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Carl Edwards' Take: NASCAR has to change plate racing before someone gets killed
Carl Edwards: Glad to be alive (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
By Mike Mulhern
mikemulhern.net
TALLADEGA, Ala.
The dangers and excitement of restrictor-plate racing at Talladega were clearly showcased here Saturday and Sunday -- And with eight fans injured, and drivers Carl Edwards and Ryan Newman both quite thankful just to still be alive and in one piece after Sunday's Aaron's 499, there will be pressure on NASCAR to figure out some way to make restrictor-plate racing safer.
Surprise winner Brad Keselowski, the newest racer on the Cup tour, running only his fifth race, was furiously pushing veteran Carl Edwards to the front in the final miles, using the high line to catch Ryan Newman and Dale Earnhardt Jr. after the final restart with only four laps to go in the 188-lapper.
And heading down the frontstretch of the last lap, after both had passed Newman and Earnhardt, Keselowski first faked high then dived low, in a bid to pass Edwards for the win.
It's the same scenario that challenger Regan Smith threw at Tony Stewart here last year. Only when Stewart blocked low, Smith – rather than run into Stewart and create a bad situation – moved down below the yellow out of bounds line. Smith did beat Stewart to the line, but NASCAR – in a controversial call – penalized Smith for going below the yellow line and awarded the win to Stewart.
The key here – after winning Sunday's 500-miler Keselowski said he had thought about that Smith-versus-Stewart situation "all weekend," and said he was determined not to "bite the bullet" and yield, as Smith had done.
The result here this time – a horrendous crash.
The issue – if NASCAR had ruled last year that Smith's pass was okay, because he had been 'forced' below the out-of-bounds, then Sunday's last lap wreck would probably not have happened.
Edwards escaped unharmed, but shaken, and angry: Not at Keselowski but rather at the situation drivers face in restrictor-plate racing.
"Brad was pushing, he's doing everything he can. I saw him go high, so I went high. Then he goes low…and I didn't realize he got that far. So I went low to block a little bit, and he was already there…so I turned around backwards.
"At this point I'm thinking 'Boy, I wish this (the soft wall on the outside) were made out of liquid gel material.'
"And then I'm very fortunate we hit the wall in a way it didn't crush my rollcage down on my neck -- because that would have been a lot worse.
"NASCAR just puts us in this box.
"Brad did a great job, and congrats to him on the win.
"But they put us in this box, and we'll race like this until we kill somebody, and then they'll change it.
"But I'm just glad nobody got hurt.
"I'm glad the car didn't go up in the grandstands and hurt somebody."
In 1987 Bobby Allison had a similar crash here at Talladega, which led to NASCAR's restrictor plate rules.
View that incident here
"That was the smartest race I could run, and I guess we ended up 23rd or something. But Brad did his job. We were just racing hard…and we're lucky nobody got hurt.
"That's what Brad is supposed to do: He's assuming I know he's inside. But he was so quick I didn't know he was inside.
"We saw what happened to Regan Smith -- you can't go down below the yellow line or you lose the race. So he's winning…and I was doing everything I could to keep him from winning.
"He went low, and I didn't think he was all the way in there, and I tried to block, and I got turned.
"But that's racing at Talladega.
"I'm glad I'm all right."
The hit, Edwards said, "was pretty hard.
"It was just a little bit scary, because I saw the ground…and then I couldn't tell exactly which part of the car I hit the wall with.
"And I was real worried I hit the roll cage -- and I had to wait a minute to make sure that there wasn't something stuck in me somewhere or something.
"That's a little nerve-wracking, to hit the wall with something other than the side of the race car.
"That's the first time I've flipped in a race car.
"We're put in this box, and we've got to race that way. If you looked at how the top four cars were running, you had to be pushing the guy in front of you.
"So they (NASCAR) can talk about aggressive driving zones…they can talk about whatever they want…but you aren't going to win the race unless you're pushing a guy all the way around the track. And that's where we're at.
"Brad was doing everything right; he was pushing, and that's what you have to do to win.
"I knew he was going to try to get around me. I just didn't realize how much better his car would be when he broke the plane of my rear bumper.
"So when I saw him turn down, I immediately started to turn down, but he had already come up along my left side a couple inches, a foot maybe. So it turned me when I turned down.
