Sunday’s race has a chance to be the most action-packed playoff event at Talladega in years — at least from start to finish.
That might sound like hyperbole — the kind you see in all the TV commercials that try to get people to tune in — but there’s reason to believe it might actually be true.
Why? Because two major changes have made it to where playoff drivers simply cannot afford to ride around for 500 miles and wait to race until the end.
First of all, Talladega is now the second race of Round 2 instead of the elimination race. That means drivers have less of a points cushion than they would if two races were already under their belts, so they can’t just try and protect a lead.
Second, the stage points are going to be a massive factor in shaping the race. Playoff drivers absolutely cannot afford to lay back and pass up the opportunity to get a potential 20 stage points.
That means the scramble for stage points at the end of Stages 1 and 2 — which conclude on Lap 55 and Lap 110, respectively — might be extremely dicey.
“We’ve seen in the past that drivers come in here and say, ‘I’ve just got to finish 25th,'” Joey Logano said Friday. “Then they just ride around the back all day until it’s the end of the race and they go up and finish 25th.
“Well, that’s pretty boring. Fans don’t want to see that, so NASCAR has made some good decisions, I think, by making this not the final race in this round, and then also adding the stages you can’t afford to give up those stage points.”
Let’s say a driver gets a fifth-place finish but ends up with no stage points. That’s only 35 points, which Logano noted isn’t that great of a day considering five drivers scored more than 40 points last week at Charlotte.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who needs to rely on stage points to overcome his current deficit, predicted “at least 10 of us racing really hard for that.”
“There are a lot of us within 20 points of each other, so I think that’s gonna be key is how hard we’re gonna race for those stage points,” he said.
Stenhouse isn’t the only one looking at stage points as a key factor in the race. Chase Elliott said his philosophy has been his team needs to use stage points to make up for a lack of playoff points at the start of each round.
“Stage points are really our only way of catching up,” he said. “That’s something I have looked at and something everyone else is looking at, too.”
That said, Elliott doesn’t think those points will be worth making an overly aggressive move at the possible expense of the overall finish.
“I definitely think there is going to be some emphasis on running well in the stages, but I just hope that everybody will want to get to the end as much as they want to have stage finishes, too,” he said. “So I really don’t know, but I could see it being pretty wild to try and get those points.”
En route to taking the underdog No. 75 truck to a win at Talladega Superspeedway on Saturday, Parker Kligerman ruffled feathers with some aggressive pushing that left drivers complaining on the radio.
Christopher Bell, Ben Rhodes and Grant Enfinger were among the drivers who told their spotters to tell Kligerman to back off at various points during the race.
“Try not to let that 75 get behind me,” Rhodes said at one point.
“Get him off me, man!” Bell said late in the race. “Get him off me!”
So were all the complaints justified, or were those drivers just not used to taking a push?
“There’s some incredibly talented drivers out there, but I think we forgot how to tandem a little bit,” Kligerman said when asked. “We’re not allowed to tandem, but if you watch Joey Logano in the Xfinity car (at plate races) in the last couple years, he does that tap-tap-tap thing.”
That “tap-tap-tap thing” is a borderline bump draft, but legal because the vehicles are not locking bumpers. So as long as the bumpers aren’t together for more than a couple seconds, NASCAR is fine with that.
Kligerman decided if he could make that happen with the current rules package, “then we’ve got to do that.” And the best time to do so would be in the first two stages, when there were built-in cautions to help with experimentation.
His reaction to hearing a few drivers were upset?
“Whatever. I thought we were here to race,” he said. “… I didn’t spin anyone out, so I think it worked. We passed a lot of trucks and got ourselves to the front a couple times. And when it came down to it, all of them were doing the same thing. So I don’t see any harm or foul.”
Chris Carrier, Kligerman’s crew chief, heard the question and asked if he chimed in. His take was decidedly more blunt.
“I’ve been a crew chief for 40-some years,” he said. “The guys I see complaining are the guys who want to be Sunday drivers. They’d better grow up. If you don’t want to cut the grass, you’d better not mind getting grass in your shoes. That’s part of it, like it or not. Grow up.”
Alan Cavanna from FOX Sports joins me to help break down all things Talladega, including the significance of a different Junior winning at ‘Dega, the famous Junior’s playoff hopes and whether people will vote it as a good race.
