UPSET WIN PROVIDES RESPITE
Still, safety issues on drivers’ minds after hard crashes
WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. On one of the darkest days for American auto racing in the last decade, AJ Allmendinger’s win Sunday at Watkins Glen International gave the NASCAR community something to smile about.
Allmendinger became the biggest underdog to make the Chase for the Sprint Cup in its history by virtue of his first career victory, capping a wild but entertaining afternoon at the twisting 2.45-mile track.
Beating Marcos Ambrose in a thrilling last two laps also marked a major career comeback for Allmendinger, who had climbed the NASCAR ladder to Team Penske in 2012, only to lose his ride after testing positive for a banned substance under NASCAR’s substance abuse policy. He got a second chance with JTG Daughterty racing — a small, underfunded team — and has now parlayed it from 25th place in the standings entering Sunday to an unlikely berth in the 16-driver playoff.
Allmendinger’s win was a popular one in the NASCAR garage. It was a welcome development after drivers and crews woke up to horrifying news that Tony Stewart ran over and killed 20year-old driver Kevin Ward Jr. with a sprint car Saturday night at Canandaigua Motorsports Park in upstate New York.
“This NASCAR community, as a whole, we’re a family,” Allmendinger said. “When anything like that happens, it’s something you don’t just erase and forget about. ... You just try to come together. That’s all you can do.”
Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jimmie Johnson and Joey Logano praised Allmendinger’s victory with congratulatory tweets. But even on a day with a feel-good story, the danger of racing was never far from anyone’s thoughts.
NASCAR was forced to stop the race twice after two violent crashes, which raised safety concerns from some drivers.
In the scariest incident, Ryan Newman bounced off the guardrail exiting the “carousel” area and shot back across the track into Michael McDowell, whose car went airborne and flew backward into a catchfence, tearing out a huge chunk and sending debris flying.
NASCAR red-flagged the race for more than 1 hour, 20 minutes to repair the damage, and drivers took the opportunity to criticize Watkins Glen’s guardrail barriers.
“The SAFER barrier doesn’t exist here; there are no concrete walls,” Newman said. “It’s just a very antiquated racetrack, and the safety is not at all up to NASCAR’s standards. And it’s a shame that we have to have accidents like that to prove it.
“They have no problems spending $400 million in Daytona (for new grandstands), but they could spend a few million dollars here on safety and make a lot of drivers happy.”
Newman’s pleas echoed the concerns voiced after the track’s 2011 race, which included two violent wrecks. David Ragan, who was involved in a nasty crash, said he’d seen better walls at dirt tracks and urged the addition of SAFER barriers.
After a 2009 crash involving Jeff Gordon, Watkins Glen made $1.3 million in improvements to barriers and runoff areas, but drivers said more should be done.
Later, an incident with Alex Kennedy and Denny Hamlin sent both cars into the sand-filled barrels at the entrance of pit road.
Watkins Glen President Michael Printup said of the Newman-McDowell incident, “That was a spectacular crash, no question. We will sit down with NASCAR and evaluate what that accident produced and what we need to do. Safety for the fans and drivers is paramount.”
“I’m happy and thankful everybody is OK,” Allmendinger said. “It’s a tough scenario. The second or third time there we’ve had a big wreck. I think we need to do something to make it a little bit safer over there.”
NASCAR vice president of competition Robin Pemberton said during an ESPN interview that all tracks were reviewed.
“It’s a constant process,” he said. “And many of the places we go to, the tracks are multipurpose, and we’re only here one weekend a year. ...
“Not all places are for SAFER barriers. There are different types of systems to slow the cars down.”