Brad Keselowski spent the last 30 or so laps of Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series race at Talladega Superspeedway in the only safe place at the 2.66-mile oval – out front.
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Among the many others who suffered through a miserable day was Dale Earnhardt Jr. – the defending race victor who always is one of the pre-race favorites at Talladega, where he owns six Sprint Cup wins overall.
Earnhardt Jr. drove “Amelia”, named after trailblazing pilot Amelia Earhart, to two victories last season – at Talladega in May and Daytona in July – and also won the first Daytona Duel qualifying race in February.
“Understanding the style of racing and the higher potential of getting involved in an incident”, Stewart explained, “we thought it best to minimize the amount of time I’m in the auto”. Only 21 of the 40 cars finished on the lead lap, and 12 were knocked out of the race, including Patrick’s Number 10 Chevrolet.
“Hell, I’m going home”.
Austin Dillon finished third and said he enjoyed the race, even though it was nerve-wracking.
“Something just let go there”, he said. Talladega is volatile with more random wrecks wiping out unsuspecting drivers, which makes the ratings less true, with the exception of Earnhardt Jr. I really appreciate Ty.
“It was so quick I never had any time to react”, Buescher said.
Earnhardt, who has a series-leading six wins and 960 laps led in 32 Talladega starts, is a 4-1 favorite at William Hill sports books.
“I’m just proud of my guys”, Dillon said. That’s just part of racing and there was nobody at fault with that. His late father holds the track record with 10 victories, and Earnhardt took time Friday to discuss how watching his father race at Daytona and Talladega helped him learn how to get around the superspeedways. She appeared shaken after the hit and hustled out of her burning vehicle. “The same thing that happened at Daytona (in the 500) to us”.
“This is definitely a special place”, said Chase Elliott, who grew up in Dawsonville, Georgia, which is 170 miles from Talladega. “It’s not, otherwise everybody would do it and we were fortunate to be second, third or better in every one of those accidents”. “But, gosh, I’m not saying there isn’t ways to do better than what we have”.
The field went back to green on Lap 58, but did not stay for very long, as about a lap later, Michael Waltrip went onto the apron to avoid wrecking, then when he came back onto the track, he spun out, collecting some other cars to bring out the second caution of the race.
Edwards scored back-to-back wins at Bristol and Richmond where he bumped Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch out of his way on the last lap and was hoping to make it three straight with a Talladega win.
“I would say that’s probably the most scared, trying to hop out of a auto with the fire on the inside”, Patrick said. Kahne lost it with less than 60 laps to go. Nearly half the field went spinning, crashing, flying, banging, and slamming in a race that became a survivalist demolition derby.
(9) Carl Edwards, Toyota, Accident, 109. “It was fairly simple at that point in time, I thought”.
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“I think that’s kind of the allure to coming here because you don’t know what you’re going to get”. He has just lived his life around racing to take that matter-of-fact view.
