In a GEICO 500 that was one for the books, Brad Keselowski held off the field in dramatic fashion in the final laps Sunday to claim his fourth career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victory at Talladega Superspeedway as a part of Aspen Dental Weekend. And, as Keselowski crossed the finish line, another wreck in the back of the pack punctuated the sloppy day.
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Jr. was just out there “chilling” because he was multiple laps down due to his wreck earlier with his teammate Kahne.
NASCAR executive vice president and chief racing development officer Steve O’Donnell said the sanctioning body is investigating what transpired at Talladega during a Monday appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio saying, “We’ll reach out to the teams to see what we can do to immediately take some action to work towards correcting that”.
Kyle Busch, who broke his leg and foot in a crash at Daytona a year ago, said after his second-place finish Sunday that he’d rather stay home than participate in plate races.
“Hell, I’m going home. I don’t need to be here”.
We all raced to the halfway, then we all raced to the rain that was coming, then we all raced to the end, she said. “I don’t know how many really love it”.
In the end, Keselowski took home the victory, his second win this season, and fourth at Talladega. Chris Buescher (37th) went for the wildest ride of his rookie Sprint Cup career when he was in a wreck on Lap 96, flipping three times before coming to a rest on his wheels … He got his repaired vehicle back on track on Lap 99, only to be involved in another wreck on Lap 110 when something broke in Carl Edwards’ auto, sending him into Earnhardt and the wall.
Big names looking for a win include Joey Logano, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kurt Busch, Matt Kenseth, and Martin Truex Jr. That wreck, on lap 59, also caused damage to the cars of Casey Mears and Aric Almirola.
Driver Austin Dillon said while fans might be cheering for crashes, the people behind the wheel certainly weren’t. No drivers suffered more than bumps and bruises. They have some of the most enjoyable racing, unexpected results and highest entertainment value. Dillon finished sixth, but Stewart will get the points as the driver of record per NASCAR rules. Others accept it as just another challenging aspect of a risky occupation. In a race that featured a little bit of everything – continuous three- and four-wide racing, a wide range of team strategies and a few “Big One” incidents, Keselowski led more laps than anyone, 46. “Some weekends we’re chess players, some weekends we’re daredevils”.
Granted, restrictor-plate races aren’t total crap shoots, and for the most part, a well-known driver usually wins.
With 10 races down in the books, we have six unique winners this year (48, 4, 2, 18, 19, 11) who are virtually locked into the Chase. At the end of last July’s race at Daytona, he lost control of his vehicle as the race ended, slamming into the catch fence near the start-finish line. Dillon walked away uninjured, though 13 spectators were treated for minor injuries.
“I haven’t had fire on the inside before”, she said. “I know what it is”. Sunday is how it can happen and July 2015 is how it could have happened. I don’t know personally how to fix it. “As far as aero-wise, if we need to put something on the back of the auto to keep them on the ground, I’m all for it”. He was able to withstand a massive rush from a multitude of other drivers on the last lap, and he took the checkered flag while there was a big wreck behind him.
“As far as not being in any of those accidents, we ran up front”. “You have to put yourself in bad situations that you wouldn’t normally do to figure out how to get to the front. It sounds real easy, [but] it’s not, otherwise everybody would do it”.
Bowyer has been very bad for HScott Motorsports this year, but Talladega should level the playing field to a degree, and he has some of the best numbers of any driver at the track.
“I hit my foot, I hit my arm”, said Patrick. It would not only be safer, but perhaps the racing would be better than in a plate race. “I know our mom’s, wives and girlfriends don’t like it”. Then he was collected in a wreck with Carl Edwards.
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“I don’t know how you’d fix (the problem)”, said Dillon, whose damaged vehicle finished third on Sunday after surviving an earlier incident.
