LDN - Sports

Logano, Hamlin get help from friends at Talladega

[October 25, 2016] By Jonathan Ingram, The Sports Xchange

There have been some weird races at the Talladega Superspeedway over the years, and Sunday's Chase elimination race was yet another. At times, it was more like a chess match at 200 mph than a race.

Because of the implications of advancing to the Round of 8, some of NASCAR's finest drivers balloon-footed it all day. That left the door open to those who had to race, such as the Fords of Team Penske, and left a clear path to victory lane for Joey Logano, who handily beat unheralded journeyman and fellow Ford driver Brian Scott to the line.

Those hanging out at the back were the vaunted trio of Joe Gibbs Racing.

To not steal points from teammate Denny Hamlin, who needed every point he could get to advance, Matt Kenseth, Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards and their Toyotas had the day off. They tooled around at the back of the pack to avoid the multi-car wrecks that never came on an exceedingly well-mannered day and eased home 28th through 30th place -- good enough to advance to the Round of 8.

Given that Hamlin squeaked into the Round of 8 by finishing third, the Chevy teams took it on the chin. Where Penske's two entries, plus the Fords of Ryan Blaney and Scott worked together, Chevy couldn't find anybody to help push Chase Elliott to a much-needed victory or to get some help to Austin Dillon, who lost the tiebreaker to Hamlin by finishing ninth in the overtime scramble at the finish.

If not for a couple of engines blown by two guys who appeared ready to run at the front, the day might have come real close to hippodroming -- the term from the old exhibition days of barnstorming Indy car drivers, who put on a show after mapping out who would finish where in advance.

Penske's Brad Keselowski, whose only way forward in the Chase was to win, blew up his Ford V-8 likely due to radiator debris. Martin Truex, Jr. suffered a rare Toyota engine failure while looking to get his Furniture Row Racing team's groove back by running at the front.

Apparently, Truex, Jr. didn't get the memo from its affiliated Joe Gibbs Racing team regarding Hamlin's best chances.

Team owner Joe Gibbs acknowledged only one of his cars came to race.

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

If this sounds like the needs of the sponsors are put ahead of the fans who bought tickets to see a race, well, that's what it came down to at Talladega on Sunday. Team co-owner Tony Stewart chimed in on this theme by running at the back and finished 32nd.

Logano led the final 45 laps. When is the last time a race winner at Talladega went unchallenged for that many laps at the finish?

The answer: when Dale Earnhardt, Jr. won in 2002, he led the final 39 laps and nobody's come close to that figure until Sunday.

No changes of the lead for almost one fourth of the race -- and at the finish -- was the equivalent of a college football game going the entire fourth quarter without any scoring by either side. It seems like an oxymoron to say Logano won the race in overtime.

Once it was over, Gibbs and Toyota had four drivers advance, Chevy got a third driver in as Kurt Busch motored to enough points to join the two already qualified race winners -- teammate Kevin Harvick of Stewart-Haas Racing and Jimmie Johnson of Hendrick Motorsports. Ford is alive via Logano's victory.

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Had Keselowski not lost his engine after leading 90 laps, even team owner Roger Penske admitted there would have been some team orders at the finish.

"Obviously, when you looked at the statistics, it was going to be difficult to get two (cars in)," said Penske. "Something had to happen to Truex, and it happened early. If Brad would have won and Joey would have finished second or third, we would have got both cars in."

With next year's schedule, NASCAR officials already addressed the issue of drivers "points racing" at Talladega to help teammates and to avoid wrecks in the multi-car draft by moving it to the middle of the Round of 12.

In 2017, the third elimination race will take place at the Kansas Speedway, meaning drivers can profit greatly by pressing the issue and the accelerator at Talladega the weekend before. At Kansas, a driver can't hang around the back and then use the draft to recover late in the race.

In many respects, this year's race was better than last year's victory by Logano. Many questioned the driving of Harvick on the final two restarts last year, which resulted in wrecks that kept him in the Chase but knocked out Dale Earnhardt, Jr. The latter had the faster car but never got a chance to race against Logano due to the start-line shenanigans.

NASCAR thought so little of the conduct of last year's race that the green-white-checkered finish rules were changed to the current overtime rules that prevent any skullduggery on often decisive restarts.

The swap in the schedule with the Kansas race may not necessarily fix things.

Last year's Chase was further disrupted by the intentional wrecking of Logano by Matt Kenseth because of the two drivers' run-in at Kansas. The payback occurred at the Martinsville Speedway short track, scene of this Sunday's first race in the Round of 8.

Logano was asked on Sunday if he felt his chances were better by advancing this year without making any enemies along the way. He laughed off that suggestion before answering.

"You know, I mean, really, in all honesty, you're back to a wash when you move on to the next round," he said. "I feel like this team's got a lot of momentum. I think we had a lot of momentum at this point last year. I think we got an equal amount if you look at it.

"Charlotte, yeah, we had a tire go out, but we had a fast race car there. We finished third last weekend and a win this weekend. We're going to a racetrack that we've proven we've had speed there, haven't won there yet, but speed that's capable of winning. I feel good about our chances. I feel good about where we're at in this thing, to be able to move on. Yeah, we got speed, we got momentum, we got confidence, so let's go."

At this point, the Chase could use a little momentum, too, and perhaps the usual good ol' fender-banging at Martinsville will help.

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