Testing SpeedwayMedia.com

Tag: Talladega Superspeedway

  • Almirola Wins Competitive XFINITY Race at Talladega

    Almirola Wins Competitive XFINITY Race at Talladega

    TALLADEGA, Ala. — The final run to the finish had five lead changes, and Aric Almirola took the lead with four laps remaining to win a competitive XFINITY Series Sparks Energy 300 at Talladega Superspeedway.

    Justin Allgaier led the field to the final restart with 11 laps to go. Joey Logano, with Almirola in tow, powered down the backstretch and “chicaned” around Allgaier to take the lead with nine to go. He swapped the lead with Erik Jones before Jones was edged out by Almirola coming to the line with four to go and Almirola drove on to score the victory.

    Elliott Sadler came home second and Joey Logano finished third.

    Ben Kennedy and Erik Jones rounded out the top-five.

    Matt Tifft, Michael Annett, Justin Allgaier, Daniel Suarez and Jeff Green rounded out the top-10.

    Blake Koch led the field to the green flag at 1:21 p.m., but Kasey Kahne used a push from the outside lane on to lead the first lap. Kennedy took the lead on the sixth lap. Ray Black Jr. brought out the first caution on the seventh lap for a blown engine.

    On the ensuing restart on lap 11, Kahne retook the lead. Logano took the lead for the first time on lap 16, edging out Suarez at the line. Almirola followed suit on lap 20, edging out Logano at the line. The following lap on the backstretch, Brennan Poole attempted to thread the needle between Kasey Kahne, Tifft and Suarez. He made contact with Tifft, who hooked him into the left-rear corner panel of Suarez, which sent him spinning, triggering a nine-car spin and bringing out the second caution.

    Red flag was displayed for nine minutes and 28 seconds.

    The race restarted on lap 23 and ran to the end of the first stage, two laps later, that was won by Almirola.

    Michael Annett, who opted not to pit, led the field to the restart on lap 32, and lost the led to Ty Dillon on lap 34. Dillon and Logan swapped the lead back and forth for the next few laps until Jones powered by on the top coming to the line on lap 47 to take the lead. Allgaier jumped in front to take the lead on lap 48.

    A second multi-car wreck, triggered by Almirola bumping Ryan Reed, sending him into the wall and collecting Brendan Gaughan in the process, brought out the fourth caution on lap 49 and ended the second stage with Allgaier in the race lead.

    The multi-car wreck brought out an 11-minute and 30-second red flag.

    Back to green on lap 55, Jones retook the lead on lap 59, only to lose it on the backstretch the following lap to Almirola, who then lost it to Kahne.

    With 44 to go, the top-six cars had broken away from the field. Three of the six, including race leader Kahne, pitted with 43 to go. Jones, who inherited the lead, pitted the following lap, giving the lead to Jeff Green.

    Green led 18 laps, the most he’s led in an XFINITY Series race since Rockingham in 2002, but pitted with 24 to go and the lead cycled back to Allgaier.

    Debris brought out the final caution with 16 to go, setting up the 11-lap run to the finish.

    The race lasted two hours, nine minutes and 41 seconds at an average speed of 139.068 mph. There were 28 lead changes among 14 different drivers and five cautions for 20 laps.

    Sadler leaves Talladega with a 29-point lead over Allgaier.

    [pdf-embedder url=”http://www.speedwaymedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/N1709_UNOFFRES.pdf”]

  • Elliott’s Sophomore Season After Nine Races

    Elliott’s Sophomore Season After Nine Races

    TALLADEGA, Ala. — Chase Elliott is on track to best his stellar rookie campaign from last season at the one-quarter mark of the season.

    At this point last season, Elliott finished in the top-10 five times, twice in the top-five and led only four laps. This season, the reigning Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series rookie of the year has finished top-10 in six races and top-five in three. He’s also led 169 laps this year to four at this point last season.

    His first dominant race of this season came in the fourth of the season at Phoenix International Raceway, where he led 106 of the 314 laps and won the second stage on his way to a 12th-place finish. His breakout race of 2016 came later in the season at Pocono Raceway, where he led a race high of 51 of 160 laps on his way to a fourth-place finish.

    Elliott also won a stage and finished third at Martinsville Speedway, a track where he finished 20th and 12th in 2016.

