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CUP: Sorry, Talladega Was A Hoot
Written by: Jonathan Ingram
RacinToday.com   http://www.RacinToday.com
11/05/2009
Charlotte, NC
 
Article Written by Jonathan Ingram , racintoday.com
David Ragan, Matt Kenseth, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Clint Bowyer go four wide in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Amp Energy 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. (Photo: LAT Photographic) ยป More Photos

According to legend, when the Native Americans cursed the land where the Talladega Superspeedway was built, they turned and walked away without ever Tweeting or looking back . Well, perhaps it’s part of the curse they left behind that now you can’t leave the place without looking back.

So here I am looking back on Sunday’s much-maligned race without much hope of many people agreeing with my point of view. NASCAR did the right thing by eliminating entire laps of bump-drafting. And it wasn’t a snoozer as a result.

Unless, of course, you look back to the previous races where bump-drafts had cars looking like they were shot out of a cannon in Turn 3.

The COT, also much maligned, had brought back the days of yore – here’s that looking back business again – due to its evenly matched bumpers and the ease of drafting on the big tracks at Daytona and Talladega. Cars had not overtaken like this at Talladega, it seems, since Bill Elliott ran down Cale Yarborough from two laps down with his unrestricted Coors Ford in 1985.

Or, since Dale Earnhardt Sr.’s last Sprint Cup victory in the GM Goodwrench Chevy in the fall of 2000 when he went from 21st to first at the finish by side-drafting through the middle lane.

This sort of “shot out of cannon” drama disappeared on Sunday, but only after Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski nearly bump-drafted into the grandstands on the last lap in April.

At this point, I have to ask, where is David Poole? I hope he’s looking back from above, because I could use a little support on this from a press box colleague who died of a heart attack shortly after that April race. If David was right
that no fan should ever be threatened with injury at a motor race, then NASCAR made the right decision by holding bump-drafting in check.

The back-over flip of Ryan Newman's Chevy confirmed that there’s something amiss with the aerodynamics of the COT when it gets turned around quickly and faces the oncoming air with its rear wing.

It wasn’t hard to find agreement on this subject in the garage after the race – unless you talked with NASCAR officials. But one suspects they are taking a very close look at the problem and are being rightfully cautious in the meantime with slower speeds and reduced bump-drafting.

You only have to attend and report on one race where fans are killed by flying debris in the grandstands to believe in keeping cars on the ground or at least slow enough to limit how high in the air they might go. The sport of motor racing’s entire future depends on it.

They talk about taking big swings in the pits. So I’m going to take two more big swings.



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