Logano gets his 1st win in over a year
TALLADEGA, Ala. – Joey Logano made one thing very clear in winning Sunday’s GEICO 500 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup race at Talladega Superspeedway. First place is the safest place. Blocking and weaving with skill developed over years of restrictor-plate racing, Logano held off several challengers over the closing laps and won for the first time in more than a year.
“At the end you are racing and don’t know what will happen, you just hope to get in the right lanes at the right time with the right moves,” Logano said. “It is always exciting to win at a superspeedway, especially Talladega because you never know you’ve got it until you cross the line.”
Every time a field of 200-mph cars comes screaming to the green flag to start a race at Talladega, a nervous mix of excitement and angst hangs over NASCAR’s biggest track.
At its best, the racing here is riveting. At its worst, cars fly out of the track or into the fencing protecting spectators from a nightmare incident or into wild, flipping rides that usually – but not always – end with drivers climbing out wobbly but well.
Sunday’s race, the first of two visits here this year by the Cup Series, opened under a bit more anxiety than usual.
On Friday, the track bit Jamie McMurray.
A tire issue and contact with Ryan Newman in practice sent McMurray into the sky and then into a nauseating series of rolls
. As so often happens in similar accidents here, McMurray stepped out of his mangled car with no significant injuries.
Considerable experimentation by NASCAR and its teams has resulted in roof flaps and other advances that have significantly reduced the possibility of cars going airborne at high-speed tracks. But McMurray’s incident was a Taser-like reminder that the right circumstances can lead to sudden calamity. And enough of that calamity eventually will lead to the ugly sort of results feared by NASCAR and its competitors.
NASCAR responded quickly to the McMurray crash, announcing a slight reduction in the size of the restrictor plates that rob engines of power here, trimming speeds by two to four mph. There are two things NASCAR doesn’t like at Talladega – flying cars and sustained speeds pushing into the 205mph range. There is a near-constant give-and-take between officials and mechanics as speeds rise with advances in technology, then fall with restrictions from the powers-that-be.
That dance was on display Friday, and the results spilled over into Sunday’s pre-race environment as drivers buckled in for 188 tightrope laps. Drivers take much of this in stride as part of the job, and none would ever show a tinge of fear starting a super-fast 500-mile race, but there is little question the wicked stew that is Talladega heightens tensions.