Happy Monday. 

Today In Nascar History

Nov. 2, 1975: Richard Petty wins the only Cup race run in November at Bristol, beating Lennie Pond by more than a lap in the Volunteer 500. It also is the last of Petty's eight victories in the month of November. 

Quote of the Year

There's an unwritten rule in NASCAR: Thou shalt not take on Dale Earnhardt Jr.

--Terry Blount/espn

Vote for your driver!

www.chexmostpopulardriver.com/

Bits and Pieces

Tryson could leave Penske early...if UPDATE: If #2-Kurt Busch isn't a factor in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship entering the season finale in Homestead next month, don't be surprised to see crew chief Pat Tryson make an early exit from the #2 Dodge team. "If we find ourselves out of championship contention, that's when we'll make a big change and maybe get the new (crew chief) in there and get a couple races under our belt before we show up back in Daytona," said Busch, who is currently sixth and 121 points behind Johnson in the Chase standings. Tryson announced last month that he'll leave the Penske organization at season's end and become Martin Truex Jr.'s crew chief at Michael Waltrip Racing in 2010.(Racin' Today) UPDATE: Tryson said there are no plans for him to step aside and begin his new job now that Busch is 312 points behind Johnson.(ESPN.com)

Mayfield attorney says he's owed money: Charlotte-based attorney Bill Diehl says suspended Sprint Cup driver Jeremy Mayfield hasn't paid him for services. Mayfield recently replaced Diehl and his firm with celebrity lawyer Mark Geragos. Diehl said the driver owes him "a lot" for defending him in his lawsuit against NASCAR. Mayfield brought suit against the governing body after being suspended indefinitely for violating NASCAR's substance abuse policy. Court documents have since revealed he tested positive for methamphetamines. Diehl wished Mayfield luck with his case, but said, "I'm going to get paid." Diehl, whose fee is $1,000 per hour, said he doesn't believe Mayfield is as financially strapped as has been reported. He said his firm has asked to be paid and will seek legal action if this doesn't happen. Diehl would not say how much Mayfield owes him, but said, "We worked very hard."(ESPN.com)

Chevy dropping SS version of Impala: Chevy is transitioning to Impala in both NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and Nationwide Series beginning in 2010 as a result of the SS version being phased out of production in mid-2009.(Chevy PR)

NASCAR holds "town hall"; plans changes to car in 2011: NASCAR held invitation-only meetings at their Research and Development Center in Concord, N.C. this week to discuss the future of the sport. On Tuesday, the meeting focused primarily on competition with drivers Jeff Burton and Greg Biffle joining crew chiefs, engineers and technical directors. A second meeting was held on Wednesday with team owners and principals as a follow-up to the discussions held in May. The primary focus of the meetings: How can NASCAR help the competitors to make the sport stronger? Participation was encouraged according to three principals that spoke on the grounds of anonymity. Some of the high points included:
# How can we make the overall product better?
# While there won't be any sizeable changes in the rules package for 2010, NASCAR wanted to make sure that competitors understood that an open door policy exists.
# What can the sport do to make participation more cost effective for the competitors?
# How do the cars maintain product identification for the manufacturers and remain racy. And once the new Nationwide Series cars come to fruition, how does the sport keep the sportier model from overshadowing the less sexy Cup car. (FoxSports) AND NASCAR will make modifications to the Sprint Cup Series car for the 2011 season. At a meeting on Oct. 19, following the races at Lowe's Motor Speedway, manufacturers were told changes would be made "from the centerline to the bumper on down," a source familiar with the situation told FOXSports.com. The alterations will be made to the front fascia - the upper and lower nose of the car. Vice President of Competition Robin Pemberton said "there was a good open dialog" with manufacturer representatives to discuss what aesthetic changes could be made to the car to improve brand identity. The current car has come under scrutiny from competitors and fans alike for having less resemblance to a showroom model than previous editions. Pemberton said styling changes are almost anticipated given that the car will soon meet the four-year mark. NASCAR is also concerned the sportiness of the new Nationwide Series Car of Tomorrow will have a tendency to overshadow the current Cup car. The new Nationwide Series car will be run in four races starting next season. Certainly, the Nationwide COT will provide ideas for future generations of the Cup car. (FoxSports)

Testing ban has Martin still racing: Now we know why Mark Martin agreed to return to Hendrick Motorsports full time for two years after this season. Testing. Or the lack of it. Martin said on Friday at Talladega Superspeedway he would not have re-upped had testing returned to what it was before being banned at NASCAR-sanctioned tracks at the start of this season.(read more at ESPN Insider) 

Matt McLaughlin's Thinkin' Out Loud

Matt McLaughlin · Frontstretch.com

Talladega

The Key Moment: When the stuff hit the fan Jamie McMurray was at the front of the pack, seemingly as surprised to be there as anyone was to see him take the checkers.

In a Nutshell: 183 laps of tedium followed by five laps of incomprehensible, stomach churning insanity posing as some facsimile of a race. Terrible, simply terrible. Utterly so, without any redeeming social value.

Dramatic Moment: A long, long pause waiting to get word on Ryan Newman’s condition after his terrible tumble. At the plate tracks I usually sit and wait to watch to see if the rotors start turning on the Med-evac helicopter after an incident. If they don’t, everyone is OK. If they do, someone is not. If they start turning then stop, the worst possible outcome has occurred. Welcome to Talladega, future home of the “Worst Possible Outcome 500.” Your ticket to the race comes with a complimentary toe-tag.

What They’ll Be Talking About Around the Water Cooler This Week

Kudos to Ryan Newman for his comment on those rare ghoulish fans who enjoy seeing big wrecks. “If this is what you’re here to see, go home. You don’t belong here.”

Style points to Jeff Gordon as well for his abnormally dry and ironic comments, “At least we were able to run out of gas on time [so] we could get to the pits, get back out on the track and destroy our car.”

OK, let’s man up and look at this mess. There have been race formats at the plate tracks that have bored the fans to tears before. But best as I can recall, this is the first time I’ve ever heard drivers out there running in a huge single file procession admitting they were bored. If nothing else, Sunday’s race affirmed something for me: Anytime you think NASCAR officials have screwed (and that’s not my first choice of verbs) up so badly they couldn’t get worse, they once again manage to prove me wrong. What a frickin’ (also not my first choice in modifiers) disaster.

It surely did seem like most of the drivers didn’t think much of Sunday’s race or the rules change announced late Sunday morning. As I see it, two hours after a race when they still can’t decide who the top 10 finishers were, it wasn’t a race, it was a travesty.

Given the number of empty “premium” seats in the upper grandstands, why not move all the fans up top and let them see the race in first class rather than down in coach where the Cup cars could land after wrecks?

It’s almost as if they just want to become a parody of their own bloated selves. How can NASCAR institute a major rules change (regarding bump drafting) less than two hours before the race? Did they forget that they’d be running the plates at Talladega until Sunday morning?

Someone was mentioning to me that tickets to Major League Ball games were way down this year, way down as in almost in NASCAR territory for 2009. Interestingly enough, game two of the World Series drew 19 million viewers as opposed to about a quarter that many who tuned into Chase race number six last week at Martinsville. This is a World Series that passionately interests mostly fans who live within a 50 mile radius of exit 7S of the Jersey Turnpike (the mark of delineation between Yankee and Phillies fans). Pass me a cigarette, I think there’s another one in the suitcase…counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike…. You know, if the Chase was supposed to increase interest in casual fans once the NFL season began and the Boys of Summer began their annual October drive to the Series, it may be the biggest single marketing disaster since New Coke.

Apparently they held another closed door town meeting (how’s that for an oxymoron?) for the sport’s participants this week and announced that come 2011, they’ll tweak the lower half of the Car of Tomorrow to try to improve racing. Yawn. And they blew up the Chicken Man in Philly last night, and they blew up his house too…. I guess we’re just going to write off the 2010 Cup season too rather than make the necessary changes next year? Well everything dies, Baby, that’s a fact, but maybe everything that dies, someday comes back? Maybe someday?

