Written by:
Jimmy Spencer
The Talladega race won’t be remembered for the fantastic racing we saw throughout the event, nor will it be remembered for Brad Keselowski winning his career-first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race and doing so with an independent car owner.
Talladega most certainly will be immortalized for its near brush with disaster on the final lap when Carl Edwards’ No. 99 Ford became airborne and crashed into the fence, hurling debris into the grandstands.
And we only have NASCAR’s yellow line rule to blame.
I am grateful no fatalities resulted and I wish those injured a very speedy recovery. However, had the yellow line rule not been in play, we wouldn’t be having this nationwide debate. The yellow line caused that wreck because Keselowski was forbidden to venture below it when Edwards put the block on him. Last year at Talladega, Regan Smith dove below the line to keep from crashing Tony Stewart and NASCAR gave Stewart the win as a result. None of these guys did anything wrong, Keselowski and Edwards included.
At fault here is the yellow line and the jumble of rules NASCAR has instituted. NASCAR has too many regulations in place and the first one they should trash is the yellow line. Let the sport police itself and allow these drivers to work things out on the track. Hell, let them race and make the last lap a free-for-all. The Edwards accident wouldn’t have occurred had the rule not been in effect and the finish would have been even more exciting, and less frightening, because guys would have passed high, low and in the middle as they came off turn four.
But NASCAR’s argument is that if cars race on or below the yellow line, they’ll wreck. Then let them wreck because they probably won’t repeatedly choose to do so. The rule certainly didn’t prevent a crash at Talladega, did it? The line has caused more wrecks than it has thwarted.
No driver is perfect and each will make a mistake sooner or later. It has happened since 1948 when Red Byron won the first ever NASCAR-sanctioned race in Daytona. Drivers make errors because they are so driven to win that they’re willing to take chances and be aggressive.
But we place those demands on them because we don’t want to see them ride in the back all day. We want them mixing it up and going for the win.
That’s what is so great about restrictor-plate racing. While drivers generally detest plate tracks because they feel caught in a hornet’s nest for 500 miles, the show is breathtakingly exciting from start to finish. Sunday’s race was evidence that the winner usually is not decided until the last turn of the last lap and we haven’t seen much of that this year in the Cup Series.
Just because I thought the race was thrilling doesn’t mean I want to see mangled sheet metal – that’s not good racing. A great show, though, is the two-car packs that hooked up and freight-trained the field, and three and four-wide racing and jockeying for position.
And it’s because the plate races are so exhilarating and such a part of NASCAR that I’d be devastated to see them significantly altered, or worse, eliminated. There is no reason to get all up-in-arms and demand they reconfigure the track, raise the walls or slow down the cars. Keep it simple and just do away with the yellow line rule.
NASCAR has learned from every safety breach or tragedy the sport has ever faced. Carl Edwards’ impromptu jog to cross the start/finish line on his way to the ambulance was a testament to NASCAR’s evolving safety. NASCAR will learn from this and be better as a result.
But a good start would be eliminating the yellow line rule.
The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or Speed Channel
Jimmy Spencer calls it like he sees it as an analyst on NASCAR RaceDay and NASCAR Victory Lane on SPEED. He retired from driving with two NASCAR Sprint Cup, 12 NASCAR Nationwide and one NASCAR Camping World Truck Series victory, putting him in an elite group of drivers who have logged wins in all three of NASCAR’s premier divisions. In 478 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series starts, Spencer amassed 28 top-five and 80 top-10 finishes. He won back-to-back NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour championships in 1986 and 1987 on the heels of 15 victories, becoming the first driver ever to earn consecutive titles in the series. He earned the nickname “Mr. Excitement” for his flamboyant and aggressive driving style early in his racing career.
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