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Pete Pistone
Brian De Los Santos
1. Should NASCAR be working more aggressively and urgently in trying to come up with a solution to avoid the multicar pileups that continually mar races at Daytona and Talladega? Has the fact drivers have climbed out of the new car unharmed despite the horrendous-looking wrecks clouded its judgment on the safety of restrictor-plate racing at the two tracks?
The bottom line is this: The drivers are ultimately responsible for what happens at restrictor-plate tracks. Have they been put into a tighter box with implementation of the yellow line rule, smaller plates and now the no-bump-drafting-the-corners mandate that came last week at Talladega? Sure they have. But the drivers themselves asked for NASCAR to help them police themselves and all the sanctioning body can do is to try and keep things as safe and competitive as possible. There is no question the new car has enhanced safety dramatically and Ryan Newman's violent flip was the latest example. But I don't think the added safety has stopped NASCAR from trying to find ways to avoid multicar crashes and more importantly keeping the cars from flying through the air. They need to figure that out and do it before the series rolls back to Talladega next spring.
I think NASCAR did a lot of great work on the new car. Yeah, yeah, I know there aren't many fans of the outward appearance of the new car, but as far as keeping drivers safe under some of the most extreme circumstances, it has done its job ... so far. I do think this fact has given NASCAR officials a false sense of security that they can keep doing what they're doing at Talladega and Daytona and drivers will be safe because of the new car. Safe or not, it's ridiculous that cars are getting airborne on nearly every trip to Talladega nowadays. This isn't an air show, it's a NASCAR race. No matter how safe the car may be, it's not meant to be flipping and flying around. I don't claim to know what the answer is to avoiding the continuous calamities, but I can tell you the half-hearted swings officials continually take at solving the problem -- smaller restrictor-plates, don't go below the yellow line, don't bump-draft in the corners -- aren't going to do a thing. This is a problem that's going to require major surgery, not a Band-Aid.
COMMUNITY GUEST 'Coach 348': In listening to what NASCAR, its drivers and its fans are saying, there need to be changes. How that's accomplished, I'm not sure right now. When the France family built this track, it was built for one reason, and that was speed. Unfortunately, a little too fast now 30 years later. NASCAR has tried to now slow down the cars in an effort to promote "safety", but all that's done is create either huge packs of cars that can't run two- and three-wide for 500 miles, or huge wrecks. NASCAR has made several changes to the cars to slow down the racing, but maybe it's time to look at the track itself. To NASCAR's credit, it's built an incredibly safe race car, and we as fans do take for granted how these drivers can walk away from some horrendous accidents. Although it's scary to see cars flipping and landing on their roofs, that can happen at any track. Joey Logano rolled his car eight times at Dover this season, so it can happen anywhere. The biggest problem with Talladega is the corners are actually capable of allowing a car to go through them at over 230 mph. So to change Daytona or Talladega means to knock down the banking in the corners. It's the only solution to keep the cars from racing in packs, and to slightly decrease the chance of a multicar wreck.
2. Is winning at Talladega all about luck? Should it lose its status as one of the 10 Chase races?
Luck is certainly a part of the equation and it proved to be again on Sunday. But not so much in Jamie McMurray winning -- he led a lot of laps and showed he had a car capable of winning the race pretty much all day -- so his victory wasn't a fluke in my mind. But luck helped Jimmie Johnson, who had been riding around in the back of the pack all day and then took advantage of the last-lap fireworks that finally gave him a sixth-place finish. And luck wasn't so kind to Mark Martin, who went from being 40 points behind Johnson to 184 in less than a couple of laps. The unpredictable nature of Talladega has been in place since the track first opened and keeping it part of the Chase does bring a sense of intrigue to the championship system. Sunday's drama was just the latest chapter of Talladega's reputation.
There was a time when strategy and skill played a part in winning at Talladega, but with the new car and rules package, I don't really feel that's the case anymore. It's a total crapshoot. There's no such thing as being the best driver or having the best car at Talladega because the template of the new car and the restrictor-plate has rendered all the cars equal. Anybody, and I mean anybody, can win at Talladega. Sometimes a driver is in the right place to avoid the wrecks, sometimes he's not. Sometimes a driver picks the line that's moving forward, sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes a driver gets pushed at just the right time, sometimes he gets left out to dry. It's the luck of the draw. That said, despite its many flaws, I'm not against Talladega being a Chase race. Its unpredictable nature offers the opportunity to shake up the point standings and keep things interesting, though this year it did just the opposite, putting Jimmie Johnson all but out of reach because he was the one title contender who lucked out and missed the wrecks at the end of the race.
