When Rick Hendrick misses a Victory Lane celebration, skips going to the race track for a weekend, so what? It's old hat -- just another chapter of "been there, done that."

If this ain't your first racing rodeo, you know that same slogan could apply to Victory Lane and James Finch, whose cars have been there hundreds of times in a decades-long career as an owner.

But not for a Cup Series event, which is why I was damned glad when I saw James' quotes from Talladega on Sunday evening, and a day later witnessed Dale Earnhardt Jr. hugging the firebrand owner in a video clip from Talladega's Victory Lane.

But think about it -- Finch miss Talladega? I can hardly imagine that happening, given his history there.

Brad Keselowski's victory Sunday in Finch's Phoenix Racing car was absolute perfection -- a stunning triumph for the independent, by a fierce proponent of independence who's never done anything that wasn't done his way.

You'd never mistake young Keselowski for Jeff Purvis, who won dozens of high-profile, late-model dirt races in Finch's cars before the owner decided to dabble in asphalt racing, which has led him to racing full time in NASCAR's two highest national series.

But you had to cherish Keselowski's consistently brazen, unapologetic attitude -- and that kinda reminded you of Purvis, who back in the day fit Finch the owner as if he were his perfectly molded racing son.

The only troubling thing about Keselowski's entire performance was that he never once mentioned James' longtime sponsor -- but fear not, they got plenty of media exposure by the very nature of the win, and its exuberant aftermath.

That it happened at Talladega also was a critical element of perfection because Talladega, along with Finch's home-state track of Daytona, virtually became his trademark as he picked and chose his Cup appearances, always using the best equipment the successful Florida panhandle businessman could acquire.

For a time at the two superspeedways, Finch and Purvis ruled ARCA's Victory Lanes. But this was different. This was a Cup win, and Finch had wanted to be there for so long, and so badly.

For years Finch raced out of his Lynn Haven, Fla., home area. More recently, he's used the former Buckshot Racing shop complex in Spartanburg, S.C. He continues to support short-track racing and short-track racers.

It's why the win made you happy and sad, all at the same time -- and really made you respect Finch the man who, at times would have been totally in character to fly a skull-and-crossbones pennant from atop his race car hauler.

"This win is the best thing to ever happen to me," said Finch, who's spent millions of his money on his racing programs. But in the very next breath, he spoke of why he races -- even more than that, why everyone who buckles in races -- despite the stunning Talladega finish showing the lap-to-lap potential for disaster.

“

I'd really like to dedicate this race to Neil Bonnett's family. Neil died in my car in '94 trying to do what we did [Sunday].

”

JAMES FINCH

"I'd really like to dedicate this race to Neil Bonnett's family," Finch said, a few hundred yards from the place in 1993 where Alabama legend Bonnett's return to a race car had ended in a crash eerily similar to Carl Edwards', including another car knocking Bonnett's into the spectator fence.

With his first words after getting to the media center, Finch proved how much heart he truly has, and how committed he truly is when he remembered that darkest of days from Speedweeks 1994.

"Neil died in my car in '94 trying to do what we did [Sunday]," Finch said. "I would really like to dedicate that to them and everybody that helped me throughout the years."

Finch once told a former colleague, when discussing his 500th start last season in what's now the Nationwide Series: "I've been trying to get [NASCAR] to bar me for 15 years and they won't. They just penalize. I told them, 'If you just barred me forever, you'd put me out of my misery so I can go on and go boating. No tire bills.' But they won't do me that favor."

Do us all a favor, James. Stay around for another 500 years -- never mind 500 starts.

Mistakes, not plates, make wrecks

Let's make sure this is perfectly clear: Nothing about Sunday's race at Talladega disproved what I've believed forever, and that's that "restrictor plates don't cause wrecks, drivers' mistakes do."

Thank God Sprint Cup director John Darby echoed my thoughts when he said, "I don't understand that thought process," when asked to comment on altering the dimensions of Talladega or Daytona to enable restrictor-plate-less racing.

Having worked through stock-car racing's assault on 200 mph, with the concurrent development of the aero flip, and then witnessing the end of that era at Talladega in 1987 and NASCAR's journey to its most relatively safe car of all time, I'm pretty comfortable with where we are.

Make no mistake that "safe" is a relative term when talking racing. We can't risk a repeat of the 1955 Le Mans, though in small doses it hasn't seemed to matter to the sport as a whole.

But removing risk from racing? That isn't gonna happen, though it's a brave minority that truly supports the notion that there's blatant risk involved in every manner of motorsports that exists.

Anyone else is just kidding themselves.

Wins: Thru Talladega

	2008	2009
Cup Series	2	2
Nationwide	3	2
Truck Series	2	2

Despite Busch's stunning 2008 NASCAR record for victories in a season, nothing he's done so far this season makes this me think Busch in 2009 won't eclipse his total of 21 wins (8 Cup, 10 Nationwide, 3 Truck).

Talladega's the ultimate bank of frustration and Busch was only one guy who proved it, once again, in both the Nationwide and Sprint Cup series races.

So it's still 6 down, 16 to go.

So Richmond comes at a critical point in the schedule, because Busch was certainly good enough to win there in both 2008 Cup races and he's become Victory Lane-capable just about everywhere the Nationwide Series races. But he needs to win a couple times before summer arrives, where Busch excelled a year ago.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.