Keselowski holds off field for Talladega victory

Posted on May 1, 2016 by Reid Spencer

TALLADEGA, Ala. — Taking control in the final three laps of Sunday’s wreck-filled GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, Brad Keselowski claimed his fourth NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victory at the 2.66-mile race track and solidified his spot in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

Choosing the top lane for a restart on Lap 186 of 188, Keselowski powered his No. 2 Team Penske Ford past Kurt Busch with two laps left and crossed the finish line as a gaggle of cars wrecked behind him coming to the stripe.

“The last three or four restarts before that, the high lane had went, and as the leader a lot of it is out of your control,” Keselowski said in Victory Lane. “You need the cars behind you to push and a couple of them they did and a couple they didn’t. That’s just part of racing, and there was nobody at fault with that.

“We actually lost the lead and got a better run. Jamie McMurray behind me gave me a great push, and then Kyle Busch gave me a push that was big to clear the 41 (Kurt Busch), and without those two I couldn’t have made it to the front. So ‘Thank you’ to them. It’s Talladega. This is my fourth win here. I never thought I’d win at Talladega four times, and I’m super-pumped. This is awesome.”

In claiming the 19th victory of his career, Keselowski became the fourth two-time winner in the Sprint Cup series this season.

The race ended under caution, with Kyle Busch in second place and Austin Dillon bringing his battered No. 3 Chevrolet home in third as the survivor of two early crashes. McMurray ran fourth, one spot ahead of polesitter Chase Elliott, who worked his way up from ninth to fifth after the final restart.

Ty Dillon finished sixth after taking over for Tony Stewart under the first caution on Lap 51, a move that proved wise given the combination of Stewart’s recent recovery from a broken back and the chaos that followed late in the race. Clint Bowyer was seventh — his best result so far this year — and Kurt Busch was shuffled back to eighth on the final lap.

With drivers jockeying for position and making risky moves throughout the race — with a sense of urgency exacerbated by the threat of rain that never came — Sunday’s event featured 10 cautions and more torn-up race cars than one can count on a full complement of fingers and toes.

There wasn’t just one “Big One.” There were three massive wrecks at Talladega on Sunday, with one melee on Lap 161 involving 21 cars, more than half the field. Kurt Busch ignited that accident by tapping Jimmie Johnson‘s bumper in the wrong place, turning Johnson’s No. 48 Chevrolet into Paul Menard‘s Chevy and triggering a wreck that ended with chassis strewn across the racing surface and on the infield grass.

On Lap 181, a 12-car chain-reaction incident took out hard-luck Matt Kenseth, who had led 39 laps, second only to Keselowski’s 46.

Earlier, on Lap 96, Chris Buescher‘s No. 34 Ford took the brunt of a seven-car crash that ended with Buescher barrel-rolling three times after contact from Michael Annett‘s Chevrolet.

“I thought we were clear of the wreck,” Buescher said after leaving the infield care center. “I saw it happening in front of us and checked up, and the next thing I knew I was upside down.

“We felt we were decent this race. We were holding our own and waiting, but here we are. It’s unfortunate. I really hate it for the guys.”

By the time Buescher flipped, Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s winning chance already had evaporated. Fighting a loose handling condition in heavy traffic, Earnhardt lost control of his No. 88 Chevrolet on Lap 50 and wiped out Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kasey Kahne.

Earnhardt returned to the race only to be ridden into the Turn 1 wall when Carl Edwards‘ damaged Toyota blew a right front tire and shot up the track into Earnhardt’s path.

That was a two-car incident, a small one relative to the multicar crashes that followed in the second half of the race, which, in true restrictor-plate racing fashion, produced 37 lead changes among 17 drivers.

“You know, it’s just Talladega,” Kyle Busch said, summing up the afternoon. “It is what it is. These cars, you try to get a little bit aggressive, start bumping people and pushing people, they’re real easy to get out of control.

“I really don’t know why we’re bumping and pushing and everything else, because these cars, they go slower when you push. Makes a lot of sense. That’s how stupid we are.”

