The 32-year-old driver of the No. 2 Ford for Team Penske, and 2012 Sprint Cup Champion, has been known to weigh in on the sport’s officiating, marketing, history and plans for the future.
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The cost of damaged race cars on Sunday neared $10 million in losses across the grid, according to an informal survey Monday by The Associated Press of five top race teams. His often-used line that race-car drivers are a balance of “daredevils and chess players” made sense Sunday afternoon after his win. Races at Daytona and Talladega in general draw the biggest crowds, provide the closest racing, and draw the biggest television ratings. You could go airborne.
“We may go to Daytona and Talladega without changing a thing and not having anything that looks anything like we had Sunday”. “But no racer worth his name can afford to avoid those treacherous packs because the only way to truly go fast at Talladega is to hook up nose-to-tail with a freight train of cars to exploit the aerodynamic draft”.
Austin Dillon, who finished third, called the day both “wild” and “fun” – and he has been on both sides of that in restrictor-plate races, including his scary airborne crash into the Daytona catch fence last July.
There’s no question Talladega Superspeedway and Daytona International Speedway can be entertaining, but they’re also both significantly more unsafe than the other tracks on the NASCAR circuit.
“Literally, it was pointless for us to be back out there”, Earnhardt said. “That is part of Talladega”.
Added Jimmie Johnson, who came in 22nd: “It’s Talladega, plate racing”. He just pulled the wheel out and plopped it on the dashboard before climbing out. Oh, and in between?
“Well, I wasn’t going to let it hit the wall, so I grabbed the column and steered it with that”, Earnhardt said. I hit a wall at 200 (mph).
No, not then he didn’t. A second accident at the mid-way point of the race ended his day as Carl Edwards’ auto ran right into him.
“It’s probably the most scared, trying to hop out of the vehicle with a fire in the inside, I’ve never seen a fire on the inside, I have on the outside, but it got to the glove a little bit, but honestly, I was really thinking about my hair, I have a lot of hair, and I didn’t want to lose it”, Danica Patrick said.
I think thats kind of the allure to coming here because you dont know what youre going to get.. I dont need to be here..
The top 10 was rounded out by Tony Stewart, Clint Bowyer, Kurt Busch, Ryan Blaney, and Trevor Bayne. That made for a lot more action, a lot more accidents, but every race is different.
Brad Keselowski led a race-high 46 laps en route to his second win of the season.
Kahne said he wasn’t sure exactly what happened after seeing Earnhardt go left and back right. None of the accidents were at the 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. Part of the perverse paradigm of restrictor-plate racing is that while it’s a form of racing that drivers consider random in many ways and not necessarily representative of their skill, it provides an inordinate amount of glory.
Normally, the aggression in plate races doesn’t come until about 30 laps remain and many drivers spend most of the race riding around in the hope they can stay out of trouble to make a late run for the win.
Austin Dillon was third, with pole-sitter and rookie Chase Elliott finishing fourth. The “quiet” inside the auto with the wheels off the ground was spooky, Buescher said of his first experience with all wheels up.
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Chris Buescher, driver of the #34, has his auto flipped onto its roof during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway on Tuesday (NZT). Then again, as Keselowski acknowledged, there is of course another force at work as well.