Well Boy Howdy, that’s going to leave a bruise! Dover Downs Entertainment announced this week that they’re shuttering the Memphis Motorsports Park, which has been hosting Busch/Nationwide and Truck series races since 1998 and has in fact hosted some pretty good racing in the intervening years. Apparently in this economy, given the diminished level of interest in NASCAR racing, the business model where a small track can survive with a single Nationwide and Truck race a season is no longer operable, which means a lot of other tracks are also hanging on by the skin of their teeth. MMP was constructed in the era where building a race track seemed a license to steal money and unwary investors could be drawn in with a nod, a whisper and wink that someday the facility would host a Cup event and then the real money would be trucked in on tri-axles. Only getting a Cup date added to a track has proven to be a real tough job for any organization other than the ISC, the International Speedway Corporation, the same fine folks who once fired my ass. Homestead-Miami was having no luck getting a Cup date until the ISC bought the joint at fire sale prices and all of a sudden the track got the season finale Cup date. California and Phoenix were struggling to get by with their one Cup date a season until the ISC bought both tracks and, what are the odds? NASCAR decided to award both tracks a second date. The ISC, which of course has no relation to NASCAR which awards race dates other than the fact they are headquartered in the same building, have the same folks answering the phones and are run (ineptly) by the same family, just seems to be real lucky when it comes to buying race tracks that are about to be awarded Cup dates.

That leaves me scratching my head wondering who the heck is going to buy a race track facility that has no major league sanctioned race dates attached to it? Apparently Memphis is available at fire sale prices below ten million bucks, certainly a fraction of what was spent to build it. I doubt a driving school could carry the note. It might be a nice place to host a classic car flea market like Carlisle with all that parking down there, but that only consumes a few weekends a year. If a true car guy were to hit the Powerball lottery for $200 million he might enclose the garage stalls to house his collection of muscle and exotic car and run them around the oval and up and down the drag strip, but I don’t know of any car guys who have won the Powerball lately. Short of Elvis returning from the dead and booking a month long series of concerts at MMP I have no idea how the place can be saved.

OK, so Steve Addington has taken Kyle Busch from a rough around the edges occasional contender to a threat to win any week his mercurial driver doesn’t meltdown and as his reward he’s given a pink slip? I guess among crew chiefs they all vie to sit atop the box of one of the sport’s big names. That earns you the big bucks, gets your mug on TV and earns you rock star treatment. But on the other hand, you have to know if things stop working out it’s not going to be the driver that gets the ax. Good luck to this Dave Rogers fellow, Kyle Busch’s new crew chief. He’ll know he’s doing his job well when the majority of fans are booing and tossing stuff onto the track after a race. He’ll know he’s not doing such a great job when he gets fired. Yeah, I’m sort of glad I do what I do. At least the people who hate it do so quietly in the comments section. If you’re going to toss a beer can at me, make sure it’s full and cold and in the strike zone.

Is Talladega the last track still to have the pre-race flyover in the “missing man” formation in honor of Dale Earnhardt, or did a F-15 pilot just get lost on the way to the track?

Is this supposed to be automobile racing or a real noisy game of Simon Says? When the caution flag flies and four cars are right at the “green light/red light” device at the entrance to pit road still carrying a legal 55 MPH, how are they all supposed to swerve back on to the track in an instant? At very least let them continue down pit road without stopping without drawing a penalty.

Why was A.J. Allmendinger given a breathalyzer test prior to practice at Talladega on Friday? It would seem being willing to race at Talladega is presumptive proof that a driver is under the influence of something clouding his judgment.

“Miccosukee.” There, I did it without cheating. One less mountain left to climb.

There have been some badly ill-considered moments in NASCAR broadcasting history. Few of them were as badly conceived, darkly disturbing, or clearly hallucinogenic-ally inspired as the Batman themed pre-race show prior to Saturday’s truck series race. If only that sort of effort, talent and pre-production had been devoted to something useful, SPEED might really have been onto something other than ensuring Krista Voda can never show her face in public without shame again. Two words Ms. Voda, “Thigh-master.”

The Hindenburg Award For Foul Fortune

Mark Martin said he was going to run Talladega this weekend like there was no possible way he could be in a wreck. He ran like that too for 187 laps, but unfortunately the race was 188 laps long. Once again Martin watches his dreams of a Cup title go up in smoke, this time from the unique angle of an upside down race car. I think maybe Martin needed a little more thorough examination in the infield care center. He surely did sound like he had a bad concussion in his post-race comments.

Jeff Gordon ran out of gas and returned to the track just in time to find himself in the big wreck. He also watched his last gasps at a title this season riding off into the sunset.

Joe Nemechek wasn’t even able to park his car fast enough to avoid the first wreck.

At least Denny Hamlin blew (another) engine and he was able to hit the exits early in the Great Alabama Getaway.

Ryan Newman seemed to be saving his stuff for the end of the race when he suddenly found his stuff scattered the length of the straightaway and upside down at that.

The “Seven Come Fore Eleven” Award For Fine Fortune

Apparently Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus really have this Talladega mess figured out at last. They cruised around at the rear of the field most of the afternoon, charged up front just slowly enough to avoid the “Big One” and then were ahead of the “Even Bigger One” there at the end. And they didn’t run out of gas.

Jamie McMurray? No, seriously, how many of you even realized Jamie McMurray was still in a Cup car?

A penalty for a tire violation in the pits seemed to doom Greg Biffle’s chances at a solid finish but a late race rally saw the No. 16 car drive to a fourth place finish.

Worth Noting

·         OK, let’s get it out there in the open. I have a deadline to meet. Because of the last lap carnage there’s no certain way to say who finished where yet. The finishing order seems to be changing each time I refresh my computer because of the last lap chaos. Let’s put it this way: NASCAR is so unsure who finished where that they ain’t even writing the finishing order in pencil, they’re using an Etch-a-Sketch. But eventually I just have to walk out there on the high wire and do what I do, cause if I get home before daylight, I just might get some sleep tonight.

·         Jamie McMurray won a Cup race for the first time since 7-7-07. A Ford won a Cup race for the first time since Fontana, the second event of the 2009 Cup season.

·         Joey Logano’s third place finish was the second best of his Cup career.

·         Kasey Kahne’s second place finish was his best since he won at Atlanta.

·         Greg Biffle’s fourth place finish returned him to the top 10 for the first time in four races.

·         Jeff Burton (fifth) enjoyed his first top 10 result since the first Pocono race and his first top 5 since Las Vegas.

·         Michael Waltrip’s sixth place finish was the best of his 2009 Cup campaign. And he managed to do so without running over any motorcyclists this week!

·         Elliott Sadler’s seventh place finish was his best since the Daytona 500. Have you driven a Ford, lately?

·         Jimmie Johnson (eighth) missed the top 5 in a Chase race for just the second time this season. Boom-boom-boom-boom…..out go the lights.

·         Brad Kesolowski (ninth) scored his fourth top 10 finish in twelve Cup starts this season. And nobody had to be hospitalized as a result this weekend. Is this a great country or what?

·         Dale Earnhardt Jr. (tenth) scored his best result since Bristol.

·         Robert Richardson Jr. finished 18th. Wait a second, who?

·         Jeff Gordon’s 22nd place finish was his worst since Bristol.

·         The top 10 finishers at Talladega drove four Chevys, three Fords, two Toyotas and a Dodge. The narrator of “American Pie” drove a Chevy to the levy, but the levy was dry. Also this week Chevy announced they are dumping the Impala SS model. Draw your own conclusions.

What’s the Points?

Ut-oh. Under the old points system, given the current results of the race (Johnson eighth and Stewart 35th), Johnson would have taken over the points lead from Tony and would now be leading the standings by four points with three races left to go. That would have created the sort of excitement the artificially contrived Chase points system was supposed to provide but without the smoke (no pun intended) and mirrors.

As it is, put out the fires, call in the dogs, and finish up those roadies while they’re cold. It’s over. Jimmie Johnson is the 2009 Cup champion. For the record Johnson is now over 180 points ahead of second place Mark Martin. Jeff Gordon remains third in the standings a further 14 points behind Martin.

Juan Pablo Monotoya wrested the fourth points position from Tony Stewart.

