Since breaking the streak a few weeks ago, Jeff Gordon has had two weeks full of bad luck on the racetrack. First there was Phoenix. Now this is another one of those tracks that Jeff has not typically done well at. But over the last few years, he has improved, gaining a victory there two years, his first and only win at Phoenix. It was that race that tied with him with Dale Earnhardt on the all time wins list. He has since added to that total. But this year, Phoenix was not good. The track transitions from day to night, making the race be split into three different "segments." Gordon's car was decent at the beginning of the race, but he had to make some changes as the race progressed. Right when it seemed as if improvements had been made, he had an incident on the track. Denny Hamlin rubbed against the side of his car, messing up the left front finder. This sent Gordon to the back, and then in the midst of repairing the car, a lug nut was dropped, causing Gordon to receive a penalty. So the race did not end well. But he still maintained the points lead at the end of the race.
So Talledega was next on the schedule, and it seemed to be a great opportunity for Gordon to add another win and stretch out his points lead. But due to an early incident, Gordon finished in the back of the pack. Through some shuffling around in the field, partly Matt Kenseth's fault, partly other drivers' fault, Jeff was caught up in the first big wreck of the race. And in the process, he lost the points lead to Kurt Busch, now 5 points behind in the standings.
But the big news coming out of this week's race is the crash on the last lap. And here is my take on the controversy. Keselowski drafted with Edwards to become the top two cars, nothing wrong with that; it put them in the lead. Keselowski tried to make a move at the end of the race to win; nothing wrong there. Edwards blocked him, starting the wreck. Again, Edwards is not really at fault either because that is just the way restricter plate racing works. What Edwards did not realize was that Keselowski already had the position. And Edwards even admitted to that. But he did not expect the crash that would occur as a result, sending him into the fence. But the new car did its job. If you watch a replay slowly, the car goes up in the air at the start of the wreck and is coming back down before Newman hits him. If Newman had not been that close, the car would have landed and only slammed into the wall instead of the fence. The fact that Newman was so close when the wreck happened, made the situation seem so much worse.
So should Keselowski, Edwards, or Newman be blamed? In my opinion, no! It was just racing. Keselowski made a move for the win. Edwards tried to block so that he could win. Newman was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The fact is that this is Talledega. These things happen on occasion. But no one should freak out. No car has flown into the fence like that since the 1980's when a wreck very similar to this happened at Talledega. This is a rare instant. But the fact is that it happened and fans were injured. That is why it has received so much attention. I pray that those fans heal from their injuries. But in the end, to me, it was just racing.
Matt
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