Kenny Bruce: Talladega tempest marches on and on
Mark Martin's Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet rolls across the track in Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup Amp Energy 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. // LaDon George, NASCAR Scene
COMMENTARY
NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series rolls into Texas Motor Speedway this weekend for the eighth stop of this year’s 10-race Chase For The Sprint Cup. Talladega’s in the rearview mirror, put away once again as the series moves on.
And that’s too bad. Because NASCAR has some serious issues with races contested at the series’ largest track, high-flying, wheels-off-the-ground issues.
Every time the Sprint Cup Series rolls into Talladega, mayhem ensues. It’s a given. Pick a year, any year, and chances are there was at least one wreck at Talladega that collected six or more cars. It happened with the old car, and it has happened with the new car. It happened with bigger restrictor plates, and it has happened with smaller restrictor plates.
It’s simply not going to change.
Now, since that’s the case, wouldn’t it make sense for NASCAR to try and figure out a way to keep cars from getting airborne? Because that’s really what irks me about racing at Talladega.
Every driver, whether he has won several championships or hasn’t won a single race, deserves to compete in a car that has been made as safe as possible. And, for the most part, NASCAR has made huge gains in that area.
But Ryan Newman flips upside down and Mark Martin barrel rolls in this year’s fall race. Carl Edwards’ car takes flight and slams into the catch fence in the spring event, a day after Matt Kenseth rolls and rolls and rolls some more in a Nationwide Series race.
You don’t believe in miracles? Each of the four walked away. Try that on for size.
It’s no longer if a car flips at Talladega, but when. And that’s frightening.
Racing may be a dangerous sport, but risking life and limb shouldn’t be taken for granted. And it seems as if that’s the case.
You can’t trivialize the situation by stating that there have been multicar crashes at every track. Not like these, there haven’t.
The use of roof flaps and passenger-side windows, which help redirect the air inside the drivers’ compartment when a car gets turned sideways, have helped. Cars spin, begin to lift off the ground and drop back onto the racing surface. Most of the time. That appeared to be the case with Edwards’ car in this year’s spring race, until it was hit and shoved back into the air by a trailing car just as it began to settle.
Martin’s car began to roll after he was struck in the right-rear, the force of the impact and the area where his car was hit combining to put his car on its roof briefly.
But it wasn’t contact that caused Newman’s car, or Kenseth’s in the spring, to fly up off the racing surface. Both had spun off the track and onto the apron when their cars began to flip.
And that simply should not happen.
But of course, it will continue to, until NASCAR decides that flying cars are a very real problem. Or until a driver is seriously injured.
Take your pick. I know which one I would choose.