Greg Biffle took over the seventh points position relegating Ryan Newman back to eighth. Fortunately the number eight looks the same whether you’re on your feet or on your head.

Kasey Kahne was Sunday’s big points winner advancing two spots to ninth in the standings. Denny Hamlin fell two spots to 11th.

Overall Rating (On a scale of one to six beer cans with one being a stinker and a six pack an instant classic) Imagine you order a cold three buck draft beer. But the bartender returns with twelve ounces of warm pus, mule piss, and the cancerous drippings from some sort of testicular tumor then announces the price is actually six bucks, your car is on fire in the parking lot and your girlfriend has left you for Michael Bolton. That’s Talladega.

Next Up: The Cup series, eyes blackened, lips bleeding, knuckles dragging the ground in sheer exhaustion, horror and shame, heads off to the antepenultimate race at Texas next weekend. If you give a crap please post a message below why so we can get the doctors to up your dosage.

UNOFFICIAL Sprint Cup CHASE Standings
1) #48-Jimmie Johnson [6 wins], 6248, finished 8th
2) #5-Mark Martin [5 wins], 6064, -184
3) #24-Jeff Gordon [1 win], 6056, -192
4) #42-Juan Montoya, 6009, -239
5) #14-Tony Stewart [4 wins], 5969, -279
6) #2-Kurt Busch [1 win], 5936, -312
7) #16-Greg Biffle, 5908, -340
8) #39-Ryan Newman, 5846, -402
9) #9-Kasey Kahne [2 wins], 5834, -414
10) #99-Carl Edwards, 5811, -437
11) #11-Denny Hamlin [3 wins], 5800, -448
12) #83-Brian Vickers [1 win], 5692, -556

UNOFFICIAL Sprint Cup CLASSIC - the OLD way - Driver Points Standings
1) #48-Jimmie Johnson, 4752
2) #14-Tony Stewart, 4745, -7
3) #24-Jeff Gordon, 4673, -72
4) #5-Mark Martin, 4315, -430
5) #11-Denny Hamlin, 4271, -474
6) #42-Juan Montoya, 4260, -485
7) #2-Kurt Busch, 4248, -497
8) #16-Greg Biffle, 4157, -588
9) #39-Ryan Newman, 4118, -627
10) #9-Kasey Kahne, 4094, 651
11) #99-Carl Edwards, 4091 -654
12) #18-Kyle Busch, 4043, -702
13) #17-Matt Kenseth, 3986, -759
14) #33-Clint Bowyer, 3932, -813
15) #83-Brian Vickers, 3890, -855
16) #00-David Reutimann, 3854, -891

Race and Commercial Breakdown of the 2009 AMP Energy 500:

Total number of commercials: 113
Total number of companies or entities advertised: 54
Total number of brief promos of products/services during the race broadcast: 26
Start time to record race/commercial periods: 1:01 pm
End time to record race/commercial periods: 4:48 pm
Total minutes: 227
Minutes of race broadcast: 175
Minutes of commercials: 52
Number of missed restarts: 0 one time the restart was occurring right as the broadcast came back from commercial too close to call
Number of 'mystery cautions' (debris not shown): 1
Number of debris cautions (debris shown): 1
Number of times No-Doz was suggested for the fans in an overheard radio conversation: 1 Tony Stewart
Total race brdcst time 175 Total comm. brdcst time 52

Richard Petty Motorsports' Kasey Kahne uses patience to finish second at Talladega Sunday

By SceneDaily Staff

TALLADEGA, Ala. - While Sunday's race showed there are obvious disadvantages to having cars race in tight packs at Talladega Superspeedway, Richard Petty Motorsports' Kasey Kahne tried to use that to his advantage.

Kahne finished second in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Amp Energy 500 at the 2.66-mile restrictor-plate track, his best finish since winning at Atlanta Sept. 6. Kahne said he did so by keeping in the pack to keep the draft in an effort to help his racing effort.

"At the end if we got back in the pack, we'd lose the draft," he said. "So to have cars around us - we tried to keep cars around, behind me mainly. If we were able to do that, we could race pretty decent.

"The car handled good, which I think everybody's cars handle good here, and we just kind of shot up through there and had great track position on that restart and ran second. So it was good for our team."

Kahne said that everyone knows that racing at Talladega offers the chance for wrecks - such as the two major incidents in the final 10 laps of Sunday's race. One saw Ryan Newman flip, slide on his roof, flip some more and have to be cut from his car. Newman said he was sore after the crash, but was not injured. Later, Mark Martin flipped as part of another major crash.

Kahne spent most of the day riding along in line, waiting for the chance to make his move.

He didn't want that move to come at the wrong time, knowing that could be disastrous for his effort. So Kahne waited, lucked into avoiding the crashes and netted a top finish.

He did so by showing patience in picking the moment to make his move. And he gained two spots, to ninth, in the Chase For The Sprint Cup with three races remaining this season.

"Nobody really wants to pull out," he said. "Because if you pull out, you're going to go to the back unless you get three, four, five guys together that want to push and try to come back up on the inside.

"So it makes it kind of difficult for the guy that decides, 'I want to do it,' because if nobody goes with you, then you go to the back. It's happened at Daytona. It's happened here before."

Rookie Joey Logano seems to have mastered Talladega, finishes third Sunday

By SceneDaily Staff

TALLADEGA, Ala. – Many NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers dread coming to Talladega Superspeedway, but that likely doesn’t include Joe Gibbs Racing’s Joey Logano, who scored his second top-10 finish in two races at the 2.66-mile track with a third-place in Sunday’s Amp Energy 500.
Logano finished ninth at Talladega in April, and then dodged the late-race crashes Sunday for a top-five.
“I didn't see any of them,” Logano said of Sunday’s wrecks. “I had my big one at Dover, so I know you can survive them and be OK. So I wasn't really worried about it. The race seemed to be pretty calm until the end. As far as having a strategy at the end of the race or anything, whoever was in front of me I was going to push like heck and hope for the best. You almost can't even have a plan.”

Logano was referencing an accident at Dover in which he rolled down the track. Sunday at Talladega, he led once for a lap and ran among the leaders at different times of the race. After a red-flag period for Ryan Newman’s grinding crash, Logano was in the top 10 and then dodged another multicar crash with one lap to go.
“You know, sitting there on the red flag you're thinking, ‘What can I do to get myself the best finish I can?’” Logano said. “And you sit there and think. The only thing you can do is have a good restart, and it all kind of depends on what the guy's doing in front of you. I was able to get the good restart and the caution came out anyway, so …”
The finish was his third top-five and seventh top-10 of the season and moved him to 19th in the Cup standings. The rookie said he spent a lot of the race learning what to do and what not to do.
“Throughout the whole race I was just putting my car in different positions,” Logano said. “Trying to learn as much as I can about being around other cars and what helps and what doesn't. I try to make as many friends out there as I can for the end of the race and be positioned there at the end.
“So a lot of it is being in the right place at the right time, and missing the wrecks and being ahead of it all. So overall it's good. As soon as I got the last restart behind Kasey [Kahne], and I was shoving him, and he was just pushing the 26 [of winner Jamie McMurray] ahead, and got our whole lane going, so it was a good run for us today.”

Jimmie Johnson escapes final-lap chaos at Talladega; takes commanding points lead

By SceneDaily Staff

TALLADEGA, Ala. – Hendrick Motorsports driver Jimmie Johnson seems to do no wrong in NASCAR's Chase For The Sprint Cup.

Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Amp Energy 500 at Talladega Superspeedway was just another example of that.

Johnson decided to run at the back of the lead draft for most of the race to try to avoid the big crashes that generally plague restrictor-plate races. With a handful of laps remaining, Johnson decided to try to move forward, but couldn’t make much headway.

Then, with five laps remaining, Stewart-Haas Racing's Ryan Newman flipped down the backstretch in a horrific crash that forced NASCAR to display the red flag. Johnson crew chief Chad Knaus decided to bring the No. 48 Chevrolet to pit road to top off the fuel tank, and Johnson restarted far away from the top 10.

But while that strategy wasn’t a winning one, it was the right one for Johnson. As other cars ran out of fuel as the race went to a green-white-checkered finish, Johnson moved up.

