts may have been a desire to lessen the workload - and thus lessen the need - for its at-track officials.   Forgotten amid the controversy over aero-matching etc. in the recent past is that this indeed was a factor in NASCAR decision-making - get the rules to where it can lessen the workload for the officials.    There is nonetheless reason for some skepticism with regard to lugnuts, since the lugnut change was so self-evidently wrongheaded.

The other point made is that NASCAR may have expected teams to police themselves about it.   If that was considered it's intriguing on the one had - Boys Have At It becoming more of an ingrained philosophy by NASCAR.  But the drawback is that it reflects poorly on teams that they seem not to have been policing it for drivers to be so publicly complaining about it.


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Mind-blowing stat of the day - Joe Gibbs Racing won just two Cup races in 2014. Entering this Winston 500 JGR has now won nineteen of the last forty Cup races.   Talk about paradigm sifts - it used to be all Hendrick all the time, now it's touchdowns galore for the old Redskins coach.   Five of those wins came from Matt Kenseth yet curiously he has fallen off the map, with only two top-ten finishes.


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Dale Earnhardt Jr. did something surprisingly unnoticed yet encouraging - after he won the Busch/Xfintiy 250 at Richmond he didn't do a burnout.  He cited Mark Martin's dislike of the celebratory antic plus he reasoned he needs the engine to last more. 

Junior has it right - burnouts have worn out their welcome; drivers need to act like they've been there before - because almost all of them have.


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Talladega comes after the photo-finish Daytona 500, a race that was disappointingly lethargic until that electrifying last lap.   Kevin Harvick famously gave Denny Hamlin a hard shot that pushed him into the win, and Harvick said afterward he thought the drivers would start push-drafting more and earlier than occurred.  

That they didn't was stupid on the drivers' part - the push-draft is by far the strongest power to pass ever seen, and they need to start using it from Lap One onward.


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Talladega is usually a tossup as far as prerace picks - looking back at the Daytona 500 the obvious picks are the JGR Toyotas, the Hendrick Chevrolets, and the Penske Fords.   Dale Junior won this Talladega race with frankly absurd ease last season but hasn't been as strong this year (he has five top-tens including two seconds but hasn't led a lap since Phoenix and was oddly off the pace at Richmond despite the Xfinity win).   Hendrick Teammate Jimmie Johnson has been a little more consistent, and so has Chase Elliott, though he's led only five laps so far. 

Joey Logano won the Diehard 500 and also this year has been oddly quiet even with six top-tens so far this year.   Penske teammate Brad Keselowski in contrast has not only been quiet, he's been disturbingly mediocre since the surprise Vegas win (just two top-tens since then; Richmond was also the first race he'd led since Vegas).

It's a longshot for anyone else to upset the Big Three.   Stewart-Haas Racing has Kevin Harvick and his Phoenix win and overall solid outings, it also has good efforts from Kurt Busch, but that's pretty much it as far as contribution goes.   That Tony Stewart is driving at Talladega this weekend is a little surprising given he hasn't done much to speak of there since getting upside down there.

Tony Stewart's 2012 Talladega melee

Talladega once had the reputation for darkhorse winners -


The sport can use that again this year.   There certainly are plenty of candidates starting with Martin Truex, who has fallen off the map since the Daytona loss; Richmond was only his second top-ten since Atlanta.   To belabor the number of worthwhile darkhorse candidates would be pointless - they're there.

So it goes entering Talladega.

2015 Winston 500 Shakeups, Winners, And Losers

The Winston 500 - this year debuting Geico sponsorship after thirteen seasons under the aegis of the Aarons lease-to-own retailer store chain - opened with the promise of some of the best racing of the 2015 season.   It ended with a popular win by Dale Earnhardt Jr., but it also ended with some oblique criticism of NASCAR's rules package - as old a story as one can find, yet one that remains relevant given that it seemingly doesn't end.

The weekend began with two off-track stories - the announcement that the GoDaddy internet registrar company will withdraw its longtime sponsorship of Danica Patrick, another disturbing sign that NASCAR sponsorship's expense and return are not working to the sport's benefit (and also a subtle indictment of Patrick's value as a sponsor symbol), and then comments from Kevin Harvick advocating a shakeup of the NASCAR schedule - basically yet another forum to advocate adding the Iowa Speedway to the Winston Cup schedule.

That NASCAR has been in need of shaking things up has been true for a long time, and it showed again in the Winston 500.  The schedule, though, is the least in need of shaking things up - the only changes that are needed for the schedule are dropping the All Star Race (with Atlanta's 500 being moved into its stead in mid-May), going back to 500-mile distances because they remain fundamentally superior tests of racers and cars, putting start times back to just after 12 PM Eastern/area time instead of 1:30 PM - late start times are a myth pushed by TV networks, mostly ESPN, claiming later start times mean larger audiences; on the contrary what experience has proven is later start times have hurt attendances - and dropping night races, which have accomplished nothing.