    It should come as no surprise that the son of 1988 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion Bill Elliott runs third in points, 52 back of points leader Kyle Larson, going into this weekend at Talladega Superspeedway.

    Assessing his season after nine races, Elliott — who’s known for being hard on himself, even on a day with a great run — said it’s “had some ups and downs.”

    “I feel like we fired off really well with the way we ran at Daytona and Atlanta,” Elliott said. “I thought our West Coast swing was pretty strong. I feel like over the past few weeks we really haven’t performed up to our potential. As a group, I think anybody in our group would feel the same way. We’ve had some fast cars at times. We’ve had our driving good and then other weeks, not so much. But, we definitely need to execute races; even on the days that your car is not driving like you want it to. That execution and doing everything correctly on pit road, restarts, giving the right information, can turn a bad day into a pretty good day, really. Like last week, for instance, we ran not very good and just inside the 15th; not quite inside the top-10 the majority of the day. We got towards the end of the day and had an opportunity to finish up well inside the top-10 if we had just executed a little bit better. So, that’s what we need to do. And we know we need to do that. And, we’ll try to make that happen.”

  • Bowyer Fastest in First Practice at Talladega

    Bowyer Fastest in First Practice at Talladega

    TALLADEGA, Ala. — Clint Bowyer topped the chart in first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice at Talladega Superspeedway.

    The driver of the No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford was the fastest with a time of 48.653 and a speed of 196.822 mph. Kevin Harvick was second in his SHR Ford with a time of 48.748 and a speed of 196.439 mph followed by Brad Keselowski in third in his No. 2 Team Penske Ford with a time of 48.905 and a speed of 195.808 mph.

    Kurt Busch was fourth in his No. 41 SHR Ford with a time of 48.911 and a speed of 195.784 mph while Joey Logano rounded out the top-five in his No. 22 Penske Ford with a time of 48.918 and a speed of 195.756 mph.

    No driver posted a 10 consecutive lap average.

    The session was cut short due to rain.

     

    [pdf-embedder url=”http://www.speedwaymedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/C1710_PRAC1.pdf”]

  • Brandon Jones Fastest at Talladega in Final XFINITY Practice

    Brandon Jones Fastest at Talladega in Final XFINITY Practice

    TALLADEGA, Ala. — Brandon Jones topped the chart in final NASCAR XFINITY Series practice at Talladega Superspeedway.

    The driver of the No. 33 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet was the fastest with a time of 52.381 and a speed of 182.814 mph followed by Blake Koch in second in his No. 11 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet with a time of 52.508 and a speed of 182.372 mph.

    Daniel Hemric was third in his No. 21 GMS Racing Chevrolet with a time of 52.623 and a speed of 181.974 mph. Ben Kennedy was fourth in his No. 2 Childress Chevrolet with a time of 52.766 and a speed of 181.480 mph while Ty Dillon rounded out the top-five in his No. 3 Childress Chevrolet with a time of 52.890 and a speed of 181.055 mph.

    No driver posted a 10 consecutive lap average.

    Koch Fastest In First Talladega XFINITY Practice

    [pdf-embedder url=”http://www.speedwaymedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/N1709_PRACFINAL.pdf”]

     

  • Elliott Sadler says there’s a big difference between racing Daytona and Talladega

    Elliott Sadler says there’s a big difference between racing Daytona and Talladega

    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.”

  • Koch Fastest in First Talladega XFINITY Practice

    Koch Fastest in First Talladega XFINITY Practice

    TALLADEGA, Ala. — Blake Koch topped the chart in first NASCAR XFINITY Series practice at Talladega Superspeedway.

    The driver of the No. 11 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet was the fastest with a time of 49.722 and a speed of 192.591 mph. followed by Brendan Gaughan in second in his No. 62 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet with a time of 49.732 and a speed of 192.552 mph.

    Ben Kennedy was third in his No. 2 Childress Chevrolet with a time of 49.784 and a speed of 192.351 mph. Daniel Hemric was fourth in his No. 21 GMS Racing Chevrolet with a time of 49.803 and a speed of 192.278 mph while Ty Dillon rounded out the top-five in his No. 3 Childress Chevrolet with a time of 50.128 and a speed of 191.031 mph.

    Dillon posted the fastest 10 consecutive lap average at a speed of 188.343 mph.

