Tag: Sparks Energy 300

TALLADEGA, Ala. — If you went by Elliott Sadler’s post-race photo op after he collected $100,000 in the NASCAR XFINITY Grand National Series Dash 4 Cash, you’d think it was just a run of the mill afternoon. What the race results don’t tell you, however, was that he rallied from a speeding penalty that put him a lap down to finish fifth.

“That’s an up and down day, for sure,” Sadler said. “We came from the back to fourth in five laps. We won the second stage. Then when the No. 42 (John Hunter Nemechek) wrecked when we went to pit under green, I sped up to avoid him clipping us. Obviously it costed us and we lost a lap from the penalty. My team never gave up and we came back to get another top-five finish and win the Xfinity Dash 4 Cash for a second week in a row. We have the OneMain Financial 200 next weekend and we’ll do all we can to win the $100,000 prize there too.”

For most of the Sparks Energy 300 at Talladega Superspeedway, it was a run of the mill event for Sadler. He started the day second and rode there for most of the first stage. Coming to the line to start the final lap of the stage, Sadler broke out of line to make his move on race leader Daniel Hemric, but nobody went with him and he finished the stage in eighth.

After a five-car wreck on the backstretch brought out the caution on Lap 31, he opted not to pit and assumed the race lead, which he held for the remainder of the second stage. He exited the pits second, but took it back on the restart on Lap 57.

As Sadler slowed down on the apron to enter pit road, John Hunter Nemechek out-braked and shot right past him, running over an area covered in water and spinning out. Sadler sped up to avoid hitting Nemechek and slowed down as he traveled down pit road, as NASCAR rules state you’re required to do if you must use pit road to avoid an accident. But because he pitted for service, which NASCAR has stated that you can’t do if forced to use pit road to avoid an accident, NASCAR posted him for speeding.

Sadler fell to 34th in the running order, and worked his way to 20th when Hemric’s shredded tire and wall hit in the tri-oval brought out the caution with seven laps to go. He took the wave-around to get back on the lead lap, and car after car running out of fuel bumped him up to 14th on the final restart. It allowed him to bump-draft with teammate Justin Allgaier up to a fifth-place finish, past Christopher Bell to claim the Dash 4 Cash at Talladega.

“Coming down to the end, I knew the 22 (Austin Cindric) was gonna restart second, and the 20 (Bell) was behind him. So I knew I was racing both of those guys, but the 22 had damage. So I’m thinking in my head ‘I either need to get to the third lane or the first lane, as quick as I can, not in the same lane that they’re in.’ Then the 22 ran out of gas. Then I knew it was just the 20. And I was trying to get the third lane going, because I thought the 20 was in the middle. Then Justin (Allgaier) made a great move to the middle. Then the 20 moved to the top, and kind of opened up the middle. So I went with Justin. So I was just racing the 20 there at the end. So when we got by them, I just stayed behind Justin and kept bumping him, bumping him, going ‘Man, wherever we finish, we finish, but I don’t need to fan out here and create a distraction and then the 20 come back and beat us, because I knew we couldn’t win the race at that point, off of (Turn) 4. So you’re very aware, I am at least, of who I’m racing and where they’re at, especially at Talladega.”

Sadler leaves Talladega with a 40-point lead over teammate Tyler Reddick.

TALLADEGA, Ala. — The late Barney Hall once said, “They don’t race ’em anywhere in the world like they do at Talladega,” and there’s truth to that statement.

Restrictor plate racing, while polarizing to some, is beloved by many in the NASCAR nation for its unpredictability and intensity. A byproduct of the use of restrictor plates, the racing consists of cars packed together racing inches apart three, four and sometimes five-wide, at 200 mph.

Brad Keselowski summed up plate racing as a “balance of daredevils and chess players” and said that Talladega is a “daredevil style of track.”

