NASCAR at Talladega: Winners and Losers from the Geico 500
Sunday’s Geico 500, race No. 6 of the Chase, lived up to the hype.
It was hold-your-breath stuff for nearly all of its 188 laps, as NASCAR’s best jockeyed to be in the right place at the right time at nearly 200 miles per hour.
When it came down to the final 20 laps, the fans were given everything they could ever want—except for a Dale Earnhardt Jr. victory.
No, the win went to Brad Keselowski, his sixth of the season and the 16th of his career.
“I can’t believe it. Talladega is such a wild card, and to be able to win here you have to catch breaks and make your own breaks, a little of both,” the winner told a live national television audience in his Victory Lane interview. “I can’t believe we won at Talladega. This race is the scariest of the three in the bracket. To be able to win here is really a privilege; it really is.”
Winner: Brad Keselowski
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Brad Keselowski had to have only one thing on his mind all week.
He had to win at Talladega this weekend, the site of his first Sprint Cup win, or face elimination in the Chase.
Mission accomplished. Some final-lap maneuvers that put him past then race leader Ryan Newman did the job.
“We just persevered. We didn’t give up,” Keselowski said in a live post-race television interview. “I got a lot of help from my teammate Joey Logano, and wow, this is just special. Everything about today is special. I want to say thank you to everyone that supports our team.”
It was a clutch win for the driver who showed his aggressive side in a far different manner last weekend at Charlotte.
Loser: Dale Earnhardt Jr.
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His car was good but not great. Dale Earnhardt Jr. appeared to struggle to stay in touch with the front of the pack. When he was leading—he did so for 31 laps—his car looked like a winner.
Whether it was the aero package on these Gen 6 cars or the car itself, Sunday’s performance was not classic Earnhardt.
When he needed to be able to move his car through the pack toward the front, he was unable to do so. A wreck midway through the race sealed his fate, and he is out of the Chase.
"The race is over; it's time to go home," an emotional Earnhardt told a live national television audience in his post-race interview.
Still, this was one of the best seasons in his career, and it's not over yet. There can be another race win in the cards for this driver.
Winner: Jeff Gordon
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It looked a little touch and go for four-time champion Jeff Gordon, as he spent much of the race running at the back of the field, which was the team’s strategy to stay out of trouble.
Gordon did manage to stay out of trouble for the entire race. The problem was, Gordon’s car didn’t look like it would be strong enough to move to the front of the pack and finish in a good enough position so that he could score enough points and stay inside the cutoff for moving on to the next round of the Chase.
In the final restarts, Gordon did make enough moves forward to give him a 26th-place finish. But there had to be some moments there for both Gordon and crew chief Alan Gustafson where they were second-guessing their strategy.
Gordon moves on to the Eliminator Round, sitting seventh in points.
"I’m just glad we made it," Gordon told a live national television audience in a post-race interview. "I can’t wait for Martinsville [the next race in the Chase]. I can’t wait for Texas. I can’t wait for Phoenix. All are great tracks for us. This team has done some amazing work this year. These next three are where we are really going to shine and show it.”
The Drive for Five is still alive.
Loser: Jimmie Johnson
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It wasn’t the champ’s year. Jimmie Johnson’s Hendrick Motorsports team was out of sync for much of the second half of the season, and it came back to haunt it on Sunday.
Johnson will sit on the virtual sidelines for the remainder of the 2014 Chase as eight other drivers will vie for possession of the Sprint Cup.
Johnson’s No. 48 Chevrolet was the class of the field, starting from the front row and leading the most laps (84). However, on the second-to-last restart, Johnson misjudged how the field would react, went to the outside and Johnson found himself heading the wrong way.
“Two restarts from the end, I was trying to make something happen on the restart,” Johnson told a live national television audience in a post-race interview. “I was in a weird position there behind the No. 2 (Brad Keselowski), and if I pushed him to the win, he moves on and I don't. So I tried going to his outside. I looked up, and I had no friends in the mirror.”
For those who monitored the team radio transmissions on Sunday, there was not a hint of the discord found in the media the past week. This was a team that tried its best, but its best just wasn’t good enough.
Johnson finished 24th.
Winner: Team Penske
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The dynamic duo continue on, seemingly invincible.
Was there any doubt that Keselowski wasn’t going to somehow pull a rabbit out of his hat on Sunday? It’s just the way Team Penske has been all season.
When it needed a win, whether it was Keselowski or teammate Joey Logano, it delivered one.
"I've been in NASCAR a long time; this is 11 races we'd won; 10 (races) was our best season with Rusty (Wallace),” Penske told the media in the post-race press conference. “We set a record today for the team. Obviously (it) put us in a position to go forward in the next bracket.
“You don't like to see anybody knocked out. But when you see the caliber of the drivers that won't be there for the next four races, certainly we feel good about having at least two going into this next bracket."
With Hendrick Motorsports down to one team (Jeff Gordon) and Joe Gibbs Racing still doing it with smoke and mirrors, the probability that Roger Penske will win both the Indy Car Series and Sprint Cup Series championships in the same season is looking better and better.
Loser: Hendrick Motorsports
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With all four cars in contention for the championship at the start of the Chase, the stage was set for a battle of Hendrick Motorsports versus the field for 10 races.
Now, with four races remaining, things are quite different. Six-time champion Jimmie Johnson—gone; Dale Earnhardt Jr., who was having a career season—gone; and Kasey Kahne—gone.