    [pdf-embedder url=”http://www.speedwaymedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/N1709_PRAC1.pdf”]

  • Talladega Superspeedway – Did You Know?

    Talladega Superspeedway – Did You Know?

    The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series and the XFINITY Series travel to Talladega Superspeedway this week. Both series will have two practice sessions Friday. The XFINITY Series Sparks Energy 300 is set for 1 p.m. Saturday with the Cup Series GEICO 500 closing out the weekend Sunday at 2 p.m. Both races will be televised on FOX.

    Brad Keselowski is the defending Cup Series race winner, capturing his fourth checkered flag at Talladega last spring to go with six top fives and nine top 10s. He’s sixth in the point standing and has already been to victory lane twice this season.

    Talladega is famous for its unpredictability and volatile nature and the inaugural Cup Series race was no exception. But did you know that it was held during a driver boycott?

    The first race was scheduled at what was then known as Alabama International Motor Speedway (the name was changed to Talladega Superspeedway in 1989), for Sept. 14, 1969. The drivers, who had recently formed the Professional Drivers Association with Richard Petty as president, wanted to postpone the event because of concerns about the effects of the fast speeds on tire wear and the lack of grip on the rough track. When NASCAR refused, most of the drivers decided not to race and went home. The field was filled by drivers recruited on short notice by Bill France Sr. and was won by Richard Brickhouse, his first and only win in the series.

    But did you know that Richard Childress was one of those last minute drivers? France was offering drivers extra money to compete in the event to fill out the field and Childress thought that it was too good an opportunity to pass up. He finished 23rd in the first race of his 285-race career in the Cup Series as a driver.

    “It was a big break,” Childress said. “I left that day with seven or eight grand, bought me some land and built my first race shop. It was being in the right place at the right time. It was just one of the lucky breaks. Life’s all about the breaks and when you take advantage of them. That was the difference of me making it and not making it.”

    Although Talladega is nicknamed “Earnhardt Country,” NASCAR Hall of Famer Bill Elliott left his mark there as well. Elliott holds the record for the fastest pole at Talladega, set on April 30, 1987, at a speed of 212.809 mph. But did you know it is also the fastest all-time qualifying lap in NASCAR history? It is likely a record that will never be broken since the following year, restrictor plates were implemented at NASCAR’s superspeedways.

    NASCAR Hall of Fame nominee, Davey Allison, won his first race at Talladega in the 1987 Winston 500. Nine other drivers, including Brad Keselowski (04/26/2009), Brian Vickers (10/08/2006), Ken Schrader (07/31/1988), Phil Parsons (05/01/1988), Bobby Hillin Jr. (07/27/1986), Ron Bouchard (08/02/1981), Lennie Pond (08/06/1978), Dick Brooks (08/12/1973) and Richard Brickhouse (09/14/1969) went to victory lane for the first time at the 2.66-mile track.

    Although luck often has more to do with winning at Talladega, than skill, did you know that three Hendrick Motorsports drivers are included in the top five list of best driver ratings at Talladega?

    Chase Elliott, third in the point standings, enters Talladega with the best driver rating (97.1) but has only made two Cup starts at the track, finishing fifth and 12th in his rookie season with one pole at the track.

    Dale Earnhardt Jr. has had a disappointing season to date but hopes to turn things around in “Earnhardt Country” as he searches for his first win this year. He heads to Talladega with the second-best driver rating (92.0) and leads all active drivers with six wins; four of those are consecutive, from the fall of 2001 – 2003. Only his father has won more, claiming 10 career victories. Earnhardt’s last win was in May 2015. He also leads all active drivers in laps led with 960. If he leads 40 more laps, he will become the third driver in the series history to lead 1,000 laps at Talladega.

    Kurt Busch is currently 17th in the point standings but has the third-best driver rating at Talladega (88.8), Matt Kenseth has the fourth-best driver rating at the track (88.0) and Jimmie Johnson rounds out the top five with a driver rating of 87.9, with two wins, seven top fives, 11 top 10s and one pole.

    Will one of the drivers mentioned above win the GEICO 500 at Talladega or will there be a “big one” that shuffles the field and deals up an unexpected winner?  Anything can happen at ‘Dega so don’t miss the action this Sunday at 2 p.m. on FOX.