Keselowski might argue that point, because pushes from both McMurray and Busch got him to the front when it counted most.

Posted on May 1, 2016 by Pat DeCola

TALLADEGA, Ala. — Austin Dillon, driving a Chevrolet with NASCAR’s most famous number — 3 — on its side panels, nearly matched one of Dale Earnhardt’s most extraordinary feats at the exact location it happened, mere days after what would’ve been the 65th birthday of the late, great “Intimidator.”

Instead, he still came home with a career-best finish in what was the wildest race the Sprint Cup Series has seen in some time.

“We started 17th with three laps to go and finished third,” Dillon said after the GEICO 500. “So, from 17th to third, that was pretty cool. One guy came up to me in the suite (before the race), said Dale’s last win here (in 2000), he came from 15th to first. Maybe if we started 15th, we could have gotten there.”

Looking at Dillon’s Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet after the race, you’d never have thought it was a third-place car. It was as banged up as any car after 500 laps at Bristol and appeared to have more tape on its front right quarter panel than 3M has in one of its warehouses.

TEAMWORK. We pitted 17 times. Wrecked 4 times. Ran out of tires. We were 32nd 1 lap down. We NEVER quit. Result = P3 pic.twitter.com/PjxAxjE893

— greg osborne (@greg_ozz) May 1, 2016

But you should’ve seen the rest of the field.

Dillon’s ride was one of a handful that actually made it to the checkered flag on the lead lap, a borderline miracle given he pitted a whopping 16 times — a race-high, with no other driver hitting pit lane more than 13, including some of those involved in some of the several “Big One(s).”

“We pitted (16) times. That’s amazing,” Dillon said. “The car was killed and we came home with a third-place finish. What a good day.

“It’s a testament to my guys. They never panicked today. We’ve panicked a lot this year on certain problems and today was smooth and calm and they handled their situations that they were put through and it was a great race for us. … We’ve been meeting about it the last couple weeks. We can’t lose our minds because sometimes it’s just not your day.”

The finish is Dillon’s third top-five of the year, eclipsing his career total (two) since he began running Cup races in 2011. The 26-year-old finds himself in unfamiliar territory 10 races into the season — the top 10 in points standings.

Immediately after the race he was able to enjoy his showing, but he may be more thankful he made it out relatively unscathed — his car not included — once he watches a replay of the race.

“Truthfully I don’t know everything that happened yet, so I am really excited about my third‑place finish because I know what our team went through today,” said Dillon, currently on pace for his first career Chase for the Sprint Cup berth. “I did see a video of AJ Allmendinger getting out, and he looked pretty shook up. I hope everybody is all right from all these crashes. I haven’t got a chance to look at all of them. I pray they’re all all right.

“For me, I’m proud of our team. If you guys can see the car, if you go look at it, you would never expect it to get to third.”

Dale, undoubtedly, would be proud, too.

Posted on May 1, 2016 by Pat DeCola

TALLADEGA, Ala. — Perhaps it’s time for Dale Earnhardt Jr. to break up with “Amelia.”

The Hendrick Motorsports driver and Chevrolet Chassis No. 88-872 — affectionately dubbed “Amelia” by Junior after trailblazing pilot Amelia Earhart — had their moments, winning twice in four restrictor-plate events in 2015, but things went sour early between the power couple in Sunday’s GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, as they did in the season-opening Daytona 500.

RELATED: ‘Amelia’ goes spinning at Daytona

The first caution of the race flew when the No. 88 driver appeared to lose control while driving in the midst of the lead pack on Lap 49 of the scheduled 188-lap event. “Amelia” suddenly spun, and No. 5 Kasey Kahne slammed into his HMS teammate, doling out significant damage.

“Just got loose. I was in a bad spot with the wind. It pinned the nose real hard off the corner and the car was a little bit loose off the corner that run,” Earnhardt explained at his hauler. “Real, real tight the first run (which) is why we fell back, we were just on the splitter real bad pushing. I could only run the top, I couldn’t even run the middle or the bottom because the car just would plow across the race track.