Another multicar wreck brought on another caution period and ended the race with Johnson in sixth place.

“To be honest with you, the strategies completely backfired,” Johnson said. “The only thing that saved our butts was Chad's decision [to pit] for fuel. We were in big trouble, 25th or something on that red flag. So all the credit goes to Chad and making us come down pit road and put some fuel in that thing. That was really the strategy that did it.

“So we could have been running up front, and he could have had that ‑ I don't think he would have because a lot of guys stayed out. But his whole decision to pit put us in a position to finish well.”

With Johnson’s teammates and closest pursuers in the Chase crashing with a lap to go, Johnson extended his series lead to a commanding 184 points over teammate Mark Martin and 192 over teammate Jeff Gordon.

Johnson could clinch his fourth consecutive Cup title by leaving the Nov. 15 race at Phoenix leading by more than 195 points. He also can wrap up the championship by finishing 10th or better in the final three races.

“I'm not going to let up and lose focus to the job I need to do and allow the championship to be in the forefront of my mind until it's mathematically locked out,” Johnson said. “I can lose [161] points next week if I miss a shift and blow the engine at the start of the Texas race and Mark has a perfect day.

“So with all that in mind, yes, I am feeling much better about things. I was so concerned about this race. I thought I was going to lose points with about three or four to go. So to have it turn around and lead with points over the guys, I didn't expect it. Very, very good situation we're in.”

Still, nothing changes for his team, Johnson said.

“But I just can't stop doing what I do, how the team does their thing, how we prepare, and let that in until there is no chance because racing doesn't have any feelings,” Johnson said. “Racing will reach up and bite you at any point and anything can happen. So we're in a better position, for sure. Our strategy might change some moving forward until … we can get to Homestead. But we've just got to keep doing what we've been doing and try to close this thing out as soon as possible."

Final crash wipes out Mark Martin, Jeff Gordon – and championship race?

By SceneDaily Staff

TALLADEGA, Ala. - Hendrick Motorsports teammates Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon entered Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup Amp Energy 500 at Talladega Superspeedway hoping to gain some ground on series-leading teammate Jimmie Johnson.

Instead, they both became victims of the race's final crash and watched what had looked to be a solid points day turn into a disaster.

The two were racing in the pack as the green-white-checkered finish began when Phoenix Racing's Brad Keselowski made contact with Penske Racing's Kurt Busch, causing Busch's Dodge to shoot across the track. Cars began to slide and spin and Earnhardt Ganassi Racing's Martin Truex Jr. shot into the side of Martin, causing his car to flip. Gordon was also caught up in the carnage of the 13-car crash.

It was the race's second large incident in the closing laps - but this one dramatically impacted the points standings. Hendrick's Jimmie Johnson was just one car in front of the melee and escaped unscathed, finishing sixth on a day when he'd run at the back of the pack. Gordon, who had just run out of gas and pitted for fuel, sustained damage and finished 20th. Martin, who tried to get his car righted and over the line, finished 28th.

And that could have sealed this season's Chase For The Sprint Cup - and Johnson's hold on his fourth consecutive Cup title. The driver entered the race with a 118-point lead over Martin; he left with a 184-point edge over his teammate. Gordon is even deeper in the standings in third, 192 points back. They are the only two drivers within 200 points of their teammate.

Martin had little to say about the incident as he stood in the garage after the race.

"It was just a wreck," he said. "I hope everybody enjoyed the show there. I don't know what it looked like. It felt pretty exciting from my viewpoint there. I have no idea. I don't have a clue. Don't know what happened out there. I don't know."

He didn't blame the rules or the cars for the incident, though, pointing out that under green-white-checkered conditions the sense of urgency is heightened and that it was people, not cars, that wrecked.

"People were trying to make it to the end," Martin said. "[I] got pretty close."

Gordon took a more sardonic look at his final laps of the event and the crash that many view as inevitable at this restrictor-plate track.

"It's no surprise to me," he said. "I think we all know that's what's going to happen when we come to Talladega. You know everybody is pretty patient throughout the day and just waiting to get crazy at the end. You know it's going to happen eventually.

"A little disappointing for us on the DuPont Chevrolet just because we ran out of fuel. I felt like we saved a lot. I certainly didn't think we were going to run out right then but I guess I'm kind of glad we ran out when we did because we were at least able to get back out there and destroy our car."

Looking down the road, Gordon does see things he would change at the restrictor-plate tracks. Recent races at those have featured a series of dramatic crashes and have seen multiple instances of cars flipping through the air, as both Martin and Ryan Newman did in Sunday's race.

Gordon sees things that could be done to help with that in future races at restrictor-plate tracks.

"My recommendation to them a long time ago and still is, I think basically we're just punching too big of a hole and we've got too much power to go along with that if you take away from that wicker," Gordon said. "I just think we've got to get the air turned back down to catch the cars a little bit more. I don't know what the solution is if it's wicker or if it's something else. I'm not an aero guy.

"I just know that we shouldn't be able to just get into that pocket and close up. There's two things: one, the car has so much drag that when you clear somebody it's just like putting the brakes on and then the other side is that when you get close up to them, you just close right up on them. And when you take 40 cars or 20 cars and pack 'em, it's just bumper cars at 190 mph."

Roush Fenway Racing's Jamie McMurray wins wild Talladega Cup race

By Kris Johnson/scenedaily.com

TALLADEGA, Ala. - Jamie McMurray won Sunday's running of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Amp Energy 500, but his victory will be an afterthought in the wake of one of the strangest Talladega Superspeedway races in recent memory.  

McMurray's third career win - and first since July 2007 at Daytona - came after two vicious wrecks in the final five laps of the 191-lap event.

McMurray, who has yet to secure a ride for the 2010 season, snapped an 85-race winless streak.

"I saw the guys wreck behind me and I didn't know if I had to take the white [flag]," said McMurray, who nursed his fuel to get to the checkered flag.

The decision to utilize smaller restrictor plates in an attempt to ensure drivers' safety after Carl Edwards' spectacular wreck here in the spring - and raise the catch fences for the added protection of fans - were major storylines heading into the race. But it was NASCAR President Mike Helton's pronouncement in the prerace drivers meeting that bump-drafting would be prohibited in any of the turns at the behemoth 2.66-mile track that led to some sedate racing for much of the day.

That all came to an end with five laps remaining when Stewart-Haas Racing's Ryan Newman went for a horrific ride. The incident began along the backstretch and after contact between Marcos Ambrose, Newman and his teammate, Tony Stewart.

Newman's car somersaulted end over end, then landed on the hood of Kevin Harvick's car. The No. 39 Chevrolet subsequently slid up the track and into the wall and then down the banking before flipping once again and coming to rest on its roof in the grass.

After being checked and cleared at the infield care center, Newman found some irony in his finish this time around.

"Ironically, I'm the guy that got upside down," he said, referencing his previous comments about something needing to be done after he was on the receiving end of Edwards' Ford in April.

Once the racing resumed, with a green-white-checkered finish, contact between Phoenix Racing's Brad Keselowski and Penske Racing's Kurt Busch triggered a 13-car pileup that collected Hendrick Motorsports' Mark Martin, whose car also flipped. Points leader Jimmie Johnson had restarted ninth and narrowly escaped the final accident. His sixth-place finish left him leading the points by 184 over Martin with three races remaining in the season.

Tedium isn't a word normally mentioned in the same breath as Talladega, but NASCAR's bump-drafting decree clearly affected the competition. Single-file racing prevailed as drivers bided their time until the money laps. Then, the carnage came.

"It's no surprise to me," said Jeff Gordon, who finished 22nd after running out of fuel before the final accident.

Johnson said there is a solution to solving the problems that persist at Talladega, and that involves removing the need for restrictor plates.

"Get some tractors out and knock down the banking," he said.

Denny Hamlin, who looked to be the class of the field in his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, saw his day come to a sudden end on lap 137 due to engine failure. Hamlin had been warned by NASCAR about contact in the turns before his engine expired.

