LDN - Sports

Rope-a-dope tactics not a winning strategy at Talledega

[October 13, 2017] By Jonathan Ingram, The Sports Xchange

NASCAR has rightfully taken a lot of criticism lately on everything from calls on cautions to inconsistency in penalty calls made on pit road.

Jimmie Johnson's lug nut episode in Charlotte begged for more clarification and instead the response from NASCAR further clouded the issue on how it enforces rules.

Suffice it to say, whether it's in the rule book or not, all teams now know it's OK to tighten or add lug nuts even if their car is out of the pit box -- not just the team of a seven-time champion. Going into Talladega, where safety issues are always paramount, that's a good thing -- even if NASCAR backed into it due to media coverage of Johnson's final pit stop.

The problem is the same ol' NASCAR mentality of running a meritocracy and favoring the teams that run at the front, which are generally the favorites of fans and sponsors. Those who have been smart enough to catch on to the unstated policy by NASCAR not to penalize teams if a lug nut is worked on outside the pit box, goes this line of thinking, get rewarded.

While the Charlotte episode was not necessarily a conspiracy to help Johnson sustain his efforts to win a record eighth championship, the question was begged.

But give NASCAR credit for two recent developments that are significant outside of poor play-calling. First, by working with TV partners and by letting fans know in advance, NASCAR now has the option to push forward the start of a race by one hour. Last week in Charlotte, that enabled drives and teams to race for 500 miles instead of getting interrupted by a tropical storm.

This week, teams head for the Talladega Superspeedway, where NASCAR has fixed a glaring problem with two changes. First, the event was moved forward to the second race in the Round of 12 playoffs.

That means teams with solid chances of advancing to the Round of 8 cannot afford to race at the back in hopes of avoiding a wreck in the massive draft. Why not? This year's stage system means contending drivers who lollygag at the back risk giving away stage points to those who are hammer down at the front of the field.

Running at the back to control one's destiny is the NASCAR equivalent of taking a knee. It happened last year with several contenders, who again thumbed a nose at one of the sanctioning body's signature events and the racing credo of a fearless pursuit of speed -- in effect cheating ticket buyers. And by the way, don't sponsors recognize it when their drivers are not competing like potential champions?

The worst thing about last year's fall race was the tacit endorsement of Joe Gibbs, a team owner whose over-the-top support of sponsors knows no boundaries. One doubts the hard-nosed Gibbs would have allowed his team members to take a knee during the national anthem were he still coaching the Washington Redskins. But it was OK to turn a motor racing creed on its head to protect his sponsors by allowing his drivers to avoid incidents by not racing.

Talladega continues to be Earnhardt country in part because neither Dale Earnhardt Sr. nor Dale Earnhardt Jr. ever balloon-footed it around the 2.66-mile behemoth while racking up a total of 16 victories.

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Earnhardt Jr. says he's taking a low-key approach to his final race as a driver in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup at Talladega before retirement. He was involved in wrecks twice in last year's spring race -- perhaps contributing to the concussion problems he later suffered and that forced him to miss the fall round. But despite not being in the playoffs, Earnhardt says he's looking to run at the front at a track where he has six victories and narrowly missed a seventh by the width of a bumper in 2015.

"I expect to race up front and expect our car to be strong, and our guys expect us to work hard and be toward the front all day," said Earnhardt, who is likely to be competing with playoff contenders looking for a victory that will advance them to the Round of 8. "I think we need to be leading the race with 50 to go or at least on the front row for those last few restarts."

Chase Elliott, a teammate of Earnhardt at Hendrick Motorsports, gets the message and is looking to follow the recent footsteps of Ricky Stenhouse Jr. by winning his first Cup race on Sunday.

"I think there is something the driver can do to be a factor at Talladega," said Elliott. "There are guys that have been consistently winning at those races over the past number of years. Anytime you see something consistently happen there is obviously not just luck involved in it. The guys who have embraced it and have been willing to want to figure it out seem to excel and we would like to be amongst that group."

In addition to teammate Earnhardt, Elliott is referring to the drivers at Team Penske. Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano have been winning regularly at Talladega, taking four of the last six events. Earnhardt leads all active drivers with six wins at Talladega and Keselowski is second with four.

Of course, just because a driver is running with the leaders, there's still leeway when it comes to not embarrassing the sport -- and one's sponsors as well. That's why it's so pathetic when drivers have decided to drift to the back.

Gibbs driver Kyle Busch is an example of a playoff contender who, after hitting the wall last week, needs to avoid a crash this week. But he will be trying to get the bonus points in the first two stages because he needs them.

"The key there is to somehow stay out of trouble," said Busch. "At Talladega, you pretty much stay around the bottom since there is a lot of grip there, and you can pretty much run wide open every single lap. Everyone can run up on top of each other. When you get single-file at the bottom, sometimes it's hard to get a lane on the outside with enough good cars to get something going.

"It can be frustrating at times because of that. It also seems to still put on a good race each time we go there. If you can be a contender and stay in line on the bottom, you can make it a pretty easy and safe race. Normally, guys are not content doing that, so that's when it starts to get crazy."

Yep, guys decide they want to advance their position without waiting until the end of the race. It's a concept that has produced some big accidents, some of them pretty harrowing, as well as great racing. That's the way it is at Talladega, where some guys do better at winning than others.

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