Talladega: NASCAR needs to do something. But will it....and what should it do?

  
  
Talladega Superspeedway, in the heart of Sweet Home Alabama, is gorgeous in the fall....but NASCAR execs still haven't solved those problems on the track. So the drivers respond by simply running single-file? We need some answers. (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

   FORT WORTH, Texas
   Talladega.
   Just the word conjures up such a vivid, ominous image.
   A very scary image.
   Flipping, flying cars.
   Imminent destruction, just an errant bump away.
  Tension? You talk about tension, strap into a NASCAR stocker for a Talladega race.
   Or just stand on pit road and watch these guys.
   Every race at Talladega is a Halloween all its own.
   No wonder NASCAR drivers opted Sunday to "Just ride."
   That appears to be the drivers' mantra now whenever they show up at Talladega Superspeedway.
   It was ironic, more than ironic perhaps, that Sunday's Talladega 500 marked the 40th anniversary of the opening of NASCAR's biggest superspeedway -- a contentious opening, with the creation of stock car racing's Professional Drivers Association (PDA), headed by Richard Petty no less, to protest racing conditions at Talladega Superspeedway.
   Back in 1969 the issue was tires. The track was designed to such then-perfection, in terms of banking and cornering, that a dramatically new tire design was needed. The then-current tires, designed for regular NASCAR tracks, blew out under the excessive conditions.
   Chargin' Charlie Glotzbach won the pole for that first race, in Dodge Charger Daytona -- at an amazing 199.466 mph. But the tires simply couldn't take it.
   So drivers, after some really contentious showdowns with NASCAR's Big Bill France, just loaded up their cars and drove off back to North Carolina, rather than race.
   It was an amazing sight. NASCAR haulers and drivers rolling out of the track...
   France Sr. cajoled enough 'Saturday' drivers to hang around and race in that first 500 (including Richard Childress, then unknown), won by Richard Brickhouse. But Brickhouse never won again, and was shunned by other drivers after that.
   Goodyear quickly came up with a new tire design, one that took that issue out of the equation.
   However, as we all saw again in Sunday's Talladega Amp 500, that 2.66-mile track, halfway between Birmingham, Ala., and Atlanta, on the grounds of an old WWII airfield, racing at Talladega is still controversial.
   Weird things have happened at Talladega so many times, that there is even a sense that it is 'haunted.' Track officials even played upon that legend days before Sunday's race by having an Indian medicine man perform a 'cleansing' ritual to scare away the bad spirits. Apparently that ceremony didn't quite work.
   So what the some 80,000 to 100,000 fans (at a facility which can handle 175,000 facility) saw was two hours of follow the leader racing, a la California Speedway.
    It was clear the drivers were not racing. They were even joking over the radio about it all.
   Then drivers did start going two-wide, even three-wide, but in lanes where they really didn't do much racing.
   It was a stunning display. It was shocking.
   And apparently this isn't the first time, or the second, that Cup drivers have staged something like this at Talladega....only the most obvious.
   The word goes out in the drivers' motorcoach lot: "Just ride."
   And after Sunday's race drivers were open in acknowledging their strategy.
   And they are right -- the big one is going to happen eventually, so why not at least try to hang on to some sanity for as long as possible before things get crazy.
  
  Here's video of Ryan Newman's crash: http://bit.ly/3KHCDR

  
  The first of the two big ones came on lap 185 of the scheduled 188-lapper,  when Ryan Newman got tagged from behind, while running in that big bunch.
   The second one came on the final restart minutes later.
    And this race comes after last fall's controversial finish (when NASCAR took the 'win' away from Ragan Smith and gave it to Tony Stewart) and after that wild flipping crash by Carl Edwards, that injured fans when Edwards' car ripped into the fencing.
    It would seem now that NASCAR needs to come up with a new aerodynamic package, probably a new engine package, perhaps a whole new approach to Talladega.
    Maybe a major test at that track before next year's spring 500.
    It's clear that what NASCAR has done so far hasn't been enough.
   And it's not good enough for the sport's bosses to say 'Just shut up and race.'
    There are several ways to look at all this:
    One, some drivers complain about 'the box' that NASCAR's plate rules have put them in, racing in such tight packs, with engines choked down from 900 horsepower to maybe 430 horsepower.
   Two, other drivers point out that maybe it's the drivers themselves that are causing the wrecks, that there is a brake pedal as well as accelerator.
    NASCAR has tried to manage an impossible situation, it seems. This huge track was designed in the 1960s, as a 'super' Daytona. But NASCAR isn't racing 1960s cars any more.
   The track simply is too fast for the cars.
   Then drivers threw in the bump-draft -- an unexpected spinoff from the new car-of-tomorrow bumpers, which were designed, front-and-rear, to match up flush, so a trailing driver couldn't drive the nose of his car under the rear bumper of another car and lift his rear wheels off the ground.
   With the bump-draft -- and now the push-draft, where one driver will simply tuck his front bumper right next to the leading driver's rear bumper and literally push the two around the track -- things got even more hairy.
   To make things worse, NASCAR officials suddenly changed some of the rules just two hours before the start of the race, promising heavy penalties for drivers doing too much bump-draft or push-drafting in the wrong place.
   The drivers' meeting was downright contentious, with drivers clearly uncertain about what NASCAR really wanted, or what NASCAR officials might really do.
   So the drivers simply rode around for some two hours, before finally getting down to something like racing in the final 100 miles.
   And even that didn't prevent two frightening crashes.
   So will NASCAR and the France family, which owns the track, do anything to change the dynamics before the Sprint Cup tour returns to Talladega next season?
   If so, what should they do?
   One thing to keep in mind -- the fans. And there were way, way too many empty seats Sunday. And when TV ratings come out.....
   NASCAR execs can ignore drivers' complaints, but NASCAR can't ignore the fans. And just a glance at some of the internet comments about this event -- and most were sizzling in anger at the single-file parade -- seems to show a fan revolt.
   The bottom line seems to be that the status quo -- the same old rules, tweaked here and there -- doesn't work.
   NASCAR and its teams -- maybe with driver-engineer Ryan Newman and car owner-engineer Jack Roush leading the way -- need to make a serious effort at changing the Talladega dynamic.
   Obviously just raising the fences and going with even smaller restrictor plates, and trying to rein in bump-draft, didn't work Sunday.
   The drivers, and the fans who didn't show up, showed their displeasure with the current package.
    But NASCAR didn't seem to hear any of the complaints after last fall's Smith-Stewart controversy...or respond adequately to the complaints after the spring crash either.
    In fact, despite open, repeated pleas from Newman for NASCAR to try to do something about these flipping, flying cars at Talladega -- after Edwards' car slammed down on his windshield in April, NASCAR officials didn't do enough, according to Newman, who may well be lucky just to be alive today, considering the roof rollbars on his car were actually touching his helmet as he sat upside down after that dramatic crash.
    We should just be glad Newman's car didn't catch on fire during the five minutes or so it took for safety crews to extract him.
    The late David Poole, in his last column, ironically at Talladega in the spring, made a plea for NASCAR to do something:
    "All I want is for someone to tell me what's acceptable. We apparently established Sunday that seven fans being injured – one spent the night in a hospital with a broken jaw – is OK.
    "It seems we've decided we can live with that much damage being done to the sport's customers for 'good racing.'
   "How many people have to be listed in 'guarded' or 'critical' condition before we say that's too much? Is it lead changes? If we have fewer than five fans hurt for every lead change, is that acceptable?
    "Does somebody have to die before we've decided we don't have control?"
    Poole was right to raise the issue. But how will NASCAR respond?