Real shaking up for the sport lays in competition areas.   For the larger issue of NASCAR, the most immediate change that remains needed is to drop the exclusivity deal with Goodyear and allow Firestone and Hoosier to supply raceteams with tires and engineering help.   The objection that "tire wars" are unsafe ignores the lack of improved safety with Goodyear's monopoly and oversells the risk factor when tire competition occurred; the real legacy of tire wars has been upsurges in new and different winning drivers and teams. 


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There are of course other issues long debated, such as the Chase format and a points system that obstinately refuses to reward what warrant the largest reward - winning and most laps led.   They relate to Talladega as well, where the immediate shakeup in need remains tackling the rules myopia of the sanctioning body.   Rusty Wallace's oblique on-air criticism of the rules package for the plate tracks to discourage push-drafting rang screamingly true in the weakest Talladega race in ten-plus years, and even rang true in the Xfinity Series Winn Dixie 300 on Saturday; there was noticeable tandem drafting at the end - something noted after July 2014's Firecracker 250 at Daytona - and it produced excellent racing highlighted by the Logano-Almirola-Sadler-Yeley-Dillion push-draft showdown over the race's final quarter, even amid the frequent spoiling of momentum due to numerous yellows - and yet there simply wasn't enough push-drafting.   The contrast with the 500 was too graphic to ignore, and it showcased anew that NASCAR really has no business policing against push-drafting, the strongest power to pass that racing can ever see.  

For a race just four years removed from blasting past 80 official lead changes to be stuck at 27, and no one able to make any move at the end because the draft simply wasn't going to work, remains an indictment of NASCAR's rules myopia.


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The 500's winners were limited to just one team - Hendrick Motorsports.  The Junior/Johnson Chevrolets finished 1-2 and Dale Junior thus grabbed his sixth Talladega win and first since 2004, this after Hendrick's cars led nearly 170 laps.    It was so one-sided that even excellent finishes by Paul Menard, Ryan Blaney and the Wood Brothers, Martin Truex, Sam Hornish Jr., and the completely unnoticed top-ten of Josh Wise and the Curb Motorsports team registered nothing.

The losers were aplenty, led by Ford.    While Sam Hornish finished good, his Richard Petty teammate Aric Almirola had to settle for fifteenth despite a good rally from the early Turn Two melee; it nonetheless was a huge improvement for the #43 after a totally forgettable Speedweeks.   That Petty, the Woods, and Curb all had respectable finishes made the dismal finishes of Penske Racing all the more surprising, and made the abysmal runs of the Roush bunch all the worse.

The Toyotas didn't acquit themselves much better.   Denny Hamlin led five laps and finished ninth, and his JGR teammates were almost in Witness Protection during the day other than a brief run to the top five by Matt Kenseth and a surprising effort by Carl Edwards that got thrown away at the finish and has produced just one top ten for the #19; one has to wonder again whether signing on Carl Edwards was a good idea to begin with.  

RCR, despite two cars in the top ten, didn't have much to write home about with several engine failures, with a pit fire for Ryan Newman tossed in for good measure. 


It all added up to the most disappointing weekend of the season so far, coming at the place that's supposed to be better than that.  

1994 Winston 500

We look back at the 1994 Winston 500 at Talladega.

Some Questions Post-Talladega and Pre-Kansas

With the Aarons 312 and 499 weekend at Talladega wrapped up NASCAR shuffles to Kansas for the Trucks and Cup cars.   In this interregnum between the Winston 500 and the Kansas 400, some questions worth asking -


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Is the season now seeing disincentive to win? - Dale Junior's acknowledgement after the Winston 500 that the reward of going for the win was not worth the risk has several angles - one of which was his 2012 crash where he suffered a concussion as well as "I've been in too many late-race wrecks"; he also noted "We already got a win." 

The striking number of winners so far this season may continue this weekend, but overlooked has been that we're starting to see the disincentive to win that Brian France's Chase-oriented points seeding was bound to produce.   The emphasis on winning has received the publicity, and overlooked has been that this emphasis is solely in the context of the Chase.  

It is impossible to see a scenario where in a non-Chase points format a greater emphasis on winning would not see Junior or anyone else race harder.   Incentive to win doesn't grow when the true emphasis remains on a notional playoff lock.



Will Ford and Toyota start surging to legitimately challenge Chevrolet? - We can legitimately claim yes here.   Before the Talladega race Ford had won four of the previous seven races and Joe Gibbs' Toyota won at Fontana before Hamlin's Talladega triumph.   The Chevy program has started to look overrated between Hendrick Motorsports struggles, decidely poor showings for RCR, and the up-and-down showings of Stewart-Haas Racing.  

