General

‘Dega Proves To Be Too Exciting For Some

Apr 27, 2009, 5:11 AM UTC

Man what a race today. Did you see the mayhem? It was vehicular carnage at best.

In the Race Day Open Thread I asked whether ‘The Big One’ would come at the beginning, middle, or end of the race. Little did I know it would come at nearly all three points of the race (lap 8, lap 180, and the last lap).

As most of you know I’m not even close to being a Carl Edwards fan but let me tell you when his car went airborne towards the fence in the tri-oval I was hoping he’d be alright. Man was I glad to see him get out of that car and to see him run down the track to cross the finish line was pretty cool.

But what impressed me the most was his acceptance of the crash as his fault for trying to put up a block and failing rather than it being Keselowski’s fault.

Although he did lay blame on NASCAR for making the yellow line a no-no to go below forcing Keselowski to stay where he was on the track instead of moving out of the way of Edwards’ car and you know I can’t blame him for saying that either – I know I would have said it too if I were him.

What is really tragic here is that (according to latest reports) at least 7 fans were injured in the mess. None seriously but 2 were taken to hospital for further treatment.

Restrictor plate racing has its pros and cons – the cars go too fast to safely circle the track with no restrictor plate and bunch up too much with a restrictor plate creating the kind of racing we saw today.

NASCAR needs to re-evaluate the situation before more fans are hurt or even killed in the future, but I don’t know what they are going to do about it – run 4-cylynders on super-speedways?

So what about Keselowski? What a great run for him. His win proves one thing though, anyone, absolutely anyone, can win on a restrictor plate track regardless of funding. Congratulations to Brad for his 1^st career Cup win.

BTW, I don’t believe that Brad did anything wrong on the last lap either. He got his nose under Carl fair and square and stayed within the rules as defined and enforced by NASCAR.

There are a lot of other story lines that unfolded today as a result of the crashes (like the change in point standings due mostly to the first and second wrecks) but I’m tired and I’m going to bed now so I’ll touch on them tomorrow … er … I mean later today!

Take Care.