COMMUNITY GUEST 'Coach 348': Winning at Talladega is not all about luck. You have to stay out of trouble, and put yourself into position to win at the right time. That's the key to winning at Talladega. One thing that is refreshing about plate races is that anybody can win on these tracks. You could be in a Hendrick car, or a one-car operation like James Finch, and you can win this race. Should it lose its status of being in the Chase? I'm actually torn on that one. On one hand, I feel every track type should be represented in the Chase, including a road course. But on the other hand, with so much at stake in the last 10 races, you will get a lot of drivers just riding around logging laps to get to the finish. To me, that's not what fans sign up for when they spend hard earned money to purchase tickets. I'm a Jimmie Johnson fan, and even though he finished sixth last weekend, I didn't enjoy watching him continually log laps in the back, and almost lose the draft. That's not racing, but that's the box these teams are put in at Daytona/Talladega.
3. A.J. Allmendinger was arrested for DWI last week. NASCAR placed him on probation for the rest of the season, while Richard Petty Motorsports fined him $10,000 and put him on probation through 2010. Is the punishment too harsh, too lenient or just right?
I think the punishment from both NASCAR and RPM was just right. While I don't want to undermine the importance of getting people off the road while impaired, I was surprised by so many fans who wanted a stiffer penalty thrown at Allmendinger. I'm fully aware of the hypocrisy of a race car driver being arrested for a DUI. And I think every driver needs to take the responsibility they have as an athlete as well as just a citizen very seriously when it comes to the matter. But I think Allmendinger admitted and recognized his mistake, apologized and took full responsibility and was punished properly. More would have been too much.
Allmendinger isn't the first NASCAR driver to be caught drinking and driving, but let's hope he's the last. I don't think NASCAR needs to make an example of Allmendinger, but it could use this opportunity to put in a more severe punishment on the books for drinking and driving going forward. I'd say at the very least, a suspension from racing in any Daytona Speedweeks event for one year as well as a 12-month probation would be in order for a first-time offense. A second offense should get a driver banned from all NASCAR series for 12 months. And if a driver were lucky enough to get a third chance only to screw up yet again, he should be banned for life.
COMMUNITY GUEST 'Coach 348': Let me first say that I think A.J. is a talented driver, and I enjoy watching him race. But, in my opinion, he got off easy. DWI/DUI is nothing to take lightly, and being in the public eye increases your exposure to any short coming you may have. It's what you signed up for. But you also signed up to be a representative of your team, your owner and your sponsors. A.J. was just signed to a full-time Cup ride the night of this incident, and I wouldn't be surprised if Best Buy (his primary sponsor) pulls the plug. They may not leave RPM, but with as few Cup rides available as there are, there are plenty of drivers to fill that vacated seat. It's unfortunate that it happened, and I'm glad nobody was hurt or killed, but I hope that this will be a real eye-opening experience for Allmendinger and that he can learn from his mistake and move forward. Maybe he should have to ride around with a MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Drivers) sticker on his car all next season.
I guess I just don't get it. You look at Nascar and F1 and you see a bunch of cars parading around in lines and you try to reduce the speeds which just bunches the cars into bigger lines, so you reduce the speeds...... It's racing, it is meant to go as fast as you can. Like it or not the only good racing these days is the IRL. Open wheel toe to toe at 220 mph. It's dangerous but thats racing. NASC
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Like it or not, NASCAR knows that people love Talledega for one reason...the big one. In fact this is promoted constantly with the commentators talking about it starting days before up to and during the race. The build up for the last few laps at Talledega is more about when the big one is going to happen than who is going to win. Maybe to a lesser extent but this is
First I’d say we really have to applaud NASCAR for all of the R&D to make the new car much safer. I will also say there were larger hands at play during Ryan’s wreck this past Sunday. As an ex driver, hearing the statement from Ryan that the roll bar collapsed on his helmet pinning him left me with chills. Chills because if he had not landed on Kevin’s car upside dow
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How do you keep your job you POS. You are stupid enough to blame the drives for the wrecks. Nascar and their stupid idea that people want to watched bunched up racing causes the wrecks. Drives get paid to drive. They try to win. Mark Martin did
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If everyone recalls the first time that two cars started getting away from the pack was with this new, ugly, ill-handling COT car. The front bumper lined up perfectly the rear bumper of another car allowing them to hook up and push the other and eventually get away from the pack. Look at the Spring race when you had Brad K. pushing Carl and Junior pushing Newman, then all hell broke lo
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I have long maintained that the best solution for Daytona and Talladega racing is in the tires. Get rid of the restrictor plates. Give back the horsepower. "Oh, but the speeds will be too dangerous," everyone says. No. The answer is in the tires. Make two changes. Make them more narrow, and make them of a harder compound. The result is that the cars' speed
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I thought for years that smaller 8 or 6 cylinder engine could be a solution at these tracks. I've heard people argue about the costs of developing another engine, but don't teams have "special" enignes for the plate tracks anyway? Reduce the horsepower without the loss of accelleration the plates provide. Thoughts?