Ryan Newman uninjured after flipping, landing on roof in horrifying Talladega crash

By Bob Pockrass/scenedaily.com

TALLADEGA, Ala. - Stewart-Haas Racing's Ryan Newman was sore after a frightening, end-over-end crash that sent his car flipping, rolling and skidding down the track at Talladega Superspeedway in Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup Amp Energy 500.

He was just as sore at NASCAR officials.

It was just six months ago when Newman tapped Carl Edwards’ spinning car, launching it into the air and into the catch fence at Talladega.

“I’m just really disappointed,” Newman said. “We had this race back here in the spring and complained about cars getting airborne and now ironically I’m the guy that gets upside down. … I wish NASCAR would do something.”

NASCAR did do something to try to keep cars on the ground. It decreased the size of the holes in the restrictor plates from 60/64ths of an inch to 59/64ths of an inch. It also prohibited bump-drafting in the turns.

But two cars – Newman’s and Mark Martin’s – ended up getting airborne in a race that was fairly tame for the first 100 laps before drivers began racing two and three wide. Newman’s accident occurred when he got tapped by Marcos Ambrose as cars slowed in the draft.

“It was a boring race for the fans,” Newman said. “That [wreck] is not something anybody wants to see, at least I hope not. If they do, go home because you don’t belong here.

“It’s just a product of this racing and what NASCAR has put us into with this box and these restrictor plates with these types of cars – with the [no passing below the] yellow line, no bump-drafting, no passing. Drivers used to be able to respect each other and race around each other. Richard Petty, David Pearson and Bobby Allison and all those guys have always done that. I guess they don’t think much of us anymore.”

That’s not true, NASCAR Vice President of Competition Robin Pemberton said.

“Drivers are fortunate that they can take the spills that they do and you can talk to them 15-20 minutes after they climb out of the car,” Pemberton said. “And like anything, we’ll get together and we’ll talk about it.

“It’s racing, and a lot of times you can’t prepare for every situation like that. … We try to work with the teams and the drivers in here. We respect what they say and what they have to offer, and if it’s something we feel we have to work on, we work on it.”

Although Newman was uninjured, it took workers more than five minutes to flip the car back over and cut off the roof so he could climb out.

“We don’t need the cars getting upside down like this,” Newman said. “This is ridiculous. There is way more technology than that to help us out. Whether it is a speed issue, a roof-flap issue, whatever. I said it myself in the media center after the spring race here, and now to be the guy standing here trying to live it all out again, I’m just happy I am living it out.

“It is a shame that not more is getting done. I don’t know. I guess maybe I expect NASCAR to call me. I am the only guy out there with an engineering degree. I would like to have a little respect on my end.”

Pemberton said the race was typical of Talladega – periods of single-file racing following by a spectacular crash in which cars occasionally get airborne. He said Newman’s accident would be analyzed.

“We’ll go back and look at the numbers and see if there is anything that needs to be done,” Pemberton said. “We’ll go back and we’ll evaluate what happened today.”

Not everyone involved in the Newman wreck thought the racing was ridiculous.

“Everybody was pretty calm up until that point,” Harvick said. “It looked like somebody just hooked the 39 [of Newman], but other than that I thought it was a pretty calm Talladega. Obviously we had some crashes there at the very end. … I don’t think the restrictor plate had anything to do with it.”

The hood of Harvick’s car was damaged, but he was able to finish the race despite getting an up-close look at the inside of Newman’s car when it landed upside down on his hood.

“It’s kind of how our year has gone,” Harvick said. “If there was one car he was going to land on top of, it was probably going to be us.”

Martin, a longtime critic of restrictor-plate racing, agreed that the crashes were typical of Talladega and not the product of the rules.

“They didn’t create that [Newman] wreck that brought the caution out that made a green-white-checkered [finish]; that was just a sense of urgency time,” Martin said. “That’s what we had here. They haven’t created that, that’s what it is.

“People were trying to make it to the end. They got pretty close.”

And some got upside down. Newman left frustrated, Martin maybe not so much.

“It’s a success if I walk out of here,” Martin said. “I’ve had a successful day. I climb on that plane, I go home, I see my family, it’s all good.”

Five Points to Ponder…

Mike Lovecchio · Frontstretch.com

Talladega

ONE: What grade would you give today’s race?
Fan Vote – A: 0%; B: 7%; C: 21%; D: 36%; F: 36%

Has there ever been a race so exciting and so boring at the same time? Sunday’s race at Talladega had all of the close quarters racing we’ve become accustomed to seeing at the superspeedway, but with NASCAR policing a stricter bump drafting rule, fans were often scratching their heads at some surprisingly poor racing. Racing at Talladega has often been called a “parade” by fans who don’t like restrictor plates, but this week actually looked like a parade. Combine that with the recurring problem of cars getting airborne and Jimmie Johnson crossing the stripe unscathed, and fans don’t have much to walk away from Talladega with except for another reason to be critical of NASCAR.

TWO: Does today’s finish ensure Jimmie Johnson the championship?
Fan Vote – YES: 100%; NO: 0%

By virtue of flawless strategy once again, Jimmie Johnson laid back for 95 percent of the race, came in to top off on fuel and then avoided the Big One he had been fearing to finish in the top 10 and better than his closest Chase competitors. With a now 184 point lead, it’s time to start etching Johnson’s name on the Sprint Cup for the fourth consecutive season. Unless the No. 48 team has an epic meltdown in two of the next three weeks the deficit is just too large for either Mark Martin or Jeff Gordon to make a comeback. Time to start talking five-peat. Unbelievable.

THREE: Should NASCAR police bump drafting?
Fan Vote – YES: 6%; NO: 94%

It was the main topic coming into the start of this week’s race at Talladega so viewers of the Frontstretch blog were polled on whether NASCAR should police bump drafting or not. In an overwhelming response, 94 percent of viewers believed drivers should be able to police themselves at restrictor plate tracks. Listen, there is no doubt that bump drafting and the subsequent two-car lock we’ve seen at Talladega were problems, but we already have a yellow line rule – if you police every single aspect of restrictor plate racing then it’s not even a race, it’s a parade. Why not outlaw blocking while we’re at it and whichever driver just so happens to be leading the quicker line when the checkered flag flies wins the race?

FOUR: Have NASCAR’s rules at Talladega negatively affected the racing?
Fan Vote – YES: 93%: NO: 7%

Like I said it in the point earlier NASCAR, in my opinion, has crossed the line when it comes to having their fingers on the pulse of every single aspect of restrictor plate racing. I’ll admit I’m a fan of the drama that can unfold at restrictor plate tracks, but it seems like nowadays NASCAR promotes the danger that can occur at these ovals. Denny Hamlin warned before the race that banning bump drafting in the corners would cause more problems on the straightaways and what do you know, we had two cars get airborne due to excessive bump drafting on the straights. I understand that restrictor plates are needed, but when you try and control how drivers race there’s a major problem. Remember, the yellow line rule was supposed to make racing safer too, but we’ve seen just as many scary crashes since the rule as before the rule – just let the guys race!

FIVE: Is Lance McGrew the answer to Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s problems?
Fan Vote – YES: 0%; NO: 100%

It was announced this week that interim crew chief Lance McGrew would take over as full-time crew chief for Dale Earnhardt Jr. Since McGrew took over, Junior has had better runs, but has still suffered from the bad luck bug. The fact that every viewer in the blog who voted said McGrew was not the answer is not disrespecting McGrew or Earnhardt. There’s much more going on with the No. 88 team than just the driver or crew chief, although communication between the two is an integral part of their success. I expect Junior to rebound next season, but it may be a stretch to say he’ll make the Chase.

Notes to Ponder:

Another town hall NASCAR had another town hall meeting this week and announced they will make changes to the car in 2011 – at least they’re starting to listen.

Safety: Cars may be getting airborne way too much, but the more head room in the CoT helped Newman in yesterday’s crash.

McMurray’s audition? – Part II: For the second consecutive week, McMurray was the highest running Roush car with his win this weekend.

Hendrick Motorsports' Dale Earnhardt Jr. says NASCAR needs new approach to Talladega

By SceneDaily Staff

TALLADEGA, Ala. – Hendrick Motorsports driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. said Sunday that NASCAR Sprint Cup teams have gotten too smart and too fast for Talladega Superspeedway.

