However, the tedious segment of this race, there are some HOORAHS for some entertaining comments made by the drivers over their in car radio transmissions.
The first came from Tony Stewart who said “somebody tell me something interesting to help me stay awake.” Crew Chief Darrien Grubb responded with “we heard they were selling No Doz in the grandstands do you want us to get you some?”
Kevin Harvick referred to the racing as being ridiculous and wished he would have packed his IPOD in the car so he could listen to his favorite tunes while just riding around.
Kyle Busch referred to the single line race as “B-S” and felt like he had joined some sort of driver’s union. He backed that up with “if this is the kind of racing NASCAR wants then they should shorten it to 75 laps.”
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With approximately 45 laps left in the race, the Amp Energy 500 finally started to resemble a Talladega style restrictor plate race. While the drivers were extremely careful not to bump draft in the turns, there was plenty of hitting on the straightways and one could literally feel “the big one” coming.
It happened with five laps left in the race with that horrific sight of Ryan Newman’s car going upside down in the air and then barrell rolling down the embankment. That creates a HOORAH for the mandated safety features in NASCAR’s modern day race cars as well as another HOORAH for the presence of the energy absorbing SAFER barriers. Both allowed Newman to exit the badly wrecked car uninjured.
However there needs to be a WAZZUP regarding the roof flaps and their failure to keep Newman’s car on the ground as they were intended to do. When the car went up in the air the roof flaps were clearly deployed but instead of returning the car to the ground it instead flew backwards and landed on the hood of Kevin Harvick’s car before continuing its upside down skid.
Later in the evening, during the Speed Channel’s “NASCAR Victory Lane” program, commentators Kenny Wallace and Larry McReynolds shared a theory that made them wonder if the COT’s rear wing design might be interfering with the intended purpose of the roof flaps function. They also noted that the old style spoiler, used on the previous car model, seemed to coincide with the flaps. It’s a WAZZUP area worthy of consideration and inspection.
Because Newman’s car came to a rest on its roof, the radio antenna was rendered inoperative. During the process of the safety crews raising the car off of the ground, to gently set it on its wheels, the antenna snapped back in place and finally Newman was able to let us all know that he wasn’t hurt. Relocating that antenna is another WAZZUP worthy of consideration and inspection.
A HOORAH goes out to Ryan Newman for saying what a lot of race participants and observers were thinking during a post wreck interview on live television. Newman was understandably angry and called the racing boring and not what the fans deserved adding “the more rules, the more NASCAR tells us how to drive the race cars, the less we can race and the less we can put on a show for the fans. They created a lot of boredom because we couldn’t race. It was survival.”
The second “big one” came during an attempt to stage a green-white-checker finish to conclude the race. Mark Martin got hit from behind and he ended up doing a rollover on the backstretch. A HOORAH goes out to Martin for always being a class act. During an interview he said it was just a wreck that looked exciting to him, he had no clue exactly what caused it and then congratulated the race winner.
Another HOORAH goes to the manufacturer of the in car camera that was located inside of Martin’s car. It survived the crash and provided video footage that was breath taking.
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HOORAH to Kyle Busch for winning Saturday’s Mountain Dew 250 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Talladega. It marked his fourth win in his last four starts as well as his 14th series win.
HOORAH to his team mate, Aric Almirola, who literally pushed Busch pass race leader Todd Bodine, in the final portion of the final lap, to give Billy Ballew Motorsports a one-two finish.
HOORAH to Chrissie and Mike Wallace for making history by being the first father-daughter team to start a NASCAR national touring series race. The daughter, in only her second series start, finished a very credible 13th. Mike Wallace experienced some loose sheet metal conditions and finished 28th after making an unscheduled stop.
HOORAH to truck series driver Todd Bodine for wearing a custom designed pink helmet to help promote breast cancer awareness and then donating the helmet to an EBay auction with proceeds going towards that very worthy cause.
The final WAZZUP of the week unfortunately goes to NASCAR and raises the question: why weren’t the same concerns and mandates regarding bump drafting so important in the Sprint Cup race not applied to Saturday’s truck race? This race was loaded with bump drafting all over the track. In fact, the race winning move was a bump draft that started in turn four and went all through the speedway’s quad oval area.
The final HOORAH of the week goes to the Speed Channel for Saturday’s Halloween format seen live on “The Set Up Show” prior to the truck race and then on the special Saturday edition of “NASCAR Victory Lane.” The costumes and stage sets were amazing. The presentation was cute, clever and often very funny. By the way, how hot was Krista Voda in that Bat Girl outfit?
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