“So, we missed something this morning, I don’t know, but the thing shouldn’t have been on the splitter that hard. We couldn’t fix that. You have to put packer in the front or something when it is on the splitter as bad as it was. It was still on the splitter that second run. I had a lot of wheel in the car in the middle of the corner and then the back was swinging on the exit with the adjustments we made on the pit stop. Just a bad combination … We just got to look at what we are doing on our adjustments and try not to do that.”

Earnhardt, who said “the same thing that happened at Daytona to us,” took his car to the garage to assess the damage, his crew working to get his ride back on track shortly after the halfway mark, 46 laps down.

Not long after, the No. 88 again ran into trouble after making hard contact with the No. 19 of Carl Edwards on Lap 110, forcing its hood up over the windshield and catching on fire.

WATCH: Edwards finishes off Junior’s bad day

“We were just out there riding around and something broke on the 19 and he came up into us and we were just out there chilling out, having fun,” Earnhardt said.

More importantly, it appeared to cause a problem with the No. 88’s steering wheel, which completely came off.

“Oh, it (came) off. Yeah, I didn’t have it on there. Luckily it was under caution,” said Earnhardt, who managed to corral his machine without taking another major hit. “I just grabbed the shaft and steered the car that way. Ripped the skin off my hand, but I wasn’t going to let it hit the wall. That was just a freak deal. … We’re working on something to keep that from happening going forward.”

The car did not return to the track after that, saddling Earnhardt with a 40th-place finish and possibly resulting in a final resting spot for “Amelia” in Earnhardt’s car graveyard.

“Hell, I’m going home. I’m done,” Earnhardt said. “We need to park the car for a while, too.”

Posted on April 30, 2016 by Nascar

TALLADEGA, Ala. — NASCAR XFINITY Series Managing Director Wayne Auton said officials felt “100 percent that we got it exactly right” in flagging Elliott Sadler the winner in Saturday’s Sparks Energy 300 at Talladega Superspeedway.

The official results were delayed after a hard crash involving Joey Logano and Blake Koch brought out the caution flag as the field raced to the checkered flag following an overtime restart at the fast, 2.66-mile superspeedway.

The incident was typical for Talladega and chaotic for officials trying to sort out the running order while also making sure those involved in the incident were attended to as quickly, and a safely, as possible.

RELATED: See the wreck that came at the end of the race

“At the end of the race we knew that everybody was going to be jockeying for position trying to get that win to get into the XFINITY (Series) Chase,” Auton said. “We use every resource we can. Our main goal is to make sure that we got it right. It took us a little time up in the tower. We feel 100 percent that we got it exactly right. We used film … eyes … we took our time in the tower.”

Video replays from cameras located inside the track, outside the track and from high above were studied not only to determine who was leading the race at the time the yellow flag appeared, but also to determine the running order of others throughout the field.

RELATED: Ride with the Nos. 22 and 48 on the final lap

Auton said there was never any question about whether the caution was necessary.

“Our No. 1 job in this sport is safety of these drivers, safety of crewmembers and of fans,” he said. “When you see a car turn hard right … it’s pretty scary. With all the safety features we’ve applied, the safer walls that are all the way around all of our race tracks now … and the safety features that we have inside the car, our No. 1 concern was when the 22 car hit (was) to make sure that Joey was OK.

“Automatically we went ahead and put out the caution. We felt like it was the right time. As you saw, another car came in and made contact with the 22 when he came off the wall. We need to start getting the guys to roll out of the throttle for the safety of the other drivers.”

Logano (Team Penske) was the leader when the field roared off the fourth turn for a final time. But contact with Sadler — Logano later said it was likely he that moved down on the JR Motorsports driver — sent his car into the outside wall.

Although Sadler’s No. 1 Chevrolet dropped below the yellow line, it was the result of the contact. More importantly, Auton said, Sadler did not advance his position, which the rule does not allow.

“He was also forced down there when … he and the 22 car made contact,” he said. “In our eyes, he did not gain any positions, he was already there. It was legal by the rules.”