Earnhardt Jr. led five times for nine laps and finished 11th in the Amp Energy 500 for his best result since a ninth at Bristol in August. After the race, he talked about how Cup teams have “out-engineered” the 2.66-mile superspeedway.

“You know what I mean?” Earnhardt Jr. said. “We over-engineered, and the technology has sort of passed what they were trying to accomplish here when they built this place. But what we are doing now is OK, but I don't think it is the best solution.”

After a race that saw two cars flip in the final six laps, Earnhardt Jr. suggested that NASCAR is doing the opposite of what it should be doing to the cars at restrictor-plate tracks.

"If they have to slow us down and run around these tracks at slower speeds, they have to make a smaller motor, make us run a smaller motor, but be able to open it up so there is throttle response,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “Then slow the cars down with a little more drag or something. Them old cars in the '80s didn't cut the wind like these things do.

“We have got them in [the] ground and everything else aero-wise to make it smooth and sleek, and now we are having to trim the motors back to make the cars slower. It is probably the opposite of what needs to be going on. Probably need to open the motors back up and slow the cars down with the air.”

Earnhardt Jr. said Sunday’s race was typical of Talladega events of late: Relatively calm racing until the closing laps.

“The race is pretty safe up until the end,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “You knew that. I don't think anybody wants to be out there and involved in what happens at the end: Dodging cars, seeing people flip upside down. Obviously there is something else that needs to be thought about. I am sure NASCAR will figure it out. They are pretty hard-headed over there, don't like to admit they [are] wrong sometimes."

NASCAR says bump-drafting rules not to blame for single-file Talladega racing

By SceneDaily Staff

TALLADEGA, Ala. – NASCAR’s change in the rules to forbid bump-drafting in the turns worked as planned for the most part and should not be blamed for the single-file racing fans saw for much of the first half of the Sprint Cup Amp Energy 500 Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway, NASCAR Vice President of Competition Robin Pemberton said.

“A lot of 500-mile races, when you listen to the teams, they work on their cars, they get their cars to handle and then they log laps during a small portion or the middle third of the race in order to have their equipment ready for the end of the race,” Pemberton said in the garage after the event. “It’s not uncommon of any 500-mile race that you see that. … [The accidents that] happened today, we didn’t have any major incidents in the corner.

“The two wrecks that happened, they happened in the free zone where we weren’t monitoring the bump-drafting or anything like that.”

Pemberton said cars might have gotten a little more strung out than usual, but drivers were just learning how to deal with the new rule in the turns. After the restart on lap 109, the remainder of the 191-lap race was fairly dicey.

“There were times they were not four wide as they may have been in the past and maybe not three wide, and they were [instead] two wide,” Pemberton said. “As the race progressed, many of the drivers got better and better at getting up to the bump in front of them and getting within four or five inches to the guy ahead of them. It’s an art form that they generally have the ability to develop.”

The rule was made because NASCAR saw too many dangerous situations in the practice Friday. During the April Cup race at the track, Phoenix Racing’s Brad Keselowski pushed Roush Fenway Racing’s Carl Edwards for a full lap, which was turned at 200.7 mph.

“We don’t dream these things up,” Pemberton said. “A lot of these things come out of the garage area. Drivers that have a lot of experience that are winners and they bring the concerns to us that it is getting too aggressive and I think Friday was evidence how aggressive everybody was.

“Even though they were practicing for Sunday’s race, we saw things there that were more aggressive than we’ve seen in the past and we had some drivers that brought it up to us that they were concerned that the bump-drafting or the hooking up in the corners was not going to be a good thing.”

NASCAR never issued a penalty in Sunday's race. There were times when Sprint Cup Series Director John Darby said something to a crew chief.

“If it was something that was a warning that was like the final warning, we would have put it out on the main channel and we didn’t do that,” Pemberton said. “These guys are very good at what they do. It takes them a very short period of time to figure out the best way around these race tracks.

“As the race went on, guys got a little bit better at how to run the draft, work the draft and pass cars.”

Talladega The Last Straw: The Madness Must End

Bryan Davis Keith · Frontstretch.com

Anyone who reads this site knows that I’ve always defended restrictor plate racing as being just that, racing. Real racing. I’ve defended it as a discipline, just as road racing is a discipline, and insisted that the Chase needs Talladega just as much as it needs a road course in it.

And even after Sunday’s joke of an event, one that saw my favorite driver involved in the most harrowing crash I’ve seen in a long time, I still hold those opinions. Prior to the carnage that marred the race’s final few laps, there was the three-and-four-wide racing that Talladega has become known for, there was the bump-drafting, there were 50 wrecks that somehow didn’t happen…and the world’s best stock car drivers made it happen. When disaster struck in the form of Ryan Newman’s Chevrolet doing a front flip at 180 mph and landing on Kevin Harvick’s nose, it wasn’t the product of some eye-of-the-storm pack that left no room for anyone…it happened in a near straight line. The circumstances that wrecked Newman could easily have happened on a restart at Fontana, Michigan, or any other track out there where the cars have to spend a lap getting up to speed.

Sunday was not an indictment of restrictor plate racing, though that’s what everyone and their mother will be writing tonight…because Sunday was nothing new. Seriously, everyone that tuned it knows that plate racing in packs does lead to big crashes. It does shuffle the field in a blender. It does allow drivers like David Stremme and Jamie McMurray to look like drivers deserving Cup rides.

What Sunday was, however, was a truly vivid example of just how bad things have gotten in NASCAR today. Sunday, at a track that stands as an everlasting memento of the, as Matt McLaughlin coined it, “megalomaniac” that is the France family, every single person from the fans in the front row to the drivers on the track to Frontstretch writers like myself watching at home had their collective faces rubbed in the mess they’ve sown. Stock car racing hit a low on Sunday afternoon, and everyone, from the drivers to the fans to NASCAR, ought to be ashamed of themselves for having let things get this bad.

Shame on NASCAR for their insistence to over-regulate to absurdity the racing at Talladega. For their asinine yellow-line rule, created in the name of “safety” when all it’s done is allow for subjective enforcement to send Dale Earnhardt Jr. to Victory Lane in April of 2003, to rob Regan Smith of a race everyone but the record book knows he won last fall and to force Brad Keselowski to send Carl Edwards flying sky-high this spring just to do his job on the track.

Shame on NASCAR for their underhanded decision to announce a mere 60 minutes before the green flag that drivers would be penalized if they in their infinite wisdom decided that contact in the corners constituted an overly-aggressive “bump draft.” Imagine the fallout if the NFL announced 60 minutes before the Super Bowl that teams could not blitz the quarterback, or would be penalized if a hit was deemed too hard by the booth crew upstairs. A Denny Hamlin tweet said it best post-race: “We signed up to drive our cars. Not to be told how to.”

Shame on NASCAR for having their puppet, ISC, touting how Talladega was committed to safety while their rulebook has made racing at the track anything but safer for the drivers themselves. I can’t count how many times NASCAR, ISC, and ESPN (another lapdog) spent the weekend raving about how they raised the frontstretch catchfence from 14 to 22 feet to improve safety.

Who the hell cares?! The near disaster in the spring didn’t occur because the fence was too short! Take a look at the pictures from the spring…the problem wasn’t the height, it was that Edwards’ car did damage to the supports themselves when it hit. Making it higher made for great PR, but in the grand scheme of things it did about jack diddly to make this race track safer, be it for fans, drivers, whoever.

Meanwhile, while NASCAR and ISC spent time and money putting up more chainlink and hiring medicine men to do war whoops on the start-finish line, they ignored what their very own drivers, and their best and brightest drivers at that, were saying. It’s ironic that Ryan Newman happened to be the driver who had the flip of the day on Sunday, because rewind back to the spring race, and guess what he said needed to be done?

That NASCAR needed to spend time and money, then, to figure out a way to keep cars from going airborne.

Yet, instead of working on the wing or finding a way to configure the restrictor plates to allow the cars more room to spread out, NASCAR decided to completely dismiss the comments of a particularly talented engineer and the smartest driver in the garage, instead opting to, surprise, shrink the plate further, and make the packs the cars raced in tighter. That’s the way to improve things there, take even more control out of the drivers hands and make the packs tighter.