"He did everything right. NASCAR puts us in a box: If he drives below the line, he loses the race. So what's a guy supposed to do?
"So you end up having to wreck people, or having to get second, and none of us want to do that.
"I don't know exactly which part of my car hit the fence, but I was real nervous that it was the top of the roll-cage -- and that would have been really, really bad.
"Hopefully they can do something somehow to change this style of racing.
"Look, Brad is a great guy. He's awesome. He's one of my heroes.
"He's a guy who has worked hard to get where he’s at; he can't give up the win.
"He's got to let me turn across his hood. That's what I'd do to him. It's what we have to do.
"I don't know how I'd change this racing. I know it's a spectacle for everybody, and that's great and all...but it's not right to ask all these guys to come out and do this.
"What if the car goes up in the grandstands and kills 25 people?
"At some point they've got to say 'Look, we've got to change this around a little bit.'
"I was thinking about that out there: What’s the point? I ran around in the back all day; I didn't race until the last 30 laps...so what's the point of the whole event?
"It's just a spectacle. That's cool -- I can deal with that. But it shouldn't be worth points.
"I guess if I had to do it over again I'd just move over and let him go and finish fourth. I wouldn't even try to win, because you're going to have wrecks like that if you try.
"I don't know if I could live with myself if I ended up in the grandstands."
Racing in a big cluster makes for thrilling racing at Talladega, and packs the stands....but at what cost? (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
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At some point these drivers
At some point these drivers have to stop blaming the rules and start accepting responsibility themselves. They, not the rules, are causing these wrecks. They gripe about safety in restrictor plate racing and how "we'll race like this until somebody gets killed" - in the last two decades we already had drivers killed at New Hampshire, Charlotte, Texas, Michigan, and Atlanta, and they don't run restrictor plates.
Yes: drivers cause the
Yes: drivers cause the crashes, not the rules. But drivers have to play according to the rules, and try to use the rules to win. If NASCAR had not taken away that win from Regan Smith last season, the Sunday crash probably wouldn't have happened. Yes, it might still have been a replay of Allison-Yarborough Daytona '79.....but who caused this particular crash -- Keselowski, or Edwards?
I blame Edwards more than
I blame Edwards more than Keselowski here. Yes Keselowski should be ripped for blasting Edwards into orbit but he admitted fault here. Edwards has spent the day or two shifting blame to the rules; he didn't hold his line when he saw he'd been outmaneuvered. Yes, trying to win is good, but when it turns ugly you need to admit you screwed up and not try to shift blame.
The yellow line rule has needed to be dropped irrespective of the crash issue; the crash issue is part of it but the whole concept that NASCAR has any business policing where they race on the track is wrong, period.
BTW, has anyone else noticed how spread out the cars were in that wreck? People need to stop with that "they gotta separate the cars" argument.
The deaths at the tracks you
The deaths at the tracks you mentioned did get the SAFER barriers installed at almost every track on the schedule. With some of the vicious hits into those safer barriers over the last 2-3 seasons, more deaths might have occurred. The IRL did not address flying parts into the crowd until a few people died at Charlotte way up in the stands. The "antifreeze" seats always seem dangerous to me, but if there is a solution to spread the cars out that is simply being avoided it's pretty ignorant to sacrifice a fan or two before someone has the guts to do something about the problem. Without the massive packs of cars, there might not be a need for the double-yellow line at the bottom of the track because the big pack would be a thing of the past. That rule, and it's anti-common sense enforcement caused that wreck yesterday. Without the big packs of cars, there is no need for that rule. With a smaller engine and no restrictor plates, there are no big packs of cars.
To fireballroberts: 1 - Yes
To fireballroberts:
1 - Yes those tracks put in SAFER barriers but as we saw with Hamlin's concussion last year they're not foolproof and chances are at some point there will be a spate of driver deaths despite the SAFER barriers.
2 - You make the same mistake I addressed in the first response by whining about the massive packs of cars. The packs are not the problem and never were. There is no need for a yellow line rule regardless of the packs; that rule hasn't prevented any wrecks and certainly Keselowski would have had a clean pass if NASCAR didn't have such a rule. And incidentally, in the Edwards wreck the cars were spread out like crazy.