Posted on April 30, 2016 by Nascar

TALLADEGA, Ala. – Ignore the dateline to the left. For accuracy’s sake, list this one from CARE CENTER.

Because that’s where we found Joey Logano, previously the race leader, following Saturday’s Sparks Energy 300 NASCAR XFINITY Series race at Talladega Superspeedway.

Maybe he won the ride to get the medical once-over, but he wound up 27th when the official race results were posted.

The Team Penske driver wasn’t injured. Blake Koch, a series regular, wasn’t either; he had already returned to his team’s truck in the garage by the time Logano walked out of the infield care center.

Both were involved in a last-lap crash, one of those hard, grinding, lift your car up off the asphalt incidents Saturday at Talladega. It was one of those that took officials several minutes to sort out and left Victory Lane sitting temporarily empty.

Logano called it “just typical superspeedway racing … racing for the win at the end.”

Koch confirmed it’s not something he wants “to go through again.” But quickly added “it’s definitely not going to hold me back from trying to make the big move coming to the checkered flag.”

A race that went three laps beyond its scheduled distance came to a head on the final circuit, with Logano leading and Elliott Sadler (JR Motorsports) trying his best to alter the outcome.

When Sadler slid inside as they came to the tri-oval, the back of Logano’s Ford went the other way. Contact sent Sadler’s Chevy to the apron. It sent Logano into the wall front-end first.

Koch, on the outside and trailing the leaders, slammed into the right rear of Logano’s entry.

“It is what it is,” Logano said afterward. “That is speedway racing. If you put 40 cars in a pack going 200 mph racing for a win, we are going to crash. Let’s be honest.

“It is exciting, though, and our cars are really safe. That is the hardest hit I have ever taken. I am impressed with the way the car held up and the way Team Penske built my Mustang — they made sure to make safety first, and that says a lot about us.

“Yeah we hit hard, yeah the ego is a little hurt but I am OK.”

He wasn’t, he said, “dumped” by Sadler, the eventual winner. “I’m sure he was there and I turned down.”

When Koch was located in the garage, the results were still being tabulated. “I’ll feel different depending on where we finish,” he said. “When you take a risk like that at the end, you want it to pay off.”

Officially, score the No. 11 of Koch in 24th.

“I could have stayed in the bottom lane and finished 10th, 11th, 12th, wherever we were,” Koch said. “I had that run and went to the top and it was working until the 22 (of Logano) got spun.

“When you’re going 200 mph you can’t just stop. I tried to turn as much as I could but you’re in the tri-oval, your car is loose there anyway … I just wanted to get to the finish line.

“I got there, just not the way I wanted to.”

Posted on April 30, 2016 by Nascar

TALLADEGA, Ala. — In his mind, the best race Dale Earnhardt Jr. ever ran at Talladega Superspeedway won’t be remembered for one simple reason.

“Because I didn’t win,” the Hendrick Motorsports driver said Friday during a day of practice on the 2.66-mile layout.

“I’m disappointed because of what happened in that race and what we were doing with the car and what the car was doing was amazing. It sucks because we were just 6 inches short of being declared the winner. … We’ve lost a lot of races here, but I can’t even remember any of them that stand out like that.”

A winner in the spring race at Talladega, Earnhardt Jr. returned in the fall needing another victory to keep his championship hopes alive. Although he led a race-high 61 laps, officials determined that Joey Logano (Team Penske) was the leader and thus the winner when the caution came out on a green-white-checkered restart that froze the field and ended the race.

Fifty-five. That’s how many races the 41-year-old Earnhardt has lost on tracks where NASCAR requires the use of restrictor plates to keeps speeds in check.

However, 10 wins during a career that launched full-time in 2000, puts the son of a seven-time champion in the role of the favorite in plate races. That’s twice as many as the soon-to-be-retired Tony Stewart and six-time champion Jimmie Johnson.

It’s as much a statement about the car, Earnhardt said, as the driver. And what one does with it.

“If the car can’t complete the passes that my mind mentally wants it to make, then I won’t be as offensive and as confident in making those moves,” he said.