    While you’re waiting, check out the video below to see a wild wreck from last year’s GEICO 500.

    Follow @angiecampbell_ for the latest NASCAR news and feature stories.

     

  • Hamlin says his teammates were smart to run in the back at Talladega

    Hamlin says his teammates were smart to run in the back at Talladega

    MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Denny Hamlin responded to those who took issue with his teammate running in the back at Talladega the week by saying he “thought it was smart.”

    Speaking to the media prior to the first practice session at Martinsville Speedway yesterday, the driver of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota was asked what he thought of his teammates running in the back of the field during last week’s Hellmann’s 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.

    “I thought it was smart,” Hamlin said. “From my standpoint I knew we had an uphill battle because we weren’t going to have any teammates all day, I knew that we weren’t going to have any teammates all day because we all knew what they were going to do before the race started. Just everyone else saw it when it actually happened. There’s no way, they would be the dumbest group in history if they had run in the middle of the pack and got wrecked at some point when they didn’t have to be. It’s about winning championships, it’s not about winning Talladega by any means.”

    Teammates Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth, who all entered Talladega well ahead of the danger of elimination, went the conservative route and ran at the tail end of the field the whole race to avoid getting collected in any major wrecks (The Big One) and advance on. Hamlin on the other hand, entering with a blown engine run at Charlotte and a mediocre run at Kansas, had to have a good run to advance into the Round of 8.

    The split strategy worked out for the best for the Huntersville, North Carolina based organization as all four drivers moved on into the Round of 8.

    Despite it working out and other drivers having done it to their advantage in the past, a number of fans took to Twitter and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio to express outrage, saying JGR “manipulated” the outcome of the race by not abiding by the 100 percent rule.

    Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR executive vice-president and chief racing development officer, said in his weekly appearance on “The Morning Drive” on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio that the strategy used by JGR didn’t violate the 100 percent rule.

    “I would say that they do not fall into that,” O’Donnell said. “The spirit of that (100 percent) rule is really to prevent somebody from intentionally allowing another teammate to do something that would not be really within the spirit of the rules of the race.

    “In this case, we look at the strategy decision that the team made, and they executed it. … In this case, that wouldn’t be something that we look at that violated that rule.”

    Hamlin also emphasized that the Gibbs organization had every right to do what they did by how they performed in the first two races in the Round of 12.

    “All those guys earned the right to do that by having a good first two races and I think next year with the races being switched around, you’ll see less of that because people won’t know where they stand,” he added. “I think it kind of fixes itself next year most likely, but there’s more chances of a big wreck there than any other race track so you have to play the odds there. There’s no way that those guys should have been up there helping me and then risk putting themselves in danger of making the Chase and instead of Gibbs having three cars in the Chase, they could have had two or maybe one if there had been helping me and we got in a wreck. Luckily it all worked out where we have all four and they played the strategy they had to play to get in and I did the strategy I had to do to get in. Nobody from any other team would have done anything different, that’s for sure and if they tell you different, that’s a lie.”

  • Harvick’s and Busch’s Post-Race Actions at Talladega Were Pointless

    Harvick’s and Busch’s Post-Race Actions at Talladega Were Pointless

    Talladega is already a stressful race. Add the fact that it’s also a Chase elimination race and the stress factor rises even more. That makes sense. That’s a given. That way, in a sense, the disagreement between Kurt Busch and Kevin Harvick following the Hellmann’s 500 on Sunday almost has some merit, even if they are Stewart-Haas Racing teammates.

    Keep in mind the key word in that sentence is “almost.” Regardless of the circumstances, the tradeoff following the checkered flag between Harvick and Busch was pointless, to be honest. It had no merit, no point, no reason. Busch was upset because Harvick wasn’t working with him coming to the finish and ran into him following the race. Harvick responded by confronting Busch while he was still in his No. 41 Chevy. It was an added bit of drama that really didn’t need to be added.

    It’s understandable why Busch was upset, but truthfully, restrictor-plate racing isn’t a guarantee that teammates will act like teammates. This isn’t Formula One, where team orders are blatant and part of the norm. That’s not saying that team orders aren’t in NASCAR (Does anyone remember Richmond in September 2013?). On the contrary, NASCAR drivers are supposed to chase their own glory, and if a team happens to do good because of a teammate, well, yay. Great job everyone.