It would appear Joey Logano and the JGR Toyotas are the ones to topple Chevrolet going forward - a Toyota darkhorse, though, may be the tandem of Brian Vickers and Clint Bowyer, who've quietly put up respectable runs, enough that Bowyer, crew chief Brian Pattie, and their sponsor re-upped with Michael Waltrip for three additional seasons past 2014.



Speaking of Logano, what's up with Brad Keselowski? - Joey Logano has clearly usurped Keselowski as Penske Racing's top dog and the way Keselowski raced everyone at Talladega - it was Ernie Irvan-esque - combined with the collapse of his season after winning Vegas (just one finish higher than 14th in the last seven races) one has to wonder if it is getting to him.   He's generally run well at Kansas, and if he can get back into contention for the season he needs to strike at Kansas.



Has the rookie race realistically been decided already? - Kyle Larson keeps making the case that it has.   It's obvious Austin Dillon is missing something as a racer and it's also obvious Larson is better than a lot of us thought he was.  



What drivers who went to different teams may be on the chopping block down the road? - The one that comes to mind for me is Ryan Newman at RCR.   He's managed four top tens so far but has shown little in the way of muscle doing so, and bailing out on the lead draft at Talladega and then crashing into Carl Edwards late in the race showed a cowardice in his racing that nobody should be happy with.



So it goes as the sport enters Kansas.

2014 Winston 500 Ten Takes

The 2014 Aarons Talladega weekend has come and gone and proven itself again a strong competitive endeavor.  The weekend sees ten takeaways to digest -


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1 - Restrictor plate racing is still the best racing - The FOX Sports website did a poll on what NASCAR should have more of - superspeedways or short tracks.   I can confidently say the popular view is short tracks even though the objective view is superspeedways, as demonstrated yet again here at Talladega.   No short track can produce so high a level of competition up front as the plate tracks have produced.  The irony is that this season so far has produced very good races at all three types of tracks - the two plate races were great, Fontana was very good, and Martinsville was eye-openingly competitive.


2 - A mediocre Talladega is still better than others, yet.... - The 2014 Winston 500 saw 48 lead changes, the most for this race since 2011, yet as terrific as the racing was, it can still be better.  "It's so hard to pass..." re-entered the postrace conversation and it makes further nonsense of NASCAR's recent rules to kill push-drafting.   It bears repeating how 2013's Talladega Truck 250 showed how tandem drafting has been evolving back toward conventional pack drafting but with that extra power to pass that will always be the strongest such ever seen in racing.  It would not have hurt anyone if the Busch and Winston Cup races were able to see cars push-draft all the way around and thus move the top line forward faster and stronger - it also, for Junior fans, have allowed him to make a run for the win at the end; we will discuss that below......


3 - Brad Keselowski's fall from grace - It's been said numerous times that Joey Logano has usurped Brad Keselowski as Penske Racing's top dog; one wonders about that watching Keselowski race like Ernie Irvan in this race; laps down after a tap from Little Miss Danica left him (and several others) with damage, he nonetheless raced like hell and crowded the top ten until he lost it and took others with him - ironically including Joey Logano.   Now Keselowski has been flashy but this strikes me as very odd. 


4 - Chevrolet gets a comeuppance - Normally Chevrolets dominate Talladega; not this time, as Fords and Toyotas were the strongest of the lot pretty much all day.  Denny Hamlin's win topped a top-four near-monopoly by Toyota and capped a weekend sweep by Joe Gibbs Racing after Elliott Sadler's Aarons 312 win Saturday.  


5 - The rookie race spreads out more - Austin Dillon's rookie run from the Daytona 500 pole has been pretty much downhill from there, as Kyle Larson outclassed him again. 


6 - There's been a Michael Waltrip sighting - MWR finished third and fourth and Brian Vickers had a legitimate shot at the win; it's the first time seemingly all season we've seen any muscle out of MWR, and even with a third place Clint Bowyer didn't look particularly impressive.


7 - Junior and Hendrick's curious fall - Kasey Kahne salvaged a top-ten for Hendrick Motorsports and that was pretty much all to have for that team, as Junior never looked up to challenging for anything - though he led 26 laps he lost the draft twice late in the race - and both Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon crashed out.   Though the Hendrick fleet has a combined twelve top-fives so far, the muscle of yore hasn't been there since Daytona.

And here, Junior's postrace comment to the effect that "the reward wasn't worth the risk" is flabbergasting. Trying to win is not worth it is an insult to competition in general and racing in particular, and signals there is something fundamentally wrong with Junior as a racer now.


