Two Big Winners Lose the Chase Touch as Joey Logano Conquers Talladega

Joey Logano captured the latter Sprint Cup race at Talladega Superspeedway—this one happened to be known as the Hellmann's 500—for the second year in a row, and the race took a toll on contenders, if not on race cars.

What? A safe race at Talladega? Only eight cars were involved in crashes.

On May 1, when Brad Keselowski won the GEICO 500 at the track, 56 cars were listed as involved in crashes. The starting field was 40, which meant that many drivers drove into more than one calamitous melee. Among the multiple crashers were such luminaries as Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Perhaps some caution—some professional reserve—was in order.

Driver	Wins	Poles	Top-5 Finishes	Avg. Finish
Kevin Harvick	4	1	15	10.1
Joey Logano	2	3	13	11.3
Kurt Busch	1	2	8	11.7
Denny Hamlin	3	1	11	12.3
Kyle Busch	4	2	14	12.3
Carl Edwards	2	6	8	12.8
Jimmie Johnson	3	1	9	14.1
Matt Kenseth	2	1	7	14.2

As expected, Talladega took a toll on the Chase for the Sprint Cup, a 10-race format of elimination rounds that gradually determines the NASCAR champion. The toll was just different this time.

As Logano said in his Victory Lane interview on NBC Sports: "It's never a layup here at Talladega. It's always close. You never get a big lead."

An opportune yellow flag enabled Logano to make up a lap he lost for—this is not a gag—leaving the pits with the jack still attached to the left side of his yellow Ford. His is now the only Ford left among the eight contending for the championship. Engine failure sidelined his teammate, Brad Keselowski, who led 90 of the 192 laps but wound up 38th.

Michael Reaves/Getty Images

Four drivers have won four races this year. Two of them—Keselowski and Martin Truex Jr.—will contend for the title no more. Truex's Toyota also fell victim to engine failure.

Why no more wild moves, small mistakes that become major crashes...chills, thrills and post-race aspirin pills?

Strategy. Tactics. Working the system. One cannot be faulted for exploiting a system that determines how the championship is won. The loss of a battle pales in comparison to the winning of a war.

With the exception of Denny Hamlin—who advanced into the Round of 8 by a few inches that separated him from third place over Kurt Busch and a tiebreaker gave him the next round over Austin Dillon—the Toyotas of Joe Gibbs Racing spent the entire race running together at the back of the pack, safely behind the threat of mayhem.

Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch finished sheepishly in 28th, 29th and 30th, respectively. They—and Hamlin—kept their title hopes alive. Dillon finished ninth and did not.

Gibbs, the old football coach, laid down the law. He learned how to rest his starters long ago:

"

I think, really, guys would rather be in the situation where they feel like they've got to go win. The drivers kind of all feel that way, but at the same time, it's a playoff and you've got to do what is smart, and so you certainly don't want to make big mistakes of some kind, and cost your sponsor and everybody that's wrapped up in this.

"

To paraphrase the French statesman Clemenceau (on war), racing is too serious a matter to entrust to drivers.

In the words of Kanye West, Casey Stengel and many others, "Take one for the team."

The contrast between Kansas a week earlier—where Edwards and Busch battled each other and let Kevin Harvick get away—could not have been more stark.

Some fans didn't much care for this successful strategy. Those who cling to something of a cowboy myth—racers as gunfighters of the asphalt hell-bent for leather —were disappointed. Many, coincidentally, preferred drivers who either didn't drive for Gibbs or didn't drive Toyotas.

As canny businessmen go, modern NASCAR drivers are familiar with high risk and are capable of weighing rewards. Modern owners—including, coincidentally, the one who has been most successful this year—are all too willing to keep their talent mindful of bigger pictures than the ones snapped after single, fleeting races.

Hamlin, who made the final eight via a tiebreaker and could have used some help at the end, used a poker analogy:

"

I knew they were (running in the back), but they had to do what they had to do to get in. You can't sacrifice those three cars to get the last one in. You've got to know you've got in your hand three aces. You can't try to get the fourth and risk it, so I knew I was going to have to be out there alone, but I found the guys that I worked with, and stuck with them and it all worked out.

"

Coincidentally, by Talladega's lofty standards of bedlam, the race was lackluster.

After less dust than usual had settled, a popular pre-Chase favorite, Truex, was out of it. So were Keselowski, a former champion; Chase Elliott, the impressive rookie; and Dillon, the longest shot to make the Round of 12.

Elliott had to win but couldn't keep pace in the high-speed chess of the final laps. His was the afternoon's greatest exercise in frustration.

As usual, Talladega Superspeedway left its proponents to celebrate and its detractors to grouse. Many fans who declare they seek "a good, safe race" leave good, safe races wringing their hands at the lack of "action."

Eight drivers move on to three wildly different tracks—in order, Martinsville, Texas and Phoenix—where they will be winnowed down to four for a grand finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway on November 20.

Nothing from here on will look remotely like Talladega, but nothing at Talladega matched expectations, either.

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All quotes are taken from NASCAR media, team and manufacturer sources unless otherwise noted.