Five thoughts on Sunday’s NASCAR race at Talladega Superspeedway…
1. First-time winner, but no fluke
Both of this year’s restrictor-plate races have been won by drivers who had never won on a plate track before (or anywhere, in Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s case).
That’s surprising in a time where the current plate package seemed to favor a few drivers who had perfected how to manipulate the draft once they got a lead: Brad Keselowski, Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano, Dale Earnhardt Jr., to name a few.
Kyle Busch is one of the good ones, too — but he seemed to get snookered by Stenhouse in overtime.
So what the heck happened?
When Stenhouse moved up to block Kasey Kahne’s run on the top side, Busch moved up to block Stenhouse — expecting to take away his momentum or at least get a shove.
And actually, Busch got what he wanted: A shot from behind. But to his surprise, it didn’t advance him.
“He got to my back bumper and actually hit me, and I thought that was going to shoot me forward,” Busch said. “He just turned left and passed me after hitting me. So, pretty impressive.”
Busch wasn’t being sarcastic; he meant it. It was impressive, and he repeated the term later in a second interview. Stenhouse deserved to win this race.
There have been fluky winners on restrictor-plate races throughout history, but Stenhouse isn’t one of them. For one thing, he started from the pole — which means Roush Fenway Racing built a very fast speedway car. And Talladega is also tied with Bristol for Stenhouse’s best track — he has a 10.4 average finish at both.
Look, it’s hard to read too much into any plate victory, because nothing translates to a “real racetrack” (as Busch put it Sunday).
But Roush Fenway really does seem to have something good going on this season. Stenhouse is now in the playoffs (wow!) and Trevor Bayne would also be in if it started today (he’s 16th in the standings).
Clearly, there’s been a lot of improvement over the offseason for a team whose three cars finished 21st, 22nd and 23rd in the point standings last season.
“(Over) the offseason, the whole attitude at our shop changed, and the people in each department were putting in more hours and working harder to make sure we started the season as best we could,” Stenhouse said. “We started a little stronger than we thought we would, but then we’ve also continued to make gains and continued to up our performance.”
2. The joy of winning
I’m sure this story is going to be everywhere, but this still deserves mention because, well, it’s completely awesome.
Apparently, Ricky Stenhouse Sr. was briefly detained by track security after the race while trying to get to victory lane and celebrate with his son.
Here’s the story, as told by Talladega public relations chief Russell Branham:
He was extremely excited about his son winning today, and naturally so. He was actually perched on the back straightaway up top the Alabama Gang Superstretch in an RV.
His son wins the race, he goes down, he tries to find a way to get across the track. He tried to climb the fence, found out he couldn’t. He begins running down outside of the perimeter road of Turn 3 outside the venue. He wants to go through the tunnel and get in here.
Our (security) guys saw it. Naturally, they stopped him, asked him who he was, said, ‘Would you get in the car?’ They placed him in the car, talked to him, they said, ‘Who are you?’
He said, ‘I’m Ricky Stenhouse’s father.’ (They said) ‘Hold on one second, sir. Let me call the director of security.’ Called our security, and our security guy said, ‘Take him to victory lane,’ and that’s what happened.
Seriously, how great is that? Even better is Stenhouse Jr. actually figured his dad would try to climb the fence (he did it before at Kentucky) and looked for Stenhouse Sr. when he came around on the cool-down lap.
“I went down the back straightaway after the race was over and looked up to see if he was there, but I didn’t see him,” Stenhouse Jr. said. “My dad has done so much for me in my career. … Everything that I know about racing I learned from him, and I’m glad that he was able to be here in victory lane.”
3. What’s up with Dale Jr.?
Dale Earnhardt Jr. was as discouraged as I’ve seen him in quite awhile following his 22nd-place finish.
Earnhardt, frustratingly to himself and his fans, wasn’t a factor all day after starting second. He scored no stage points — at a place where he’s normally toward the front — and failed to lead a lap at Talladega for only the fifth time in 34 career starts (and second time in a row).
The loose wheel at the end of the race ruined his shot at a good day, but the No. 88 car wasn’t a player anyway. So what gives?
Well, Earnhardt said he hasn’t loved this rules package at plate races after a horsepower change at the start of last season.
“When they changed the motor after (2015), it took a lot of the speed out of the cars as far as how they create runs and maintain runs and how you can put together passes and do things on the track,” he said. “Now everybody is just stuck side-by-side. If you aren’t in the first or second row, you really are just kind of riding behind those guys with nowhere really to go. You can’t do much about it, because the cars don’t create the runs like they used to.”