8 - When Stewart-Haas's guys are good they run good - And when they're bad they don't.   Simplistic a summary perhaps, yet watching Danica Patrick lead six laps and then finish 22nd with pretty much a whimper one cannot help but think this way.   Kevin Harvick remains the organization's point car while the rest of the fleet limps in his wake - especially Smoke, who looked like he didn't even want to be there at Talladega.


9 - Break up the Underdogs! - Justin Allgaier finished 27th and his last-lap wreck ended the race under caution.   Yet for a strong moment it appeared Allgaier might top David Ragan's spectacular win from last year as he stormed up the extreme high side for the lead.   There was also a superb effort from AJ Allmendinger in Brad Daugherty's Chevrolet and a commendable if overlooked effort from Landon Cassill in Joe Falk's #40.   Richard Petty's #43 of Aric Almirola looked like junk for most of the race yet drafted into the top fifteen - commendable yet like the race itself a frustrating reminder that it should be a lot better than that. 


10 - It's time to get rid of Barney Hall - MRN, it's time to give up on Barney Hall.   Yes, he's been a NASCAR icon forever, but it gets more and more embarrassing listening as he tries to recover a fastball that disappeared from him long ago.



And so the first Talladega weekend has wrapped and Kansas awaits.   It's noteworthy that in 2013 Kansas saw racing strikingly similar to Talladega in the Trucks and Busch Series - one hopes they and the Cup cars get that kind of effect this time around.

From Stafford To Iowa To Talladega

The Winston 500 weekend is now approaching and as NASCAR marches toward Talladega it sees several issues jostling about the sport during this past Richmond 400 weekend.   The Richmond 400 as is common brought out some good racing and considerable ugliness, first between Matt Kenseth and Brad Keselowski after a late-race set-to amid Joey Logano's first career short track win, then between Marcos Ambrose and Casey Mears where they exchanged blows and Ambrose got cheap-shot in the garage area.
  
The Richmond 400 came following a story about possible scheduling gimmicks by NASCAR with Brad Keselowski still lobbying for a Winston Cup date at Iowa Speedway. NASCAR official Steve O'Donnell's comments have been interpreted in some circles as an endorsement of a Keselowski idea for a Winston Cup race at Iowa on a Wednesday night followed by the race at Kansas four days later.   O'Donnell also talked about possibly scheduling a Truck Series race at Knoxville Speedway to go with the race at Eldora and also of a Busch Series All-Star race, ostensibly at Iowa.

That such talk is going on illustrates a lot of people aren't getting it.  First, Iowa Speedway under no circumstances deserves a Winston Cup race.  It's not a bad racetrack like Darlington or the road courses, but it's not that good, either.  For all the hoopla about short track racing - and people will cite Richmond this past weekend as evidence - the Richmond 400 wasn't much until the late fireworks, and those fireworks were less about good racing than the serial stupidity of some drivers.   It is noteworthy that Richmond saw fewer lead changes (20) than Martinsville (33).

The blunt truth is Winston Cup is a superspeedway league and people need to accept it as such; stop trying to make it something inferior.

As for the Busch Series and Trucks, what those series need is not an All Star Race or scheduling gimmicks - though the Trucks do ought to have second dates at Daytona, Pocono, Talladega, and Kansas, tracks where the series has put on genuinely good races.   What those series need is for NASCAR to start using some of the multi-billion-dollar TV money and putting it into the purses.   The dirty little secret of the Busch Series is only about a third of the field contests the entire schedule, the result both of Winston Cup driver involvement - which has bled the series dry and thus needs to be ended - and NASCAR's refusal to use some of the TV money for better purses.    


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Also in need for NASCAR to start investing some real money is the Modified Tour, which showcased some genuinely good racing without the high-buck idiocy of Cup diva-dom via the 2014 Spring Sizzler at Stafford Spweedway, CT.   The physicality of the racing was somewhat unusual, and a plethora of yellows helped make the fight for the lead in the first 61 laps a real fight.   Bobby Santos won last year's Sizzler and this time clawed to the lead again, he held off Doug Coby's surge for the win.

What stood out for about 2/3rds of the race, especially with all the restarts, was that the bottom groove didn't work.  It finally got going in the final third of the race.   Between the SK Modified feature won by Ryan Preece - who never got going in the 200-lapper and fell out with a mysterious engine problem - the mini-stock feature, and the first 2/3rds of the Tour race, the high groove worked much better than the low, especially in Turn Two, and a lot of passing up front resulted.   Then the track changed and the high groove became less effective - in part because Santos became noticeably more aggressive on late restarts on the bottom. 

Once the terror of Northeast racing, Ted Christopher settled for sixth.   His decline as a racer once again made his finish surprising in his Stafford debut with Robert Katon, Jr's car, painted in the colors reminiscent of the old Rod Osterlund #2 Winston Cup car.  