For crying out loud, does NASCAR not watch their own replays?

Look at the two big flips of the last two races, those of Edwards in the spring and Newman on Sunday. The roof flaps did their jobs both times. So why are these cars getting airborne? It’s simple really, when cars get out of shape in these packs they get hit by cars passing by. That impact negates what the roof flaps are doing, and sends the cars airborne. Carl Edwards went airborne because he got drilled by Ryan Newman’s car. Newman on Sunday got airborne not because of his contact with Marcos Ambrose, but because after spinning Kevin Harvick had nowhere to go but smack into Newman’s car.

Take the packs away, or at least loosen them up, and those roof flaps might actually do what they’re supposed to do. Either way, NASCAR’s unilaterally made decision to tighten the packs up and threaten its drivers as a way to improve safety backfired royally on Sunday…and demonstrated, as Newman said so eloquently in his post-race remarks, that they don’t seem to care much for the drivers anymore these days.

Shame on NASCAR indeed.

And while I applaud drivers such as Newman, Hamlin, Jeff Gordon and Mark Martin for speaking up bluntly following Sunday’s travesty, shame on the drivers too for allowing the France family and NASCAR to get away with this crap. Seriously, why the hell did no one put their foot down in the drivers’ meeting and say ‘Look, this bump drafting rule stuff is ridiculous, I’m not racing to the tune of the script up in the tower?’

Ryan Newman was correct in noting that things seem to have changed since the strike of Talladega 1969, where NASCAR was forced to make changes such after seeing its stars deck it’s leadership to the floor literally, pack up and leave the world’s most expensive race track and reduce Talladega’s inaugural race to a used car lot running at high speeds. NASCAR certainly does seem to be taking its drivers and teams for granted now in much the same way Bill France Sr. did when he told LeeRoy Yarbrough to go home if he was scared.

Things have also changed, however, in that no one was there to deal Mike Helton a blow to the head when he delivered the message Sunday morning that NASCAR was going to decide what was and wasn’t acceptable driving in the corners. It’s one thing for drivers to deliver snippy soundbites postrace that don’t go according to script, or to run single file for hundreds of miles (though drivers did that in plate races even before Sunday)…but it’s another to stand up and do something about it.

Because the power to change things in NASCAR is largely in the drivers’ hands. Race fans turn out in droves and spend tons of money because of their loyalty to manufacturers and drivers…not loyalty to NASCAR’s governing body. If the drivers want change, they can and will get change…but that requires growing a backbone, speaking up and acting out when things get ridiculous.

Talladega’s current configuration with the plates, the new cars, etc. is ridiculous enough. Having the rules changed an hour before the race should have easily been a tipping point.

Shame on the drivers out there for not having the backbone that Yarbrough, Petty and all the others that struck so they didn’t have to did. Shame on them for being good little lapdogs.

And yes, shame on me and every other race fan that’s complained, written, voiced displeasure about the direction of the sport, cracked a snide joke about Brian France but in reality hasn’t done a damned thing to force the sanctioning body to start listening to what the competitors and fans that are its lifeblood are saying. Because love or hate Talladega, well over 100,000 of us still showed up and packed the front grandstand and infield. Millions of us still tuned in Sunday to watch the race, knowing full well we probably weren’t going to like what we saw.

And we all poured millions of dollars more into the coffers of the idiots that have managed to take a truly great sport and reduce it to what was seen today.

Several seasons ago, after being involved in a wreck at Talladega, Mark Martin remarked that “only the fans can do something” about the racing product being put on. And he’s right, it is up to we the fans. We’re the ones that make the sport conducive to sponsors becoming the “official underwater basket weaver of NASCAR.” We’re the ones that make the sport profitable enough for the France family to hire lawyers to cover up DUI and cocaine problems that the family seems to always find itself in. And we’re the ones that ultimately need to speak with our wallets and our remotes.

We need to tune into and sell out the short tracks, the Darlingtons, the venues that we all speak up for but then never seem to show up at. We need to stop responding positively to ads celebrating and mystifying the big wrecks of the sport, no matter how spine-chilling they may be. We need to step up and support our drivers when they do say that something with the sport is broke, and that may mean actually cutting our spending and our viewership when they head to Talladega, Fontana, or some other crappy racing configuration.

Fact is, we need to wake up and realize that this is “your, my, our NASCAR,” and our NASCAR ain’t so pretty right now.

Shame on us for letting it get this far.

Shame on the drivers and teams for not having the balls of those before them to just say no, and instead do exactly what Big Brother Brian and his cronies insisted on Sunday.

And shame on NASCAR, for reducing stock car racing to what we saw on Sunday.

Shame on all of us who call racing our passion, our home.

Drivers say ‘Take that NASCAR’ at Talladega

Greg Engle/nascarexaminer.com

NASCAR doesn’t want to see their racecars wrecking. Yes there are some fans that do, but for most, watching crashes isn’t the reason they watch a NASCAR race.
But Talladega Superspeedway is normally the site of the so-called ‘big one’, those multi-car crashes that have become synonymous with NASCAR’s biggest track.
With memories of a spectacular last lap crash in the spring at Talladega Superspeedway that saw Carl Edwards tumble along the fence and injuring several fans, NASCAR began to warn competitors on Friday that they would not tolerate over-aggressive driving or the practice of ‘bump-drafting’.
In the second Friday practice session they even went as far as to force driver Michael Waltrip into the pits when they felt he was pushing Jimmie Johnson in the same sort of fashion that many believe was the cause of the spring melee and other ‘big-ones’.
Sunday in the prerace drivers meeting, NASCAR laid down the law telling drivers that anyone seen bump drafting in the turns would be penalized. For a time Sunday it appeared that drivers had not only heeded the warnings but may have gone too far as the race settled down to a single line affair.
As the race came do its final stages it seemed as though NASCAR’s stern warnings throughout the weekend would ensure that at least for this race, the ‘big one’ wouldn’t happen.
Then with less than five laps to go, all hell broke loose.
Ryan Newman made contact with his boss and teammate Tony Stewart and was sent flipping along turn three. The accident, which Newman eventually walked away from uninjured, forced a nearly 13 minute red flag.
As the field was restarted under yellow and was being set up for a green white checkered flag finish, cars began to run out of fuel all around the track forcing NASCAR to wave off the restart for several laps.
Once the field was restarted and came around for the white flag another crash began mid-field and soon Mark Martin’s Chevy was flipping while other cars bounced off the walls and slid through the infield.
The raced ended under caution with Jamie McMurray being scored the winner.
In the aftermath drivers were complaining about the harsh no bump-drafting rule, calling the racing boring and some in the media asked if maybe the long strung out field was a protest of sorts against NASCAR’s rule.
Roush-Fenway Racing driver Greg Biffle, who finished fourth ahead of the carnage, said that while NASCAR’s prerace warning may have had an effect on the racing, drivers were still able to bump draft in the corners.
“I think so. I think the guys were a little more cautious,” Biffle said. “I think that’s why you didn’t see some of those big wrecks. The guys kept it a little more cool and up in three and four they ran into each other pretty hard up there. They tried to wreck three or four times and it just didn’t happen.”
But Biffle added though that despite the rule, the single file runs were certainly no protest and the racing wasn’t too different than normal.
“If you look back at the races in the past, we’ve done the same thing,” Biffle said, “Three years ago, I was running fourth and we were all lined up on the top. I think Reutimann was right in front of me and blew up or something, so we’ve done that here a lot.”
In the end it would seem that even with NASCAR’s intervention, spectacular multi-car crashes will still happen. Maybe when the series returns to Talladega in the spring, NASCAR will simply let the field race and realize that no matter what anyone does, the ‘big one’ at Talladega will always be lurking.

Johnson's finish as good as a win

Ed Hinton/espn.com

TALLADEGA, Ala. -- Jimmie Johnson opened the drain NASCAR poured its season down Sunday.

