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“It was the same way for him, he couldn’t get a run on me. Track position was everything. We’ve run up front all year long. For me to come to Talladega and win is just huge.”
The “big one” -- a 27-car melee that resulted in a 40-minute red-flag stoppage of the event and the premature exit for some 19 competitors -- began as the field, running in two-by-two formation, exited Turn 2 on lap 14.
Kenny Wallace and Scott Riggs got together while battling for position in the top-five, forcing Riggs to hit the brakes. Just behind him was rookie Shane Hmiel.
Unable to slow down in time, Hmiel hit Riggs in the rear, sending Riggs down the track and square into pole-sitter Johnny Sauter’s passenger-side door. Sauter got turned around and went airborne, triggering the massive pileup that ended up blocking the back straightaway.
“That was just a chain reaction,” said Riggs, last week’s winner at Nashville Superspeedway. “I had a run on (Wallace) on the outside. Kenny moved up, acted like he was gonna block me, but realized I was too far up. He still came up, he got into me. When I checked up, Shane checked up. Somebody got him from behind and he hit me.”
“Me and the 10 were racin’ pretty good,” Hmiel said. “(Wallace) moved up on him. (Riggs) lost his nose and we had to check up and everybody run into the back of us. Everybody probably thinks it’s my fault. It’s not.
“That really stinks. Everybody waits for the big one -- they got it.”
Sixteen drivers were treated and released from the infield care center following the insanity, including a wide-eyed Sauter.
“I don’t know what happened," said Sauter, a series rookie. "That's the first time I've ever been on my lid. I didn't know this was gonna turn into a Sprint car race. Man, dirt is all over me ... pretty cool."
After the madness, Keller, Compton and Kenny Wallace hooked up together and checked out, gradually building as much as a 30-second lead over the second draft, headed up by fourth-place Jeff Purvis. They rode along unchallenged until lap 66, when it was time for scheduled green flag pit stops.
After all three teams pitted for right-side tires and fuel, Keller was cycled into the lead on lap 68. He never relinquished it.
“I felt like we had a good car, but the crew really won that race for me when they got me off pit road first,” Keller said. “I’ve been hard on ‘em these last couple weeks with bad stops, but they won me one today.
“I know I don’t like to mirror drive, but you get down to 10 to go and I drove in my mirror. I saw Dale Earnhardt do it a lot, so I used that.”
Wallace had a third-place car after the “big one,” but when the caution flew on lap 75 for debris on the track, he pitted to assess a right-side vibration. His motor eventually expired with six laps remaining in the 117-lap race. Still, he finished ninth.
“I was sitting there, running along in third,” Wallace said. “After that wreck, a lotta guys were running along with stuff falling off of their cars. Something fell off one of the cars and some debris went into the radiator and broke the radiator. I didn’t have nothing for (Keller) and (Compton).”
Just three cars finished on the lead lap: Keller, Compton and Tim Fedewa. Despite being a lap down, Todd Bodine and Casey Mears finished fourth and fifth, respectively.
“It’s good to be disappointed with second, but we’re very disappointed,” Compton said. “We had a great car. We had a freak thing go wrong -- the hood decal got stuck in the cowl. To get that close and not win is tough, but it’s a good disappointment.”
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