“…racing has always been that balance of daredevils and chess players. Some weekends we’re chess players, some weekends we’re daredevils,” Keselowski said. “(Talladega) has always been the more daredevil style of track, which probably offsets some of the tracks that we go to where we’re the chess player.”

This type of racing is done exclusively at Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway, both of which were built to serve as cathedrals of speed.

Talladega is essentially an enlarged version of Daytona, being 2.66 miles in length to Daytona’s 2.5. It’s also wider, allowing for four to five-wide racing, whereas the narrow confines of Daytona restrict pack racing to three-wide racing.

Beyond the size, you’d almost think there was no difference in racing at either track. That’s unless you ask NASCAR XFINITY Series driver Elliott Sadler.

“To me, it’s a big difference,” Sadler said. “It is restrictor plate racing and we have the bumpers all lined up. But Daytona, there are some handling characteristics involved. The turns are a lot tighter. The course is a lot more narrow. The tri-oval is more of a sharp corner. You have some handling characteristics where two-wide is good, but three-wide is not real good at Daytona. We can run three and four-wide around here (at Talladega) all day long. The corners are a lot longer. It’s a little bit more banked. The tri-oval is not as sharp of a turn. So handling is not a characteristic. So what that means is more people are in play.”

TALLADEGA, Ala.– Elliott Sadler’s 41st birthday will be one to remember as he scored the victory at the Alabama roulette wheel.

The driver of the No. 1 JR Motorsports Chevrolet survived a wreck in the tri-oval coming to the checkered flag and had to wait for the official results to take said checkered flag in the Sparks Energy 300 at Talladega Superspeedway. It’s his 11th win in the XFINITY Series, second at Talladega and first since 2014.

“People don’t know how hard it is to win these races. It’s very emotional,” said Sadler choking up in victory lane. “It’s a great birthday gift to me. Man, we needed this win.”

Coming to the line, he was trying to find his way around Joey Logano when Logano got loosened up, came down on Sadler, turned back up the track and slammed the wall head-on. As his lifeless car came back down, it was t-boned by JJ Yeley in his No. 44 Tri-Star Motorsports Toyota. Both drivers were unharmed. Yeley took his car back to the garage and Logano got out of his car under his own power.

Justin Allgaier, who was sitting in his car on pit road after the race had concluded while the finishing order was still being determined, finished second in his No. 7 JRM Chevrolet. Brennan Poole, who had crossed the line first after the field was frozen, came home third in his No. 48 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet. Jeremy Clements finished fourth in his No. 51 Jeremy Clements Racing Chevrolet. Brendan Gaughan overcame an early pass-through penalty to round out the top-five in his No. 62 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet.

Austin Dillon finished sixth in his No. 2 RCR Chevrolet. Daniel Suárez finished seventh in his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.

“I feel like we had a really fast car by ourselves, but for some reason in the draft and pushing and trying to push people it wasn’t great,” Suárez said. “Pushing was okay and when I was getting pushed it was horrible and then we made it better, but it wasn’t great. I don’t know. I feel like we have to keep working and improving our superspeedway program.”

Matt Tifft led 21 laps on his way to an eighth-place finish in his No. 18 JGR Toyota.

“It wasn’t too bad for typical Talladega until the end there,” Tifft said. “We had a really fast car all day. Just kind of got shuffled out – got shuffled back a little bit further than we might have wanted to. Then the last couple laps, just craziness here, so just tried to stay on the bottom. Just tried to kind of shove our way through there and stay out of trouble, so proud of everybody at Joe Gibbs Racing and our whole NOS Energy Drink Camry.”

Chase Elliott led seven laps on his way to a ninth-place finish in his No. 88 JRM Chevrolet. Aric Almirola overcame an early pass-through penalty to round out the top-10 in his No. 98 Richard Petty Motorsports Ford.

The race lasted two hours, 19 minutes and 45 seconds at an average speed of 132.477 mph. There were 20 lead changes among 13 different drivers and six cautions for 29 laps.

Sadler leaves Talladega tied for the points lead with Suárez.

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