Now get this for working a system and a screwball race made screwier by NASCAR's pre-race antics (I mean edicts): Riding around 30th or worse for most of the afternoon, Johnson blew the Chase to smithereens and turned the rest of it into his personal, three-city victory parade through Fort Worth, Phoenix and Miami.

All that's left to mop up is a little math. He'll likely clinch at Phoenix in two weeks, show up at Homestead-Miami only if he feels like it, then hit Las Vegas for the official celebration of his historic fourth straight championship.

This one may not be over, but it's over.

Win the Amp Energy 500? Nah. Who needed that? (For those who care, Jamie McMurray won the worse-than-usual mess at Talladega Superspeedway.)

This was better than a win for Johnson. A lot better. He finished a slick sixth and escaped Casino de Alabama decisively ahead of those who didn't -- 184 points ahead of Mark Martin, 192 up on Jeff Gordon and 239 over Juan Pablo Montoya, all of whom wrecked on the inevitable big one that came at the white flag of a green-white-checkered overtime.

"Yes, I do feel better than a race win with today's finish," Johnson confirmed when I asked him.

But there was the somewhat hollow feeling of leaving teammates Martin and Gordon so far back in the Chase due to the crapshoot circumstances that got them caught up in the big one that started just feet behind Johnson's right-rear fender.

He felt "still in shock" with elation, but, "I'm trying to keep it back because I do feel bad that the guys crashed coming to the finish. … I was really concerned for Mark, because when I looked in the mirror I saw the 5 roof number tumbling and flipping and then hitting the outside fence. I hate to see things take place that way …

"But [gaining] points on them, that's what we're here to do. I wish it would have been under fuel circumstances [which got Martin and Gordon back into the crazy areas of the draft lines], not a crash, for sure. But we'll take them."

NASCAR president Mike Helton changed the Talladega game just hours before the race, at the drivers' meeting, by proclaiming that NASCAR would not tolerate any bump drafting in the corners and would keep a close eye on aggressiveness down the straightaways.

So the drivers did what they usually do here when NASCAR makes things even harder on them than usual: They staged one of their sit-down strikes in motion, riding around for most of the race, behaving themselves to the point of drowsiness and exasperation for considerably less than a packed house in the stands and infield.

When they did get down to the usual business of wrecking here, they did it big. Ryan Newman, though not seriously injured, had to be cut out of his cockpit after he landed upside down, the roof of his putatively ultra-safe Car of Tomorrow crushed down and wedging his helmet in the roll cage.

That, the first significant event of the race, came with just five laps left in regulation.

And it started the rapid chain of events that left Johnson's crew chief, Chad Knaus, looking every bit the maestro of this Chase chess game that he is.

With NASCAR just asking to leave here with a pie in the face, Knaus hit with banana cream, point blank.

Knaus called Johnson into the pits for a splash of gas while the field was still rolling under caution, and before NASCAR decided to red flag the race to assure the fans a show.

They got it, all right.

Martin and Gordon both ran out of gas soon after the field began moving again under caution to set up the green-white-checkered. So many cars were running out that NASCAR even delayed the overtime, so as not to make a bigger mess than it already was -- NASCAR's way of trying to at least wipe some of the cream out of its eyes, let's call it.

In the No. 48 car, Johnson began to sigh a bit of relief, because just before Newman's tumble he'd begun to wonder whether the ride-at-the-back strategy was going to backfire.

"To be honest with you," he said afterward, "the strategies completely backfired. The only thing that saved our butts was Chad's decision for fuel. We were in big trouble, 25th or something, on that red flag. So all the credit goes to Chad for making us come down pit road and put some fuel in the thing. That was really the strategy that did it."

As cars ahead of him dropped into the pits for fuel, Johnson suddenly found himself 11th when the green flag started overtime -- it was just far enough up front, and I mean a matter of feet or maybe inches, to keep him out of the big one that was the last one.

Brad Keselowski, who made a sweep of Talladega this year from the standpoint of detonating the final big wreck -- the one in the spring had been justifiable to beat (but launch) Carl Edwards -- got into Kurt Busch from behind to detonate the 13-car pileup that froze the field just as the white flag flew.

"I saw the guys wreck behind me," McMurray said in Victory Lane. "And then as soon as I crossed the start-finish line I shut the engine off and pushed the clutch in and coasted."

No such luck for Martin, who limped his car across after tumbling, nor for Gordon, who did a series of spins along the tri-oval.

"Nothing," Martin said bluntly to ESPN TV reporters when asked what he saw of the melee. Martin had been predicting all week that for once, he wouldn't wreck here.

Oh, well. At least it came at the end.

But, as Johnson said, "We can run 497 miles around here, and it doesn't matter, it's just that last lap."

Drivers complained that the race was boring not just for fans but for themselves, but Johnson had a twist on that. Rather than boring, "For me it may have been a little more relieving than the others because you [could] finally just ride around and log some miles."

But in the final analysis, Johnson lit into NASCAR and its biggest white-elephant track as thoroughly as the wrecked and angry others had.

"I mean, we go through this every year," he said. "You guys [media] try to find new ways to have us answer the same question about restrictor-plate racing.

"Yeah, we have the steering wheel, the gas pedal, brake pedal … But until somebody really has a chance to sit in these cars and understand how tough it is, it's easier to say these things [how boring the racing is here until the final laps] …

"We mind our manners during the race, single-file, and everybody was probably disappointed in that.

"Then we get racing in the end, and you have the big wrecks. So … there is not a new [story] angle.

"The only way we avoid this, if anybody wants to avoid these big wrecks and this type of racing, is to eliminate the need for restrictor plates.

"That means get the tractors out and knock down the banking."

Fat chance of that ever happening at the track so monstrous that all the star drivers walked out and refused to run the inaugural race, 40 years ago.

Gordon was sardonic to the nth degree with his final analysis.

"I'm kind of glad we ran out [of gas] when we did," Gordon said, "because we were at least able to get back out there and destroy our car."

That said it all about the way the drivers feel about a gigantic track that by configuration is far too fast for safety and requires all sorts of manipulatory gimmicks and last-minute edicts just to keep things remotely sane.

Sometimes you wonder why, here, they don't just hold pre-race ceremonies, run a green-white-checkered right then, and be done with it.

No-bump rule frustrates fans, drivers

David Newton/espn.com

TALLADEGA, Ala. -- Mr. Newton, I've been a NASCAR fan for more than 30 years and I must say after watching the start of today's race, NASCAR has virtually lost me as a fan. This is not racing and this is not what racing is about. NASCAR better do something soon or the attendance at all of the tracks will start looking like California Speedway.

Please feel free to forward this to anyone [who] will listen!!! I gotta get back to the TV … at least there is a good football game on! Come on, NASCAR, let them race or make them race … that's what they get paid to do!!

Sincerely,

Former NASCAR Fan
Jon Little

Jon, you're not alone.

That was the reaction many of us who attended the prerace drivers' meeting feared when NASCAR president Mike Helton warned that aggressiveness, particularly bump drafting and pushing in the corners with a two-car breakaway, wouldn't be tolerated.

As soon as he said the bumper-to-bumper action that creates some of the most intense drama of the season -- and at times the most horrific crashes -- would be policed to the point a win could be taken away, the single-file racing we had for much of the 188 laps was predictable.

You the fans let us know your dissatisfaction early, flooding the ESPN.com RaceCast chat with complaints about how the governing body has ruined the sport.

Let 'em race, you screamed.

Loudly!

Wrote "hot rod" from Las Vegas: "36 cars on the lead lap and all in single file … yeah, that's really racing."

Wrote Jon from Chicago: "You know what, I convinced a couple of friends who don't like NASCAR because they think it's just cars driving in a circle for 500 miles to watch this weekend and give it a chance, and this is the show they get. Even if the last 30 laps are awesome, there is no way they will be watching. Pass that on to NASCAR."

Many of the comments contained words that couldn't be posted.

The drivers were equally frustrated. Tony Stewart, who laid back with Jimmie Johnson much of the afternoon, radioed, "Someone tell me something interesting so I don't fall asleep out here."

Kyle Busch smugly said this is what's called a drivers' union. He also said it was B.S. and suggested that if this is what NASCAR wants, then the race should be shortened to 75 laps.