Richmond has its version of 'big one'
By Bob Pockrass - Associate Editor
Sunday, May 04, 2008
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RICHMOND Va. – While it’s not a common occurrence, Richmond International Raceway had its version of the “big one” in the Crown Royal 400 on Saturday night.
The big one was an 11-car pileup that caused a nearly 22-minute red flag to clean the track.
The accident started when Dave Blaney and J.J. Yeley touched, and then Carl Edwards got in the back of Yeley. In the accordion, Gillett Evernham Motorsports’ Elliott Sadler tapped teammate Patrick Carpentier, who slid
down the apron, ricocheted off the inside wall back on to the track and was t-boned twice.
“It was a pretty hard hit,” Carpentier said. “Thanks for the carbon fiber seat that they’ve got inside the car now. It was not too bad. Knocked the wind out of me, but we’re OK.”
Edwards didn’t get too much damage and finished seventh.
“That wreck on the backstraight was terrible,” the Roush Fenway Racing driver said. “I wish that wouldn’t have happened. [Yeley] moved to give me the outside and then it looked like he got turned a little bit by the 22 [of Blaney] and it was kind of a worst-case scenario.
“That put us back. I think we had a car that could compete for the win, but to come back from that to finish seventh was great.”
Among those caught up in the incident were Edwards' teammate Matt Kenseth and Penske Racing’s Kurt Busch.
Neither driver could afford the damage. Kenseth is now 22nd in points, 204 points out of 12th. While Kenseth has finished every race this year, he has finished on the lead lap in only five of the 10 races.
“We didn’t run very well at all even before the accident,” Kenseth said. “We were running in the back and everybody was doubled up. We were two and three-wide back there and everybody was trying to stay on the lead lap and they all wrecked.
“I got run into from behind and kind of got pushed into it, but that’s part of it.”
Busch is now 24th in points, 222 points out of 12th. It was his third DNF of the year.
“Things happen so fast, you don’t know where to go,” Busch said. “The 10 car [of Carpentier] was on the inside spinning around and he ricocheted back up into the group of us. I had my front brakes all locked up. I had nowhere to go.
“We’re just not getting our cars to turn. When you’re not getting the car to turn, you’re running heavy in the pack. You’re just not breaking through into that top-five pack where things are a bit calmer. We’re just struggling to get our car to turn and have been testing our rear ends off trying to come up with something.”
- Mentioned Drivers:
- Matt Kenseth
Comments
1 response to "Richmond has its version of 'big one'"
Bob Pomeroy said:
May 4, 2008 at 10:48 AMShould have bounced JJ a tad harder
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