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So with the dawning of May, the sport hits Talladega for the Aarons Dream Weekend - one that always leaves a lot of racers calling it the Aarons Creamed Weekend after their cars get creamed.   Some quick takes before the weekend -


Cup is becoming a two-team showdown - Penske Racing and Stewart-Haas Racing have won the last four races and six of the last eight.   Hendrick Motorsports as usual has been the other power contending with any consistency, but remains winless since Daytona, and their one winner has been spotty, though two top-seven finishes the last two weeks suggest Junior has a return of momentum going.  

While Junior has some momentum going, Stewart-Haas didn't have a memorable Richmond, and even with Martinsville and Darlington wins the outfit has just five cumulative top-tens among four cars in the last four races - and had a decidedly mediocre Daytona 500.   And while Tony Stewart himself has been largely MIA this year, the driver in clearest decline has been Danica Patrick, this after that puff piece earlier in the year claiming improvement in her performance.  

The guy showing real improvement in performance has been Joey Logano, entering new territory having won more than once in a season for the first time - yet to be expected given he's clearly usurped Keselowski as Penske Racing's top dog.  


Talladega may be a rare chance for someone else to steal a win - The track's history speaks for itself, so teams that haven't been able to keep up with Penske and Stewart-Haas had better jump out and steal this win given the rest of the year right now isn't offering much in the way of additional chances.   JGR has shown muscle this year but it hasn't been as powerful as one would expect - though given the chaos of Toyota's program it's not surprising.   Mismanagement by a manufacturer also leaves Ford pickings other than Penske slimmer and slimmer.

The wildcard as always is the draft, and unlike the exercise in frustration that was Daytona this time the Busch bash should be able to race for the lead with less encumbrance.  


So we await the first shot in the fight for Talladega.

Remembering the 1980 World 600

In its history the World 600 has been among racing's most competitive events. The 1980 600 was the sport's ultimate marathon.

The Upside Down Status Of NASCAR After Talladega

Suddenly the sport - for now - doesn't look the same.

 The Winston 500 was not the most competitive race (it had just 30 lead changes), yet it produced the most amazing finish racing has seen in years, this following an Alabama 500k that almost was the most competitive race in the history of NASCAR's second-tier stock car tour (47 lead changes, just short of the all-time record 56 set in 2011's 312-miler) and topped by a three-abreast finish almost more astonishing than in the 500.

Talladega's Aarons Upsets are just part of a striking change in the sport so far, seen in the varied winners and losers of the weekend.


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WINNERS -


Front Row Motorsports for the biggest upset and most amazing racing finish in years.  The team is a small outfit even though it is fielding three cars.   What kind of competitive boost comes from this win remains to be seen, but to have gotten this far this fast suggests they can build something going forward; indeed Ford should be working to shore up the depth of its fleet by helping Front Row be able to build its own engines.

David Ragan specifically is also the winner not only of the race, but also the winner in terms of erasing a negative view of his racing career, as he drove Roush Fenway Racing's #6 and managed just one win (the 2011 Firecracker 400); being axed from RFR carried the stigma of career failure, a stigma wiped out in the Talladega rain.

Regan Smith is another big winner, as he was in contention for the Winston 500 and nearly pulled off the Talladega sweep.   Suddenly upward mobility in modern NASCAR may not be extinct after all.

Historically one wouldn't consider Richard Petty's #43 any kind of darkhorse, but given where The King's car owning career has gone the last decade-plus the comeback of the #43 in 2013, notably Aric Almirola's victory bid at Talladega, this on top of Marcus Ambrose's two Watkins Glen wins, counts as the surge of a darkhorse; it also gives Petty ammo if/when Dodge comes back to the sport.

Roush Fenway Racing is also the winner, as it has taken the mantle of restrictor plate mastery from RCR and Hendrick as well as Joe Gibbs Racing.

The other winner is NASCAR the sanctioning body, this despite another example of a race marred because the officiating tower has too much control of the racing - the Alabama 500k was marred because NASCAR ruled Regan Smith the winner based on a scoring loop with the yellow flying instead of by the cars racing to the stripe.   Even with that and the disappointing level of competition for most of the Winston 500, the shocking finish on Sunday combined with the exhilarating level of competition Saturday more than made up for shortcomings.   Sunday also showed real competitive potential with the Generation Six - there was noticeable push-drafting on Sunday and it's no longer implausible to see the Firecracker 400 breaking 40 lead changes and October's Diehard 500 going for 60, and other darkhorses suddenly stealing thunder for the sport. 

NASCAR also deserves praise for finishing the two races despite the persistent rain, though the inevitable calls for lighting at Talladega should be ignored given night racing has not been the benefit to the sport often claimed.


