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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: The Beast Strikes Again
Talladega racing will always carry an element of danger...
Larry Woody  | http://www.RacinToday.com  |  Posted April 28, 2009   Charlotte, NC
Carl Edwards, driver of the #99 Claritin Ford, goes airborne at the conclusion of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Aaron's 499 at Talladega Superspeedway. (Photo: Jerry Markland/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Talladega Superspeedway, with its skyscraper banking, oxygen-sucking speeds and 200-mph traffic jams, has always been a beast of a different breed.

It’s the one track that keeps drivers awake the night before a race.

At 2.66 miles Talladega the biggest, baddest slab of asphalt in NASCAR. Predictably, after last Sunday’s wild crash-o-rama, some drivers complained that it’s too big and too bad.

Carl Edwards’ Ford went airborne after being bumped by Brad Keselowski in a wild last-lap sprint to the finish line His car went airborne and crashed into the retaining fence, spraying shrapnel into the grandstands that injured at least eight fans.

“I guess we’ll do this until someone gets killed,” said Edwards after the dust and debris settled.

I’m not sure what the critics expect NASCAR to do about Talladega. After Bobby Allison flew his Buck through the air and almost into the grandstands in a similar incident in 1987, NASCAR required restrictor plates to be placed on the cars at Talladega and Daytona.

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The plates sapped horsepower and lowered the speeds. (The summer before Allison went airborne Bill Elliott logged a 212-mph lap around the track.)

But no sooner were the cars slowed down than drivers began to complain that the restrictor plates prevented faster cars (i.e. their’s) from breaking away from the pack. They said the resulting clog of cars made racing too hairy.

After last Sunday’s melee, Dale Earnhardt Jr. said NASCAR’s Car of Tomorrow (which was introduced last year) causes the field to “bunch up.” Junior knows better than that. They were running “bunched up” at Talladega back when he was in diapers and his dad could reportedly “see the air” on the giant superspeedway. I covered my first Talladega race over 30 years ago and they were running “bunched up” back then.

Talladega has always had a cantankerous history, starting with its first race in 1969. Many of the drivers thought the sizzling speeds on the behemoth track would eat their tires. They said the place was too dangerous, and staged a boycott.

Big Bill France filled the field with ringers and backups – the desperate, the destitute and the daring – and race was run. The challenge to France’s authority, and to Talladega, ended that day.

Frankly I think NASCAR should be commended for being able to build race cars and retaining walls that allow drivers to walk away from crashes like the ones we witnessed last weekend. In Saturday’s Nationwide race Matt Kenseth took one of the most terrifying tumbles in the history of a track notorious for terrifying tumbles. He wriggled out of his crushed-tuna-can-of-a-car without a scratch.

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Larry Woody

RacinToday.com

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