“You just got to do the best you can," Hendrick told a live television audience. "The No. 48 (Jimmie Johnson) led the most laps today. (Dale Earnhardt) Junior has been good. The No. 5 (Kasey Kahne) was up there in the top five.”
All that remains of the four-driver powerhouse is Gordon. He is definitely capable of taking the other seven remaining drivers to task. He is unquestionably the most experienced.
And maybe, if he does win it all, it will make this year’s championship, which would be title No. 5 for Gordon, all the more special for Mr. Hendrick.
Winner: Matt Kenseth
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Matt Kenseth led only one lap and finished second in Sunday’s Geico 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. It was a good enough finish to move him forward into the Eliminator Round of the Chase.
Even Kenseth couldn’t explain his team’s current fortunes.
“I really didn't know,” he explained during the post-race press conference. “The first round we ran OK. Last couple weeks we haven't ran well.”
He went on to explain his race strategy on Sunday, which was to stay toward the back and out of trouble. He then tried to address his success.
“I didn't give you a really good answer, but I didn't know,” Kenseth added. “I feel like my team is more than capable. But our performance hasn't been as good as the top three or four guys. It's nice to have our points back, and hopefully we can go next week and run the way we know we're capable of.”
It’s hard to fault Kenseth’s Joe Gibbs Racing team for where it stands in the Chase. It played within the rules. But when placed in context with the teams that are now out of contention, especially since Kenseth is winless this season, the new Chase format does appear to offer a debate about fairness.
Loser: Kasey Kahne
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One would think that Kasey Kahne would be among the first to tell you that he and his team backed into the Chase field.
The Kenny Francis-led squad hadn’t been championship material for much of the season, although toward the end of the regular season, Kahne was showing some consistency.
Kahne and his team went to Atlanta Motor Speedway in September knowing it was a must-win situation for him to make the Chase. And he did win. The same could be said for Sunday’s race at Talladega. A win was the one sure way he could move forward.
However, for much of the race, Kahne was a non-contender. He did manage to lead for 12 laps, but not when they were needed—at the end.
“You just try and get the best finish you can,” Kahne told a live television audience in a post-race interview. "It was tough if you weren’t in the top few spots."
Kahne finished 12th, not good enough to move on to the next round of the Chase, and his finish placed him 14th in points.
Winner: Ryan Newman
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Toward the end of the Geico 500, it looked like Newman might finally end the current 48-race winless streak that began right after he won the Brickyard 400 last year.
His Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet was racing with the leaders for a good deal of the afternoon. It looked very capable of taking Newman to Victory Lane.
Newman finished fifth, but as long as he had an average day and got out of Talladega without incident, he was going onto the Eliminator Round of the Chase.
It’s been a remarkable season for Newman, his first at RCR. That he is winless isn't all that much of a surprise. After all, this is a new organization and new cars for the 2008 Daytona 500 winner. As he moves into the next round of the Chase, the goose egg under the win column looms large. And he knows it.
“I think to me the next three races are the ones that are the most important to win,” Newman told his manufacturer’s representative in a post-race media release. “We have been knocking on the door here the last three. We will keep digging.”
Newman sits third in points.
Loser: Kyle Busch
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Although he didn’t qualify, Kyle Busch had run some of the fastest speeds of anyone during practice.
Starting at the rear of the field at a restrictor-plate race isn’t that big of a deal anyway. But, it does place you in the middle of the pack as you work your way forward.
It put Busch in harms way for a crash midway through the race. It severely damaged his race car, and he spent many laps in the garage while his Dave Rogers-led crew worked feverishly to get him back onto the race track.
They did, but Busch finished 40th, which was devastating to his Chase hopes. Busch is out and will not advance to the Eliminator Round.
Rogers stood behind his driver.
"I can't praise him (Kyle Busch) enough,” Rogers told his manufacturer representative in a quote that appeared in a post-race release. “He's really stepped up to be a great leader of this race team in the Chase. We've had a couple things go against us—getting the nose knocked off at Loudon, today and Kyle's done a really good job of biting his lip and just backing the race team to let us do our job.
“Kyle, I can't say enough good about him. I'm really proud of him. It's been a lot of fun working with him, and we're not done yet. We can't win the championship, but we can still advance in points and work our way up to fifth. We're going to go to Martinsville working hard, and we're going to try to win all these races."
Busch’s team was peaking at the right time. And he knew it. But, Talladega was Talladega, and now, Busch’s championship hunt is over.
Winner: Danica Patrick
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When Danica Patrick took the race lead on Lap 167, half of America cheered, while the other half gasped.
Was Patrick going to upset the apple cart, win the race and turn attention from a very competitive Chase to her inaugural Sprint Cup victory?
It was not to be. Although Patrick will win races in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series, and her first is likely to be a restrictor-plate race, there was too much at stake in Sunday’s race for it to happen.
Four drivers needed the win more than she needed it, and all four had far more knowledge of how to win on a plate track.
I don't profess to know more about driving a Sprint Cup race car than Kevin Harvick does. And I agree with some of his comments to Jared Turner of FoxSports.com, when Harvick said that Patrick "will always be behind" in NASCAR. But the Stewart-Haas Racing driver is a good student of racing, and she will win one of these races.
It was a lot of fun to watch the best in the world racing behind her Pink and Green Chevrolet for those wonderful seven laps.
All quotes are taken from official NASCAR, team and manufacturer media releases unless otherwise stated.
Bob Margolis is a member of the National Motorsports Press Association and has covered NASCAR, IndyCar, the NHRA and Sports Cars for more than two decades as a writer, television producer and on-air talent.
On Twitter: @BobMargolis
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