Thank God the Talladega race is over without anybody getting hurt. Wait, what? A sports event just ended, and my overwhelming sentiment is gratitude that nobody ended up in the hospital? Exactly what does that tell you about the competition? It tells me that plate racing at superspeedways is simply playing with fire. Even if the drivers (and their crews and the fans in the stands) avoid injury, the enormous number of cars that end up ruined add up to millions of dollars. It would be equally fair to take the teams out back behind the garage, hand them a pair of dice, and let them play craps for their finishing spots and the points that go with them. By racing here, the only thing gained is film of dramatic wrecks that NASCAR can utilize in upcoming advertisements. I find that to be irresponsible bordering on negligence.
But back to what I said in the beginning . . . what a relief that everybody is okay. There were seven accidents that involved 33 of the 40 cars in one way or another. More than half of the cars . . . 21 . . . were collected in the "Big One" on lap 160. But perhaps the most spectacular crash happened 20 laps later, when some typical bumb draft pushing from behind by Michael McDowell sent Danica Patrick veering into Matt Kenseth. The two of them flew toward the inside wall, with Patrick's car slamming nose first directly into the inside SAFER barriers, while Kenseth's car flipped and slid on its roof before coming back to land on its wheels. It was amazing that he walked out of his car without a scratch.
Carl Edwards got caught up in an earlier crash on lap 95 that damaged the right front of his racecar. In an effort to avoid spending too much valuable time on pit road, they went back out to log laps, hoping for a quick caution so they could work on the car some more. Unfortunately something broke, because 14 laps later it turned into the outside wall and ended his day in the 35th spot, 79 laps down. As disappointing as it is to have your favorite driver crash out of a race, this typical Talladega result was made a bit more palatable because of the two wins that he had already collected this season.
And those two wins means that it does not really matter that he dropped a bit in the Chase grid and drivers' points. He is now second on the Chase grid, just 5 points behind Kyle Busch, and third in drivers' points, 14 behind Kevin Harvick. That he maintained top three positions in both places is an indication of how dominant his performance has been this season. It was fun to see him perched at the top of both charts during the last week, and it likely won't be long before he finds his way back up to the top again.
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