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But with winners there are also losers.   Richard Childress, winner at Richmond and once the dominator of Talladega, had a very rough weekend and little to be happy with by the end of Sunday.   Joe Gibbs Racing was also a loser despite Matt Kenseth's 142 laps led - the most at Talladega since Jeff Gordon in 2005.    Earnhardt/Ganassi Racing isn't making anyone ignore the rumored sale of the outfit to John Menard.   Penske Racing had a disappointing weekend.    And Trevor Bayne - the comparisons with Tim Tebow work more than he'd like, because like Tebow Bayne has been MIA since 2011. 

But the biggest loser is Stewart-Haas Racing, in a race that illustrates that Danica Patrick is doing again what she did in Indycars - dragging down the organization for which she races.   SHR has struggled as an organization with Ryan Newman leading the way with four top ten finishes but a paltry 17th in points.   Little Miss Danica is 27th in points and the surge from Daytona Speedweeks has gone the way of expectations after the 2005 Indianapolis 500.   But the biggest surprise is Tony Stewart himself, with one top-ten finish.  

That Newman is right now SHR's top dog is surprising given how much he has slid competitively even with three wins 2010-12 and amid the rumor he is on the way out to be replaced by Kevin Harvick in 2014.   Newman's semi-petulant tantrum after the backstretch melee merely underscores that there is something wrong with how he races to be constantly involved in these crashes. 


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And so we approach Darlington, site of Regan Smith's first official Cup win.    In the upside down world of 2013 NASCAR, he may be the favorite.

Talladega Sees A Ragan Revolution

We've seen it all before.

Yet when it happens again, it feels like we'd never seen anything like it before.

This is what we get when racing produces a darkhorse winner even at a speedway whose history is filled with them. 

There were of course numerous candidates for darkhorse winner, even after one of them flipped over down the backstretch. Kurt Busch's tumble set up a green-white-checker finish and then saw what seemed impossible - the Saturday Alabama 500k produced a finish seemingly impossible to top - yet the Winston 500 actually topped Saturday's three-wide photo finish, and reintroduced the sport not only to David Ragan - the winner in the 2009 500k - but reintroduced the sport to the Talladega jinx.

Of all the tracks in racing, one cannot think of any other that has seen as many darkhorse winners as Talladega.   From the 1969 opening marred by a mass driver park-out over speeds too high for available tires to handle, Talladega has been the stage for the darkhorse.   Richard Brickhouse was the first.   James Hylton in 1972 after a new Goodyear compound literally blew up in Goodyear's face was the second, going with year-old tires and rocketing from 22nd to domination.   Dick Brooks 40 years ago this season was the next one, whipping a year-old Plymouth from 24th to a wild upset win.  

Dave Marcis outlasted another ferocious 500 in 1976 for his lone Talladega win.   Lennie Pond in 1978 then whipped to his only win.   The most famous upset of all remains Ron Bouchard in 1981 in a finish that always comes to mind when there is a three-wide photo finish, be it Regan Smith's win in Saturday's 312-miler or Tim Richmond's 1986 Pocono win or Sam Hornish's 2003 Chicago Indy 300 win.

After Bobby Hillin Jr., Davey Allison, and Ken Schrader in Richmond's #25 won Talladega, the darkhorse era at Talladega appeared to end in the 1990s as only Greg Sacks in the 1996 Alabama 500k pulled off an upset for the track in that decade.   The darkhorse era then started creeping back in 2006 with Brian Vickers; Regan Smith's stolen 2008 win pushed the darkhorse era closer to the fore, but it was 2009 that truly brought it back between Brad Keselowski's slugfest with Carl Edwards and then Jamie McMurray's surprise win that autumn.


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This spectacular win has also reintroduced the sport to new team owners getting the win.   Front Row Motorsports began with Jimmy Means and restaurant chain owner Bob Jenkins (not the Bob Jenkins of ESPN fame).   Being small has of course been a strike against them, and with the win, being small is also an illustration of how much opportunity Talladega Superspeedway opens up for racers.  

The Jenkins team was not the only darkhorse outfit strutting its stuff in this race, as James Finch's team with Regan Smith (who had a legitimate shot at the end for the Talladega sweep) as well as the Baldwin Racing #36 were also in contention with the #30 of David Stremme.   No one will ever confuse the #43 for a darkhorse but Richard Petty's mount damn near pulled off the win as well.     No one will ever confuse Jeff Gordon's #24 for a darkhorse either, yet after two wrecks Gordon finished 11th anyway.  


