CUP: Kenseth Wins Shocker At Talladega.

Sprint Cup

CUP: Kenseth Wins Shocker At Talladega.

Matt Kenseth won his second restrictor-plate race of the year…

Tom Jensen | Posted October 07, 2012 Talladega, AL

Matt Kenseth captured the Good Sam Roadside Assistance 500 at Talladega Superspeedway after 25 cars crashed on the final lap in a violent, brutal and costly end to what up until then had been a clean race.

After the white flag came out Michael Waltrip ran into leader Tony Stewart, who moved down in front of Waltrip into the bottom lane. The contact sent Stewart’s car back up into the track and then upside down.

Stewart’s car landed on the cars of Paul Menard and Clint Bowyer as chaos erupted on the track and the whole field seemed to wreck behind them.

NASCAR’s finishing order had Kenseth first in his Roush Fenway Racing Ford, followed by Jeff Gordon’s Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet and Kyle Busch’s Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. David Ragan and Regan Smith completed the top five.

The second five was Greg Biffle, Brad Keselowski, Travis Kvapil, Ryan Newman and Jeff Burton.

Until this year, Kenseth was never known as much of a restrictor-plate racer. But he won the season-opening Daytona 500 and today’s race and finished third in the other two plate races, a remarkable performance.

“The plate stuff has just been unbelievable this year,” said Kenseth, who next year will move to Joe Gibbs Racing. “All four plate races they put me in a position to win, and I felt like I let them down here last time on the move I made or didn't make. At Daytona, again, we had a shot to win that thing and messed it up at the end and got beat by Tony (Stewart).

“I'm really proud to be in Victory Lane with these guys. They worked on it hard today. We had an up and down day. We had a couple of near-misses on the track, and had to work our way back through the pack two or three times. We had the car pretty loose and pretty tough at times. But glad it all worked out for us in the end.”

Understandably, those who did not win were less sanguine about the Talladega experience, including several drivers who had good finishes.

"I remember when coming to Talladega was fun,” said Gordon, who finished second for the fourth time in six races. “And I haven't experienced that in a long, long time."

“Unbelievable,” said Biffle. “I was probably 20th and five-wide up against the wall and then cars started wrecking. A car flew over the top of my car as I turned to the bottom and missed guys by three inches. It was like ‘Days of Thunde’r coming through the smoke and the grass and just kept it going straight.

Keselowski was the big winner, as Jimmie Johnson finished 17th and Denny Hamlin 14th. With four of 10 races down in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, Keselowski unofficially leads the points standings by 14 over Johnson and 23 over Hamlin.

“That’s pretty big,” said Keselowski. “I just feel lucky to survive Talladega.”

Kasey Kahne started from the pole and led at the start, followed by Clint Bowyer, winner of the last two fall Talladega races.

On Lap 17, Casey Mears turned Cole Whitt into the wall, bringing out the day’s first caution and snaring Carl Edwards and Joey Logano as well.

That was the only yellow in the first half of the race, when the most significant incident occurred during green-flag pit stops that began around Lap 60. Dale Earnhardt Jr., who led early, went a lap down due to a pit-road speeding penalty on Lap 62. Also getting flagged early were Kyle Busch and Trevor Bayne.

On Lap 99 Kurt Busch was leading when he got turned around by Jamie McMurray, as the elder Busch brother ran out of gas. But when a safety crew approached Busch, he drove away without his helmet on and NASCAR parked him for the remainder of the race, an ugly end to his ugly tenure with Phoenix Racing.

Meanwhile, the track featured numerous lead changes, which is the norm at Talladega. McMurray showed speed throughout, as did the Roush Fenway Racing Fords of Greg Biffle and Matt Kenseth.

Earnhardt got back on the lead lap just before a caution came out on Lap 140, with Kyle Busch getting the Lucky Dog.

As the race went on, the competition became more and more intense, with the packs going three- and sometimes four-wide. There were numerous near wrecks during the race, with Kenseth and Biffle both getting turned sideways and driven down to the apron but making miraculous saves. Gordon got knocked out of shape by Earnhardt in the closing 15 laps, but Gordon saved it, too.

On Lap 184 of the scheduled 188 laps, McMurray got turned around in the tri-oval by Kevin Harvick, bringing out a caution flag.

Under caution, about half of the lead-lap cars came in for a splash of fuel. Mears and Biffle had contact on pit road, losing critical track position.

Kenseth broke into the lead on the restart, but Stewart passed him going into the last lap. But then all hell broke lose, the field piled up and Kenseth was declared the winner.

For his part, Stewart took the blame for the crash.

''I just screwed up,” Stewart said. “I turned down and cut across Michael and crashed the whole field. It was my fault, blocking and trying to stay where I was at.
''I was trying to win the race and I was trying to stay ahead of Matt there and Michael got a great run on the bottom and had a big head of steam, and when I turned down, I turned across the front of his car. Just a mistake on my part but cost a lot of people a bad day.''

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tom Jensen

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