That makes sense if you look at the results. In 2015, Earnhardt finished third, first, first and second at the four plate races.
Since then, he’s finished 36th, 40th, 21st, 37th and 22nd.
“I’d change a few things if I was the king of this deal,” he said. “But as long as the fans enjoyed the show, we’ll keep going down the road with what we’ve got.”
If that’s the case, it doesn’t sound like winning one of his remaining two plate races is as great of a chance as it once was.
4. Air AJ
Airborne cars scare the crap out of me, but AJ Allmendinger played it pretty cool after he landed on his roof on Sunday. Allmendinger even joked he had a “nice flight” during the Big One.
“It’s better than some of the flights we take back home,” he said.
But what wasn’t as fun was hanging upside down in his No. 47 car as fluids leaked and Allmendinger waited for the safety crew to flip him back onto his wheels.
“Get me the hell back over,” he thought.
Allmendinger acknowledged he was worried the car would catch on fire, but said the key was to not panic. And he was reassured by the safety team’s rapid response.
“If they weren’t there that quick, I might have thought of trying to slide out,” he said. “But it kind of rolled over onto the window, so there wasn’t a lot of room that I was going to get out.”
Plus, he said, he didn’t want to loosen his belts and take another hit to the head, even though he joked “there’s not much in there to be that worried about.”
But many fans were unable to use it due to the terrible cell phone reception at the track. Ugh. What a giant missed opportunity.
Granted, I still have Sprint, so maybe I just have a bad network. Some people had a signal (one of my friends has T-Mobile and said his worked). But I saw plenty of chatter from other people who had similar problems.
Post race Periscope coming as soon as I can get some service.
Talladega is in a relatively rural area, so you wouldn’t expect it would normally have decent cell service. And when about 70,000 people show up for a race, it certainly gets a lot worse.
But we live in an era where people want to share all their experiences via social media They want to show their friends where they are and what they’re doing. That’s basically free advertising for NASCAR! If fans can’t get any sort of cell service, though, a lot of that gets lost.
I don’t know what phone companies charge to bring in portable cell phone towers, but tracks need to figure out how to make it happen. Clearly, there isn’t a large-scale move to invest in wifi (though Daytona did it), so there needs to be another solution. Speedway Motorsports Inc. tracks have some sort of Verizon technology, but what about those of us who don’t have that carrier?
The whole NASCAR industry would benefit from better cell service at the tracks. This needs to be a very high priority on the list of fan amenities.
I’m playing DraftKings this season and will be posting my picks here each week. Disclosure: If you want to play and sign up using this link, DraftKings will give my website a commission. Disclosure No. 2: I might be America’s worst daily fantasy player.
Last race’s results: Played the $4 single-entry Brake Pad contest. Finished 930th out of 2,400 and won $0.
Season results: $19 wagered, $7 won in eight contests.
This week’s contest: Not allowed to participate based on Alabama state law. Lame.
Talladega picks:
— Joey Logano ($10,700). It’s putting me in a tough position to take the two most expensive drivers, but that’s what I plan to do. Both are extremely good at the draft, and think they’re both able to dominate the race if they get the chance. It doesn’t hurt that Logano starts 12th, either.
— Brad Keselowski ($10,500). I’m thinking he could be my hammer, if there is such a thing at a plate race. I envision Keselowski getting the lead early and controlling a large part of the race — if he has his way — and those laps led could come in handy in DraftKings.
— Kurt Busch ($8,000). The Daytona 500 winner always seems to be in the mix at Talladega. Busch hasn’t finished lower than 12th in his last five ‘Dega starts, scoring the most points of any driver in those races. He’ll have plenty of friends to draft with on Sunday.
— Ryan Newman ($7,400). For a guy known for hating plate racing, Newman is very solid here. He has the fourth-most points of any driver in the last six Talladega races. Plus, he starts 20th.
— Elliott Sadler ($6,700). I wrestled with picking Paul Menard here ($7,300), but Menard’s good starting spot pushed me away. Meanwhile, Sadler starts 35th, and I’m hoping he can do something similar to the Daytona 500 — when he went from 40th to 20th for Tommy Baldwin Racing.
— David Ragan ($6,000). I had to decide between Ragan and Front Row Motorsports teammate Landon Cassill, and I left it up to whoever was starting further back in the field. The answer: Ragan, who starts 29th. He knows what he’s doing here.
