(Photo by Jerry Markland/Getty Images for NASCAR)
It’s said every time the Sprint Cup Series visits the esteemed Talladega Superspeedway: Many races have been won and lost between turn four and the start/finish line, which sits closer to turn one than the centrally located line at Daytona.
What many haven’t considered is that the line’s location played into a scary crash between Carl Edwards, Brad Keselowski, and Ryan Newman racing to the checkers in the Aaron’s 499 last Sunday.
There’s no rhyme or reason for having the start/finish line nearer to turn one than the center of the tri-oval except that it may sell more cheap seats lower to the track surface past pit lane.
When it comes to safety, moving the line might be NASCAR’s best bet to prevent a car from entering the stands or shredding against the catch fence again.
Right now, the line's location is an anomaly to Talladega, being that it’s not where most would think it is. Before completing the race, drivers have a long, flat-out haul down the front stretch and through the banked tri-oval to the finish.
If the line was in the center of the tri-oval or even back a bit, before the higher-banked part of the front stretch, Sunday’s wreck wouldn’t have sent a car into the fence. It may not even have happened.
When drivers come down the banking, pick up draft, and make a move on the leader, options are limited for the car out front. Block and risk your car, or let them pass. Only the faint of heart would let the trailer by cleanly for the win.
Sitting the line at the center of the tri-oval would have made it a futile effort for Edwards to come back across the nose of Keselowski, and Newman and Dale Earnhardt Jr. wouldn’t have been in the final picture. The finish would have been close, front and center, and safe.
Cars wrecking on the front stretch with a centered finish line wouldn’t be turning. As a result, 3,400-pound vehicles wouldn’t threaten people in the stands and would most likely end up in the more forgiving infield grass.
NASCAR has made improvements to keep cars on the ground, but flips still happen. It’s fine with NASCAR, since nobody has failed to walk away from one of these death-defying crashes in recent years.
The only other viable solution to keep the racing the way it is at Talladega is to relax the yellow line rule on the front straight.
If Edwards had the guts to push Keselowski all the way to the grass, then NASCAR could drop a penalty on the No. 99 car.
Had Keselowski dropped below the yellow to keep both drivers out of harm’s way, the NASCAR standard set last fall would have put the No. 09 in the wrong.
NASCAR should accept that these drivers tend to use all viable pavement to race. The front stretch apron is hardly an advantage, being that it’s not banked and is wide enough for only one car to fit.
Either relaxing the yellow line rule or moving an irrationally placed start/finish line would appear as a positive step forward to preventing last Sunday’s accident from happening again.
It’s not a drastic change, but NASCAR is under pressure to do something. Restrictor plate racing is the sport’s highest entertainment value, and if NASCAR wants to preserve it, they need to somehow make oversized Talladega a safer place to race.
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