You know, it amazes me that there are still folks that are
surprised by the wild and crazy races and the wild and crazy wrecks
at Talladega.
I started racing there in 1972 and that's always been the
story at the track. And what's that old cliche about history
repeating itself?
Sometimes we just don't learn from history, and that seems
to be what goes on at Talladega. Everything in the world has been
done to the cars and engines. Every kind of restriction you can
imagine has been put on the drivers.
I hate to say this, but Ron White said it best — you
can't fix stupid. It just doesn't make any sense to me, why do we
continue to go there and leave with the carnage that we do? I have
no earthly idea why. How many race cars have been destroyed in
Talladega over the years? It probably is in the thousands by now.
The intensity there is mind-numbing. My heart just pounds
from the minute the green flag waves until the checkers fall. And I
am just talking about watching it from my couch like you do. I
never really thought the intensity could be matched when I used to
race there, but I was wrong.
You just know there is going to be an accident there and
when it happens, it is going to be pretty big. Sure you might get
lucky and have only a handful of cars wrecked, but on average you
are looking at wrecks with 12 to 15 cars.
What happens there shouldn't be a big surprise to anybody.
After every race there we all walk away shaking our head
saying, "They have to do something. We can't continue to race like
that." Well guess what? We've been doing it for decades now. Like
always, I have a few suggestions of how to make things better:
Maybe those suggestions could go along with what NASCAR has
put in place like the no bump zone, the yellow line and enough
daylight between the cars. Then there was the warning of no
aggressive driving because NASCAR was going to police the race.
There are just so many rules being laid down that I decided I had
better try to think outside the box.
I mean come on, they have tried everything else. Maybe my
suggestions would cure all the problems we have had at Talladega
all these years. Something else they might want to look at is
something that was done back in the early '70's at the track here
at the Nashville Fairgrounds. That was to cut the banking down.
When they did that by bringing in dirt and filling in the bottom of
the race track and then repaving it, they created a place with some
of the most exciting short track racing in America through the
years.
My point is there's a way without destroying Talladega and
costing a lot of money to cut the banking down considerably at
Talladega. My suggestion would be to do that but yet keep it a
little higher than say what we are used to at Texas, Atlanta or
Charlotte.
Keep the banking a little higher than at those places and
fix it where you have to back off the throttle getting into the
corner. What that creates is separation. That will keep the cars
separated and keep them from running over each other the way that
they do.
Now I know there will be people out there that will say, well
it's Talladega and it's just the way it is. Go to the opposite end
of the spectrum. Remember how terrible the racing was originally
was at Homestead-Miami Speedway? It was because they had no
banking. They went in, rebuilt it and banked it up and now the
racing is great there.
Facts are facts. Our cars won't race well without banking.
That's why places like California and Michigan produce boring
races. We have to have a minimum of 14 degrees, up to 24 degrees of
banking at our tracks. This allows our cars to handle and race
well. It also creates an opportunity for them to run side by side.
These are big, heavy cars with small tires on them. They
can't run on a flat track. We also don't need to be running
anywhere that we can run the car wide open all the time. That's
what we have however with Talladega and Daytona but particularly at
Talladega. There, as we saw Sunday, you can hold the thing wide
open all day and run over people. That's what creates all these
accidents.
You have to realize that the restrictor plate was never meant
to slow the cars down. It was designed to be an equalizer. Back in
the early '70's, NASCAR had wanted to phase the big block engines
out and phase in the new small block engines. To equalize the
competition, big blocks were made to run the restrictor plate. This
was done to give the small block a fighting chance.
As soon as the big block was phased out, then the restrictor
plate followed. By the late '80's however, the cars had gotten so
fast that NASCAR was forced to bring the restrictor plate back. The
plate is the lesser of a whole lot of evils. The perfect solution
is to get rid of it completely.
It's pretty easy when you look at the history of it, but the
smaller the plate the bigger the wrecks. It's been proven time and
time again. Maybe they need to shorten the race because everything
seems to go along just fine until those last 50 miles. They are the
ones that seem to get you.
I hate to see my driver buddies have to continue to endure
this. I hated to see Ryan Newman and Mark Martin go upside down
Sunday. This new car is so top heavy that any time it gets a little
lift to it, well it seems to roll like a football.
I think once the folks see what a good looking car the new
Nationwide Series car is going to be, then you will see changes to
this Cup car. This new Nationwide Series car will have a new nose
on it and more importantly no rear wing. It will be back to the
traditional spoiler like we are accustomed to.
When I have seen pictures of the new Nationwide Series car,
it seems like they have fixed everything that is wrong with the
current COT car. Why they have to wait until 2011 to make the
changes to the Cup car is something I don't understand. Maybe if
the economy improves and sponsorships pick up maybe changes like
that and to the engines I am hearing about will happen sooner than
later.
Do the math
So now we are down to three races to go but I
still stand behind what I have been saying for years now. Every
race more Chase drivers are eliminated. By the time we roll into
Homestead in three weeks, Jimmie Johnson will probably have the
championship all but wrapped up.
When that happens and Jimmie makes it four consecutive
championships, maybe NASCAR will realize that the Chase drivers
need their own points system. There are just some really glaring
issues that need to be addressed in my mind. But see, here's the
thing — they need to be addressed now and not a year from
now.
They have to make racing better. They have to make the
competition on the track better. They have to make it more
exciting. They have to fix the problems and not continue to put
band-aids on them.
I say work on the problems and not the symptoms. That's my
solution.