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Given how much positivity the 2013 Winston 500 produced, it seems inappropriate to pick nits, yet one should point out this race was not quite the ringing endorsement of the Generation Six racecar the spectacle of the final laps showcased.   The racing at the end was spectacular, and one wishes the combat up front had been at something close to that level for the event's duration as was the case in the 312-miler the day before - after seeing 47 lead changes on Saturday, the 30 produced Sunday ought to have been twice that number.  

The other nit to pick is Ryan Newman, who continues to be an insufferable baby; one should be concerned that Kurt Busch flipped onto his racecar, but to blame it on NASCAR is another case of Newman going too far. Newman is 100% wrong; restarting the race was the right call; he should be angry at whoever spun out whomever to detonate the crash; Newman should also reexamine his own racing competence given how far he's slid down the racing totem pole.

The upshot is that pointing out the nits to pick only illustrates that the Gen-6 actually is making progress toward living up to the hype.   There was some serious push-drafting at the end and that's a manifestly good sign for the sport, for that opens up passing - and the sport needs all the passing there is to have.

So the Aarons Talladega weekend after two drawn-out races can only be considered a smashing success, which produces yet one more illustration -  The Thrill Isn't Gone after all.

Pocono 400 Winners And Losers

Pocono's first race of 2012 and its winners and losers -


WINNERS:

JOEY LOGANO - winning the race in and of itself is a huge development for a driver who has run poorly throughout his Cup career.   The way he won, though, is also noteworthy, because he screwed up on the last restart where Mark Martin got the lead and appeared cemented to the win; Logano was able to run him down and take the lead late in the race.  

MARK MARTIN - Finishing second after contending for the win is nothing to be ashamed of.

TONY STEWART - A superb finish after a very spotty portion of the season.

PAUL MENARD - A driver who frankly doesn't belong gave a decent effort.

JAMIE MCMURRAY - Solid outing after a rough run the last year-plus.

POCONO RACEWAY'S PAVEMENT - there were concerns aplenty going in; the pavement proved not to be any kind of issue.   Though there were numerous yellows and several wrecks, the race if anything was noticeably less aggressive than some recent Pocono races (notably 2009 and 2010) had been.


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There were plenty of losers to sort through in this race.

LOSERS

DALE EARNHARDT JR. - His efforts have gotten gushing coverage, and he is solid in the points race.   At Pocono he led, but as the race went on he seemed to get somewhat weaker.   Finishing eighth is a solid effort but also a letdown given how he ran to the front, and it raises anew the question of why he's never able to go for a win even with consistent finishes.

NASCAR's PREPOSTEROUS CONTROL OVER PIT ROAD - NASCAR's rule closing pit road when the yellow comes out has always been a problem since debuting in late March 1989; it led to numerous pit crashes and eventually to the present system of pit speed limits.   Those rules haven't prevented pit crashes since they debuted in 1991, and the epidemic of pit penalties in this race was worse than usual.   Why NASCAR won't consider dropping the pit closure rule et al - basically going back to pit rules pre-1989, an era when pit road was safer than it's been since March 1989 - remains baffling and indefensible.

GREG BIFFLE AND KYLE BUSCH - both had engine issues.

PETTY MOTORSPORTS - Marcus Ambrose ran respectably but got a mediocre finish out of it.   Aric Almirola clawed into top-ten contention, then seemed to throw it away on a restart where he fell out of the top-20, then crashed out.   Richard Petty deserves much better than this.

SHORTENED DISTANCES - Mark Martin likely wanted another 50 to 100 miles for the race distance so he could get back at Logano.   This first 400 miler for Pocono added nothing competitively to the racing, just as 400-mile distances have never added anything that 500 miles ostensibly do not have.   400 wasn't enough; 500 remains the better race.



So Pocono is a wrap and Michigan awaits.

Aarons 499: Sack The Pack

Are drivers starting to turn against the rule changes to limit tandem drafting at Daytona and Talladega?

It's a question worth asking following another disappointing race where the NASCAR-approved catchphrase "The Pack Is Back" was brought out.   The 2012 Winston 500 saw some excellent racing, with several lengthy periods where the leaders raced nose to nose for multiple laps.   But it simply didn't live up to the tradition of Talladega - and didn't even live up to the Saturday Aarons 312; the 500 saw 34 lead changes, the 312 broke 37 - because NASCAR's changes to radiators and spoilers took away most of the passing and left the drivers having to breathe the cars instead of race.

It's worth noting Jeff Gordon's post-crash comments where he talked about liking to push people to pass and also said "we're borderline too conservative" in the racing.   With everyone having to run hot all day, it took away from passing - and in the end the tandem drafts began coming out more frequently as the race went on, with the final pass coming - you guessed it - because of tandem drafting.  