    Although Busch is a great teammate to others and has done an awesome job working with his teammates (just ask Ryan Newman), he’s a smart enough, established racer who knows that sometimes things aren’t going to go as planned. It isn’t like he’s completely innocent in not working with a teammate either; just ask Greg Biffle about the 2004 All-Star race at Charlotte, where then-teammate Busch not only took him out but several other drivers with one boneheaded bump.

    But Harvick isn’t a saint either. He’s fiery; yes, that’s great and that’s one of the reasons he’s loved as much as he is. But it’s not really entertaining anymore. It honestly stopped being entertaining around 2005. That said, he still continues to respond to situations in a zero-to-100 manner, in that his first knee-jerk response is to fly into a rage when he’s mad. Ask Jimmie Johnson following the first Chase race of 2015.

    That can be understood on a rare occasion. But Harvick’s been around long enough to know what’s necessary in the right situations. Storming over and swinging at a teammate or teammate’s car wouldn’t fall into that category, not without knowing the reasons why at first. It’s easy to see why he was mad: Busch drove up to him and gave him a heart smack on the right side, so why shouldn’t he be mad? But even Busch can attest that cooler heads should prevail.

    This doesn’t scream dissension and unease in the SHR camp, and this doesn’t look like the revival of an old rivalry. This is nothing more than a misunderstanding between teammates, albeit a ridiculous one. Both drivers are fiery, talented drivers, one of whom just so happens to flat-out love to fight. But even Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards cleared the air by the end of the Chase in 2007, back when they were Roush Fenway Racing teammates. By Martinsville, Harvick and Busch will be back to just being teammates. They hit a bump Sunday, even if it was a rather dumb one, but they get along great as teammates and shouldn’t let something like this get in the way of their chemistry.

  • Chase hopes for Keselowski and Truex Go up in Smoke

    Chase hopes for Keselowski and Truex Go up in Smoke

    TALLADEGA, Ala. — Two of the heavy favorites to win the championship going into the Chase won’t continue on in the pursuit of a championship in 2016 following mechanical failure in Alabama.

    Martin Truex Jr. – who entered the race in seventh, 13 points above the cutoff – started the race on pole position and had a strong car in the first quarter of the Hellmann’s 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, leading two laps while staying near the front.

    Rounding turn 2, however, his Chase hopes went up in smoke when his engine blew up, his first since the 2014 Daytona 500.

    “Just developed a vibration and started to lose a little bit of power,” Truex said of what happened to take him out. “Originally I thought it could have been a tire because it was shaking worse and worse and worse until it was time to pit. I slowed down to hit pit road and felt the vibration still there and knew it was the engine. Definitely not the way we wanted today to go – it’s a tough way to go out, but proud of the effort and proud of all the guys.”

    This relegated him to a 40th place finish, his fifth in 401 Sprint Cup Series starts and first since the 2014 Daytona 500.

    He’s also the first pole sitter to finish last in a race at Talladega since Stacey Compton in April of 2001 and the first driver to finish last after having led a lap since Michael McDowell at Texas in November of 2013 (LASTCAR.info).

    He leaves Talladega ninth in points.

    Brad Keselowski takes his car to the garage following his engine expiring late in the Hellmann's 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. Photo: Sarah Crabill/Getty Images
    Brad Keselowski takes his car to the garage following his engine expiring late in the Hellmann’s 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. Photo: Sarah Crabill/Getty Images

    Truex wasn’t alone in the engine failure department.

    Brad Keselowski, entering Talladega 11th in a seven-point hole, worked his way to the lead on the first lap and led 90 laps on nine different occasions.

    In the final quarter of the race, Keselowski allowed Ryan Blaney to take the lead so he could get behind him and clear off trash that was stuck on the grille of his car. The debris flew off, but a lap later, his engine blew up, eliminating him from Chase contention.

    “It looks like we lost an engine,” Keselowski said when asked what happened. “I’m pretty confident I lost a rod or something in the lower end. That’s just the way it goes.”

    He said he didn’t know if the engine got too hot from the debris on his grille.

    “I’m not an engine guy, but the car was really strong and we definitely kept finding debris,” he added. “I thought I got it cooled off and only got it slightly over, but I don’t know.”

    Keselowski finished 38th and leaves Talladega 10th in the standings.