Talladega has returned the natural order to the NASCAR playoffs.
Go figure it out.
Of all places it was Super Speedway Mayhem which saw people’s choice Chase Elliott pass the checkers first and take a seat in the next round of playoff races, which won’t happen until you drive the Roval Charlotte circuit this coming weekend.
We guess it might be a madhouse.
But first, let’s recap a weekend at Talladega that included a popular race winner, some high-profile allegations of a high-profile issue, and a fire. Yes, a fire.
MOVE WRIGHT BROTHERS!:Talladega, the first in high speed, but also the first in flight? They think so KEN WILLIS
MARIA’S DREAM TEAM:Will Richard Childress and Kyle Busch battle for seven NASCAR championships with Dale Earnhardt?
The first transfer
We’ll get to Chase and the new playoff landscape, but we should probably start with the broad topic because that might be Talladega’s biggest takeaway.
Safety, or the recent lack of it, was in the spotlight again last week when Alex Bowman retired from Talladega due to concussion symptoms — his one-car crash the previous week at Texas looked pretty harmless, but obviously wasn’t.
Apparently, the current problem is caused by the rear bumper of the next generation cars. They were designed to take more hits without falling apart or replacing them. It looks like the engineering worked out too well, but as they always say, something’s got to give.
These are drivers who give back by absorbing more contact than before. Denny Hamlin, the elder statesman among his fellow drivers, directly blamed NASCAR management for green-lighting a new car that appears to be lacking in the most important area — “it needs a complete redesign,” Hamlin said of Next Gen .
Chase Elliott, usually tight-lipped about hot-button issues, suggested that the entire NASCAR organization has moved away from the next generation, at least in terms of driver safety.
“It’s really amazing to me that we let this happen, but we did,” Chase said.
The second transfer
We never got the Big One, although eight cars were involved in a crash on lap 24—mostly spinning, and only two cars were disabled after the smoke cleared.
In the final laps, as usual, everyone was engrossed in the event, believing that something big was coming. It turned out that the assumption was shared in at least one cabin.
“My stomach hurts just from the agony in the car because of the wreck that I knew was going to happen,” Ross Chastain told Fox Sports afterward. “It was unbelievable that we all made it.”
Of the four superspeedway races this season at Talladega and Daytona, only one — the Daytona 500 — went beyond the prescribed number of laps due to a late crash. There were, however, large gatherings in all, at least until Sunday.
Maybe it’s too simple, but you want to link all the current safety issues to the drivers’ ability to keep things together when the heat hits Talladega.
Given the playoff implications, along with several drivers looking for a rare opportunity to win, the opportunity was there, but either common sense or good old luck won out.
The third transfer
Now for the reason we should be here.
There was no chaos, but there was drama, and in the end we had a playoff driver who won a playoff race.
And it was none other than Billy Clyde Elliott, who slipped perilously short of a playoff spot last week before holding off Ryan Blaney to win at Talladega and clinch a spot in the Round of 16, which begins Oct. 16 in Las- Vegas.
“These things are so, so hard to win,” Chase said after climbing out of his No. 9 Chevy. “You have to enjoy them.”
Next? “Be ready to go to Roval and try to grab another one,” said Chase, who will surely be the pre-race favorite given his track acumen.
On the final restart with two to go, Chase steadily pushed fellow Chevy driver Eric Jones and he eventually took the outside lane past Blaney, but didn’t pass him in the end. Official margin of victory: 0.046 seconds.
Unofficial Victory: Blink of an eye.
“It was a wild last couple of laps,” Chase said.
Wild, but not dirty. It was also Chase’s fifth win of 2022 and 18th of his career in the Cup Series, tying him on the all-time list with teammate Kyle Larson, along with some former NASCAR heavyweights: Jeff Bodin, Neil Bonnett , by Harry Gantt, Ryan Newman, and Casey Kahn.
“It’s really cool. “Honestly, it’s hard to believe,” Chase said.
Post-Daggy Playoff Standings: 1. Chase Elliott, 2. Ryan Blaney, 3. Ross Chastain, 4. Denny Hamlin, 5. Joey Logano, 6. Kyle Larson, 7. Daniel Suarez, T8. Chase Briscoe, T8. Austin Cindric, 10. William Byron, 11. Christopher Bell, 12. Alex Bowman.
The fourth transfer
The scariest moment of the weekend can’t be blamed on a Next Gen car.
Freelance Truck Series driver Jordan Anderson was airlifted to a Birmingham hospital where he was treated for second-degree burns before being released on Saturday night. Find a replay and you’ll realize how much worse things could have been.
His truck lost its engine and immediately caught fire on lap 19 of Saturday’s truck race. As Anderson’s truck turned toward the inside retaining wall off Turn 2, he unbuckled his seat belts and removed the window screen.
When the slowing truck hit a wall and stopped, Anderson was about halfway out of the window and was able to escape to the top of the SECURITY barrier as smoke and flames engulfed the truck.
As a result of all the current safety talk, NASCAR has scheduled Next Gen testing this week at the Ohio Crash Test Facility. Along the way, they might want to determine how the fire could have started so suddenly, without an accident, in one of the truck series records.