1 - Nothing is "foolproof"
1 - Nothing is "foolproof" when you crash in a race car doing the speeds these guys do. Helmets, belts, seats, HANS devices, and safer barriers are all just helpful in reducing the severity of injuries sustained in crashes. Drivers can still die. Fans know that, and so do the drivers.
2 - The big packs ARE what caused NASCAR to implement the double-yellow line rule. The rule was not necessary before restrictor plates were implemented at these huge tracks because the cars were spread out more and one dumb move did not take out half of the field. Drivers weren't ducking out of line on the apron and cutting off cars to get back in line. Nobody knows if it has prevented any wrecks, and there is no way to measure that. It does help to keep drivers from making those bad moves, and you could imply that it helps prevent wrecks by doing that. Without the double-yellow line and the restrictor plate, would the accident still have happened? Perhaps, but the option would have been there for Crashalowski to go to the apron to finish the pass or to back out slightly and still be able to regain momentum (which you can't do with a restrictor plate).
The yellow line rule wasn't
The yellow line rule wasn't necessary before OR now, fireball. The "one dumb move" argument ignores that more than a few cars that got into these wrecks did so because they tried to "race" through the scene to escape it like they do everywhere - it's the old "aim for them because they'll be gone by the time you get there" deal. I don't blame anyone for that; it is what it is, to coin a Bill Belichickism.
"Drivers weren't ducking out of line on the apron and cutting off cars to get back in line." I have a bunch of old racing films - from the old Car & Track TV series, from actual racecasts, etc. - and at Talladega etc. drivers were indeed cutting off cars to get back in line; in the 1984 Talladega 500 Earnhardt chopped off Ron Bouchard (as seen from Bill Elliott's in-car camera) and others more than once to get back in line while Buddy Baker was sideswiping Cale Yarborough all race (including a great in-car POV from Richard Petty's in-car camera) to get back in line; on the final lap Cale nearly took out himself, Allison, and Waltrip off Four all the way to the stripe trying to get in line.
That drivers weren't ducking onto the apron back then isn't the same as passing below the yellow line.
There is a way to measure whether the yellow line rule works - name wrecks that happened before the rule that happened BECAUSE of racing below the yellow line a la Tony Stewart in the 2001 Firecracker (one of the very first guys to get busted under the yellow line rule). In the decades I've followed the sport I have never once seen a wreck that happened BECAUSE of racing below the yellow line.
If the yellow line rule were not there, Keselowski would have cleared Edwards in the trioval; Edwards might have been able to sidedraft him but the way Newman and Junior were coming there's no way he could have held on to win.
This issue has needed to be
This issue has needed to be dealt with for the last 10 years, and NASCAR keeps throwing baking soda on the inferno in an "effort" to keep the cars from being bunched up. They've tried smaller fuel tanks, bigger spoilers, and different sized restrictor plates. None of those changes have worked. The one thing they have not done is to mandate a smaller engine for Daytona and Talledega so that a restrictor plate is not needed. This should make the racing more like it was in the 70's and 80's. The draft would still be important, but you would not have 30-40 cars running in a pack. How about a 328 block motor, or a 305? Do some testing to see what kind of speeds the cars turn on the superspeedways. The cars used for these tracks are already very different from the ones that go to the other tracks in every aspect except appearance, so why not change the motors so the cars will be spread out and so the driver will have some throttle response (instead of having to hold down the pedal all the time).
I have been trying to get
I have been trying to get NASCAR and teams to do some computer simulations with such changes, not only at daytona and talladega but at tracks like california and atlanta. with all the engineers this sport has, and all the computer dudes, run some simulations and see what might work....and, hey, maybe even a test -- like with real tires at the real track. Let's hold the guys and their cars for a post-race Monday test at some of these tracks. Robert Yates started talking about smaller, less powerful engines some 15 years ago, and if a process had been started then, we wouldn't be in this fix now. 210 mph into the flat first turn at California? give me a break. Tear around 10 pages out of the rule book and let these crew chiefs get innovative.
Everyone forgets the V6
Everyone forgets the V6 engine used in BGN in the late 1980s and early 1990s - it was about 280 CID and it needed restrictor plates all the same as 358s. People also forget that NASCAR tested a 305 around 1992 or '93 in apparant hope of an alternative to the plates and it provided no alternative.
Moreover, why SHOULD the packs be broken up? It's not good racing to break up the packs, and in case everyone forgot, the field was spread out badly in the Edwards crash.
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