November 7, 2009
By Brenda Benedict
Sunday’s running of the Amp Energy 500 at Talladega Superspeedway gave me one of the moments when you just hold your breath and wait. Ryan Newman’s wreck was so violent that I could only hope for the he would emerge from the car, which he did with a minimum of injuries. Newman ended up with sore muscles and a couple of chipped teeth.
He has been talking about the wreck all week. In Newman‘s post-race interview, he vented his frustration with NASCAR and seemed to be pointing the finger at NASCAR for not doing what they could to prevent his airborne ride.
“I’m just really disappointed,” Newman said. “We had this race back here in the spring and complained about cars getting airborne and now ironically I’m the guy that gets upside down. I wish NASCAR would do something. It was a boring race for the fans. That is not something anybody wants to see, at least I hope not. If they do, go home because you don’t belong here.
It’s just a product of this racing and what NASCAR has put us into with this box and these restrictor plates with these types of cars – with the yellow line, no bump-drafting, no passing. Drivers used to be able to respect each other and race around each other. Richard Petty, David Pearson and Bobby Allison and all those guys have always done that. I guess they don’t think much of us anymore.”
“We don’t need the cars getting upside down like this,” Newman said. “This is ridiculous. There is way more technology than that to help us out. Whether it is a speed issue, a roof-flap issue, whatever. I said it myself in the media center after the spring race here, and now to be the guy standing here trying to live it all out again, I’m just happy I am living it out.
“It is a shame that not more is getting done. I don’t know. I guess maybe I expect NASCAR to call me. I am the only guy out there with an engineering degree. I would like to have a little respect on my end.”
But was NASCAR listening? In the past, NASCAR never seems ready to admit that they are wrong or would consider changing policy based dissatisfaction of drivers.
Robin Pemberton, Vice-President of Competition reacted, “That’s not true. Drivers are fortunate that they can take the spills that they do and you can talk to them 15-20 minutes after they climb out of the car,” And like anything, we’ll get together and we’ll talk about it.”
NASCAR seemed to be saying, “You need us more than we need you. We will look at it when we are good and ready.
Pemberton continued, “We’ll go back and look at the numbers and see if there is anything that needs to be done. We’ll go back and we’ll evaluate what happened today.”
No matter what you thought of Sunday’s race-whether you thought it was boring or that it was just Talladega restrictor plate racing-the fact is that two of NASCAR’s premier racers-Ryan Newman and Mark Martin both ended up on their roofs during the race and both walked away from their cars relatively unscathed and both were able to express their dissatisfaction with the system.
NASCAR may or may not listen and respond.
All is normal in the world of NASCAR.
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The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.
