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October 9, 2008
By Doug Demmons
The official results say that Regan Smith finished 18th in Sunday’s race at Talladega Superspeedway.
But Smith will turn out to be the real winner of the race, even without a trophy to hang on his wall.
The DEI rookie who might be out of a ride next year could have played it safe and followed Tony Stewart’s bumper to a career-best, second-place finish. But he went for broke. And in the process he earned respect.
NASCAR fans who had never heard of the rookie before Sunday know him now. And many are now Regan Smith fans.
To a lot of fans, Smith demonstrated the true heart of a racer. He’d rather end up 18th while going for the win than play it safe for second place. The fact that he broke a rule in the process doesn’t diminish that for fans who consider NASCAR’s enforcement of its rules to be arbitrary.
Racing all out for the win is how you build a fan base. It’s also how you gain a sponsor.
Juan Pablo Montoya started the year with a slogan of Chase or Bust.
The Chase didn’t happen, but it may be premature to declare the season a bust. Montoya had a stout car on Sunday. If he had not been taken out by teammate Reed Sorenson in the second Big One, it may well have been Montoya on Stewart’s back bumper on the last lap.
Montoya has restrictor-plate tracks figured out by now. He finished second at the spring race at Talladega. He also bump drafts with the best of them, including Dale Earnhardt Jr., who was duly impressed.
“Me and Juan were having an awesome time out there,” Earnhardt said.
If you have a fantasy team, you might want to go with Montoya at Lowe’s this week. He had one of the fastest cars at the recent test there.
The driver most likely to be the next female to break into the Sprint Cup ranks is Chrissy Wallace.
The daughter of Mike Wallace and niece of Rusty Wallace ran her first race at Talladega on Friday in the ARCA RE/MAX 250. Driving a Germain Toyota she finished mostly in one piece and in ninth place.
She was supposed to run full time for Germain next year in the Truck Series, but that’s somewhat in doubt now as Germain -- like everybody else -- struggles with sponsorship and might have to shut down the No. 9 team of Justin Marks.
Much was said after the race about how Tony Stewart blocked Regan Smith and about how blocking shouldn’t be allowed.
Stewart admitted he blocked and said there was no way he was settling for a seventh runner-up finish at Talladega.
Blocking is one of those things that usually gets policed by the drivers themselves. You keep blocking a faster car at most tracks and you’re going to get punted into the cheap seats.
But blocking is rampant at Talladega for two reasons.
>> First, if you shove someone out of the way who is blocking, you are likely to cause a 15-car pileup and take out a lot of people who won’t sympathize with your explanations later.
>> Second, how would NASCAR enforce a no-blocking rule at Talladega? If you are in the middle of a pack that is three wide and 13 rows deep, aren’t you being blocked? If you are on the inside and a line is coming up fast on the outside and you jump out to get in front of them and pick up their push, aren’t you blocking?
If Greg Biffle ends up winning the Sprint Cup title by just a few points, it will be thanks to his crew.
Biffle was one of the many who were wrecked in the second Big One on Lap 174. His crew went to work on the car and managed to get him back out in time to finish one more lap.
That was enough to propel him past the six other drivers who were knocked out of the race in that wreck.
Nobody came out of Talladega luckier than Jimmie Johnson.
The points leader had made no bones about how he doesn’t like Talladega and just wanted to survive. At the beginning of the race he hung out in the back to avoid trouble.
That looked like a really dumb move when he lost the draft and wound up a lap down.
But he got a free pass on a caution, avoided the first Big One, then the second Big One and finished ninth. He left Talladega with a 72-point lead over Carl Edwards.
If Johnson does the three-peat, the track he feared the most may very well be the reason why.
In all the uproar over Sunday’s finish and the dispute over who really won, a time-honored tradition went by the wayside.
Tony Stewart won the race, but he didn’t climb the fence. And he was sponsored for this race by Subway, which has a commercial out of him climbing a fence into outer space.
What’s up with that?
“I'm getting too old and fat to do that,” Stewart said Monday. “I think I was so excited about it and still was in a little bit of disbelief because of the confusion initially at the end that I literally just forgot about it.”
Maybe Tony needs to go on Jared’s Subway diet.
Doug Demmons is a writer and editor for the Birmingham News ~ he writes weekly auto racing columns ranging from NASCAR to open wheel to Formula One, local tracks and more... you can read Doug's columns online at Blog of Tommorow
You can contact Doug Demmons at .... Birmingham News
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.
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