Hallowdega? Two Years Later, Regan Smith Still Haunted By The Win That Wasn’t

Regan Smith waited to make his move at just the right time.

Tucked in behind leader Tony Stewart coming to the finish line of the Talladega race in Oct. 2008, Smith ducked beneath Stewart, made the pass and crossed the finish line in first place.

Smith, then a rookie driver for Dale Earnhardt Inc., was ecstatic. His team celebrated on pit road. Other drivers gave him congratulatory door-slams and thumbs up on the backstretch on the cool-down lap.

Then he got to Turn 3, and the voice of crew chief Dan Stillman came over the radio: “Just pull into the pits over here and we’ll figure all of this out,” he said.

“And that’s when it hit me, like, ‘Oh, shit - they’re going to take this thing away from me,’” Smith said.

They - the NASCAR officials - did indeed take the win away from Smith. Ruling that Smith illegally passed Stewart below the yellow line, officials declared Stewart the winner.

Smith’s No. 01 car was relegated from first to 18th.

Two years later and now with Furniture Row Racing, Smith is still searching for his first “official” career victory. On Friday, he spent some time recalling the blur of events that seemed to happen all at once after the win that wasn’t.

“Everything was happening so quick,” he said. “I pulled around to the frontstretch thinking I was going to be doing burnouts. It was definitely every emotion you can imagine within about a 10-minute period.”

The near-win hasn’t consumed his life by any means. It’s more of an afterthought these days. But Smith won’t feel as though he can totally move on until he ends up in Victory Lane for the first time.

“You never get over it until you win, finally,” he said. “You never know if you’re going to be in that situation, in this sport, to do that again. I think I’ve got a pretty good appreciation of that because of how many ups and downs I’ve been through.”

Smith’s entire career has been a roller coaster. In 2007, he was splitting Ginn Racing’s No. 01 car with Mark Martin and was moved to the team’s No. 14 car when Sterling Marlin was suddenly released a week before Indianapolis.

But though Smith was announced as the driver, he never actually got to run a race. By the time the Indy race arrived, the team had shut down and Smith found himself rideless.

After Ginn was folded into DEI, Smith was tabbed to run a full rookie season in 2008. But the team never found funding to continue, and by the time the infamous Talladega race rolled around, Smith already knew he was out of a ride again.

He landed in a part-time role with Furniture Row in 2009, which expanded to run the full season this year. Could his Talladega near-win ultimately have been a blessing in disguise?

“If I would have ended up with the win, for some odd reason I may still have been at DEI the following year, which would have been bad (because the team merged with Chip Ganassi Racing and reduced its car count),” he said. “And I never would have ended up here at Furniture Row, which has turned into a good thing for me.”

At the time of Smith’s non-win, NASCAR’s yellow-line rule wasn’t as clear as it is today. In addition, drivers were allowed to pass below the yellow line if they were forced down.

After the Smith controversy, though, NASCAR declared passes below the yellow line were illegal no matter what the circumstances.

That rule led to the spectacular Brad Keselowski/Carl Edwards wreck the next season (Keselowski held his ground where Smith didn’t in the same situation, and Edwards spun out, getting airborne and into the fence). It’s a rule that remains in place today.

It means the proper thing for Smith to do - if he wanted to win the race - was to hold his ground and let Stewart wreck. Yes, Stewart could have flown into the stands and injured fans (or worse), but NASCAR’s rule virtually encourages it today.

Smith thought he was doing what he was supposed to do under NASCAR rules at the time.

“I never had any doubt. Never,” Smith said. “I felt like I had to go down there to avoid an accident. I felt like I did what I had to do to win the race.

“It didn’t work out so well.”

When Edwards went airborne the next year, Smith was watching on a TV screen at the nearby airport, having been forced out of the race early thanks to motor problems.

He saw the No. 99 car fly through the air and recalled thinking, “Well, that just proves my point about as much as I needed to prove it right there.”

“It still doesn’t give you a trophy and it doesn’t give you a win, though,” he said. “So that sucks.”

Smith said there wasn’t much he would change about his win that wasn’t, including how he reacted in the aftermath - trying to keep himself as composed as possible despite the emotional chaos he felt internally.

“I was very mad after the fact,” he said. “Really mad. And I was devastated, too. But I was trying everything I could do to not show any anger, any emotions. I did a couple interviews and bolted - I just wanted to leave, get away from it.

“I’m not big on letting people see emotion, good or bad, if I don’t have to. I’m a very emotional person, but I try to keep that private.”

Smith said he sees the potential in Furniture Row Racing to allow him to taste that glory again someday - this time, for more than just a few seconds.

Though he has just three top-15 finishes this season, two have come in the last three weeks. In February, Smith predicted that his team would improve as the season progressed - and though it took a crew chief change to make it happen (former Dale Earnhardt Jr. crew chief Pete Rondeau now leads the Denver-based team), Smith’s performance has improved.

“I don’t think we’re missing much now at this point,” Smith said. “I think the past five-to-10 weeks, we’ve been consistently a 15th-place car. We’ve been fairly consistent. It just took a little bit longer.

“I feel really confident about where we are (as a team) going into next year, and really good about what we’re going to be capable of doing.”

Smith’s car has already been fast in practice on Friday at Talladega. If he could pull into Victory Lane at the track where he experienced one of his greatest heartbreaks, it might help him move past the events of two years ago.

He’s not being greedy. For now, he just wants what he already had.

“Those guys who are fortunate enough to win seven, eight races a year - they better appreciate every single one of them,” Smith said. “They’re making it look easy, but it’s not always that easy.”