That the tandems are starting to get back to the front shouldn't surprise anyone because tandem drafting remains a power to pass too powerful to be defeated.   All NASCAR has done is gotten in the way of passing, and this is what fools do.   Racing is about passing and nothing is ever supposed to get in the way of passing.  

NASCAR needs to get the message - Sack The Pack.  Give us back the tandem drafts; give us back the lead changes the tandems produced.


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The "Pack Is Back" catchphrase has become an embarrassment, but a greater embarrassment is the hype before the race that Dale Earnhardt Jr. would break through to the win.   That Junior has posted enough top-tens to be third in points so far is surprising, but even in his runner-up finishes he showed he doesn't have the moxie to take the win.  

For that matter Hendrick Motorsports as an organization suddenly doesn't look like something that can take the win, stuck on 199 wins and frankly looking outmuscled by Roush and the Toyotas.   Jeff Gordon won the pole and looked mediocre once the race began.   Jimmie Johnson's five straight titles look like a distant memory.   Kasey Kahne looks horribly out of place with this organization.

Among the teams that got unexpected attention this weekend, the Richard Petty Motorsports group ran okay in the 500; Aric Almirola salvaged 12th but still looks lacking in the fight needed to seize the win; it's better than it was but going for the lead is a requirement before he can be taken seriously as a racer.  

There was also continuation of engine and fuel problems, with NASCAR's EFI experiment again seeming to get in the way with grossly untoward issues hitting more than enough teams to warrant continued concern.  


The bottom line was thus that Talladega produced some excellent racing but Brian France got in the way, and he needs to get out of the way.

Richmond rearview and Talladega preview

Mike Mulhern perviews Talladega and looks back again at a Richmond 400 that is becoming more and more controversial.

My take: Surprisingly, Mulhern doesn't particularly delve into the possibility that two-car superdrafts could become a force again at Talladega despite NASCAR's absurd changes to spoilers and radiators intended to break them up. Given that Talladega is more forgiving than Daytona - and given that tandem drafts decided all the Speedweeks races leading up to a 500 where the drivers seemed to quit on trying to win after waiting through two rain delays and then the bizarre Montoya crash with a jet dryer - one can be confident the tandems will make some sort of comeback; they're still a power to pass stronger than anything else. I expect the Winston 500 to be the same mixture of the pack and tandem drafts the Daytona Shootout was. The points racers will of course stroke it until the end like they usually do. I'm certainly hoping the tandems come back because the passing produced is awe-inspiring. 

Aric Almirola got to a strong start with a superb Friday practice - he needs to back it up on Sunday in the debut race of his new crew chief. 

The Richmond controversy just won't go away, as Mulhern notes spotters were told four different times Carl Edwards was the leader, this on top of every scoring angle showing Edwards as the leader. And there's the fact Tony Stewart utterly gagged the restart.

Talladega And The Continued Ineptitude of Brian France

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.

King Of The Superspeedways

In the sport's Dead Lane Era, it is the oasis. With almost no other racing anywhere worthy of the adulation the sport has earned over the decades, Talladega is almost the one track that rescues the sport from permanent decline in popularity. It is the biggest superspeedway in the US and the most competititve in the world.

Talladega has averaged over 40 official lead changes per race in this decade, and broke that barrier eight times in that span. Now it prepares for its fifteenth Winston Cup race and eighth Busch Grand National race of this decade, and should serve as most competitive racing venue for both classes this season.

Chevrolet has all but monopolized restrictor plate racing, so barring a huge upset a Chevy will win this Alabama 500. Hendrick Motorsports has dominated the season so far, but curiously they didn't look that good at Daytona. RCR, Joe Gibbs, and Robert Ginn were the strongest cars at Daytona, and Tony Stewart will likely be fighting harder than normal for the win, since he hasn't won this year and is clearly torked off by that fact.

Of course one shouldn't count out the Hendrick cars after they won three of four plate races in 2006 and have won five of this season's first eight races.

David Gilliland and Ricky Rudd have been MIA pretty much everywhere this year, but Robert Yates has dominated Talladega qualifying the last few years, so the pole is a good bet for the Yates Fords. That the pole is not relevent to anything of course shows in Gilliland's poles that have gone nowhere. The Roush Fords are basically the only Ford team and thus have by far the best shot at a Ford win.

Penske Racing was the only Dodge organization with any muscle at Daytona and have been the strongest Dodge effort at Talladega lately, but Kurt Busch has a teammate in Ryan Newman who can no longer be counted on to run strong but instead will find new and creative ways to blow good runs, such as at Phoenix last week.

Ray Evernham's Dodges have been awful almost everywhere but Daytona was a rare strong finish and one can expect Kasey Kahne and Elliott Sadler to do something here.

Given the nature of Talladega, one can write a scouting report on why any driver who makes the field can win the race. This is why Talladega makes the sport so much better.