“When I was driving the (Budweiser) car, around 2003, ’04, ’05 when we were winning all those races, I raced as hard in practice as I did in the race. …You kind of can set the tone early in the weekend with your competitors that this is who you’re going to be out on the track; plus this is the car you’ve got.”

It certainly helped that his father, Dale Earnhardt, was a master of plate racing, winning 13 times combined at Talladega and Daytona.

“I learned a tremendous amount because I solely watched him whereas, someone else who grew up around the sport may not have focused as much on one particular driver,” Earnhardt Jr. said.

Joe Gibbs Racing drivers Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards have combined to win the last four NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races heading into Sunday’s GEICO 500 (1 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Fellow JGR teammate Denny Hamlin scored the win in the season-opener at Daytona, the most recent restrictor-plate race.

MORE: Edwards: ‘Kyle and I haven’t talked’ since Richmond

“You can’t make stupid mistakes,” Edwards, still searching for his first plate-track win, said. “I learned that early on.”

Caught up in an incident during one restrictor-plate race, Edwards said he told then-car owner Jack Roush afterward “something like, ‘Man, there’s just nothing I could do to miss the wreck.’ “

At which point Roush gave his driver a piece of advice. “He said, ‘You might want to go look at the tape because you drove right past Tony Stewart into the wreck and he somehow missed it.’

“I went back and watched and I learned from that,” Edwards said. “You really have to be watching ahead and you have to pay attention.”

That he’s yet to win a restrictor-plate race is perplexing, considering the 36-year-old has 27 career victories.

“I don’t need to see my stats at these places,” he said, “because they’re not good. … I’d like to get a superspeedway win. We’ve got great cars and we’ve got great teammates. I feel like I know how to run these races, but I just haven’t been able to get the victory out of it. Hopefully we can do that.”

Edwards isn’t the only notable still searching for that first plate win. Former series champion Kurt Busch (2004) and Martin Truex Jr., who lost to Hamlin by a nose at Daytona, are as well.

“We’ve seen Dale over the years just really show everybody how it’s done and that’s because he has a really good understanding of the air, the way it works and knowing how to use that to his advantage,” Truex Jr. (Furniture Row Racing) said. “For me … I’ve kind of had good races and bad and lately I feel like I’ve learned a lot more and gotten better at it, but there’s still a lot to learn.

MORE: Five to Watch: Sleeper picks | Wildest Talladega wrecks

Posted on April 30, 2016 by Nascar

TALLADEGA, Ala. — A week after returning to NASCAR Sprint Cup Series competition, Tony Stewart becomes a start-and-park driver.

In a manner of speaking. Start-and-watch might be more appropriate.

The three-time premier series champion missed the season’s first eight points races after suffering a back injury during the offseason.

Stewart is scheduled to start his No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet in Sunday’s GEICO 500 (1 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Talladega Superspeedway before turning over the wheel to XFINITY Series driver Ty Dillon .

It’s an infrequent turn of events, but something that does happen from time to time in NASCAR.

Last season, Erik Jones stepped in for Denny Hamlin at Bristol Motor Speedway after the Joe Gibbs Racing driver developed a neck spasm during a rain delay. Jones finished 26th.

Hamlin was also involved in a driver swap at Talladega in 2013. Injured in an accident at Auto Club Speedway, Hamlin started the Aaron’s 499 but eventually gave up the seat to Brian Vickers.

J.J. Yeley replaced Bill Elliott during a race here in 2011; he also replaced Stewart in ’08 during the summer race at Daytona.

Stewart, speaking to the media Friday at Talladega, said he expects to do “what I always do around here at the beginning of the race … just ride around in the back until we get to the first caution.”

It won’t be “glamorous,” he said, but it meets his doctors’ request. Well, almost. According to Stewart, his doctors didn’t want him competing at all this weekend.

“We need the points and so we talked them into letting us to at least start the race,” said Stewart, who sits 101 points out of 30th.

MORE: Standings pre-Talladega

“I told them it normally doesn’t go more than two or three laps at the beginning of the race before a caution. It might go 82 or 83 laps, who knows? But, we’ll run until it gets there.”

Unofficially, the last time a relief driver won a NASCAR premier series race was 1977, and it occurred at Talladega as well. Donnie Allison started what was then a July race but eventually turned the driving over to Darrell Waltrip due to illness.

Waltrip replaced Allison with 23 laps remaining and took the lead with six to go when race leader Skip Manning’s car suffered mechanical problems.

According to NASCAR rules, points earned by an entry are awarded to the driver starting the race, meaning Stewart will be credited with those earned Sunday by Dillon.

Posted on April 30, 2016 by Staff Report

Denny Hamlin: If Joe Gibbs Racing can get organized in the same way it did at Daytona in February, the No. 11 could be the winning ticket at Talladega. — Zack Albert

Dale Earnhardt Jr.: Series’ best plate racer has had three runner-up finishes this season. He’s due. — Kenny Bruce

Jimmie Johnson: This will mark the 10th Talladega race since Johnson last won here and, quite simply, it’s time. While his teammates will grab the lion’s share of the attention, “Six-Time” will ultimately hold the winner’s trophy — his third. — Holly Cain

Joey Logano: Entering the weekend, I’d already pegged Joey Logano as the favorite — then he went out and topped final practice. Seemingly due for a win and with a pair of restrictor-plate victories in his back pocket from last year, what more are you looking for? — Pat DeCola

Ryan Blaney: His best Cup finish came in this race last year and Penske, with whom Wood Brothers is affiliated, has taken two of the last three ‘Dega races. — RJ Kraft

Dale Earnhardt Jr.: I’m jumping on the Junior bandwagon. He’s always the one to beat at the 2.66-mile track and he’ll make it difficult for the rest of the field en route to his seventh Cup win here. — Maggie MacKenzie

Brad Keselowski: The 2012 premier series champion spoils the recent Hendrick-JGR show of power, thanks to his own racing ingenuity and plenty of fast Fords with which to partner. — Brad Norman

Brad Keselowski: The Team Penske driver earned his first Cup win in 2009 at Talladega and has won twice more since. Couple that with he and teammate Joey Logano‘s history of working closely together on-track — a crucial element to plate racing — and ‘Dega Victory Lane could be calling Keselowski’s name. — Jessica Ruffin

Matt Kenseth: All the bad luck that the No. 20 team has had this year has masked impressive speed. Talladega is about both luck and speed. With the former in hand as shown by his fourth-place qualifying effort, Kenseth is due for a more auspicious turn of his fortune. — Kathy Sheldon

Denny Hamlin: Hamlin saw Victory Lane two years ago at Talladega and with his 2016 Daytona 500 win under his belt, the JGR driver seems ready to dominate another superspeedway this season. — Taylor Starer

Chase Elliott: His dad won here twice and the man who drove the No. 24 before him won here six times. Talladega has been known to produce dramatic moments, so let’s root for another one to happen Sunday. — George Winkler

Make your picks in Streak to the Finish!

Posted on April 30, 2016 by Staff Report

RELATED: Full lineup

Matt Tifft topped the leaderboard during Saturday’s single-car qualifying session to earn the 21 Means 21 Pole Award at Talladega Superspeedway. Tifft, in the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, posted a fastest lap of 181.168 mph.

Tifft’s teammate Daniel Suarez will join him on the front row for the Sparks Energy 300 after posting the second-fastest lap during the two-round single-car qualifying event (180.846 mph).

Rounding out the top three was the No. 2 of Austin Dillon, soaring around the 2.66-mile track at 180.506 mph.

The third JGR entry Erik Jones was fourth-quickest, logging a fast lap of 180.366 mph. Next was the No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet of Ty Dillon (180.217 mph), rounding out the top five.

Defending race winner Joey Logano will start on the fourth row in eighth (178.817 mph).

Josh Reaume, Derrike Cope and Mike Harmon failed to qualify for the 40-car event.

The 300-mile event is set for 3 p.m. ET (FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).