Nascar and Racing Sprint Cup

Notes, quotes & commentary from a NASCAR weekend at Talladega.

What a weekend it was, huh? Yes, I do have some comments and ideas about the overall product at Talladega this week. I'm going to wait, though, until the end of this post. First, the finer notes on Sunday.

Can anyone make sense of NASCAR's pit road penalties? Had Sunday's race been at another track where track position isn't so easily gained like it is at Talladega, Jimmie Johnson, Ryan Newman, Tony Stewart and eventual race winner Jamie McMurray would have been downright hosed.

And good or bad as it relates to your particular driver, the rule that nabbed them just isn't fair.

A car length here, a lane change there and one incredible pit call.

No matter what it was, Jimmie Johnson and the No. 48 team seemed to do it right on a mild then wild Sunday afternoon at Talladega Superspeedway -- even when it looked like holding par in the point standings wasn't going to happen as the laps clicked off and the drama kept rising around the 2.66-mile wildcard.

But when the cars stopped flipping and the smoke stopped rising, Johnson -- to the chagrin of plenty -- stood alone in his pursuit of the 2009 Chase for the Sprint Cup with what amounts to be an insurmountable lead with an unstoppable team.

Ryan Newman left Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday obviously sore and presumably irritated after flipping violently in a late-race crash near the end of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series' AMP Energy 500.

Newman, who was uninjured, was trapped in the car for almost 15 minutes as safety crews cut him out from exactly the type of wreck he had warned NASCAR against after an amazing crash involving him and Carl Edwards at the same track in April. And after being checked out of the infield hospital, Newman didn't hesitate to get on NASCAR again.

"Drivers used to be about to race each other and respect each other," said Newman. "Guys like Richard Petty, David Pearson and Bobby Allison -- all those guys have always done that. I guess they [NASCAR] just don't think much of us [drivers] anymore."

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Where: Talladega Superspeedway
Time: Sunday 1:00 p.m. EST
TV/Radio: ABC, MRN Radio
Twitter: Updates @ FanHouseRacing
Forecast: Sunny, High 60s
Distance: 188 laps (500 miles)
Pole Winner: Jimmie Johnson
2008 Winner: Tony Stewart

NASCAR and Richard Petty Motorsports look a little more spineless today.

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver A.J. Allmendinger was arrested for DWI early Thursday morning in Mooresville, N.C., after being pulled over and blowing a .08 on a Breathalyzer test -- the legal limit for intoxication in the state. Cited for a misdemeanor, Allmendinger will appear in court on the charge in December.

Allmendinger, though, won't be facing any music from his RPM team or NASCAR -- the same organization that will suspend crew members for racing with an illegal part.

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Notes, quotes & commentary after 501 laps around a Virginian paperclip.

I get what NASCAR is trying do, I really do.

They want these races to be dramatic, to make good television and perhaps provide a sense of danger to fans like ESPN's Ed Hinton believes they crave. It's no different than any other sport, movie or story -- dramatic moments bring eyeballs.

But at some point, NASCAR needs to get a whole lot better at not allowing a stalled race car to sit in peril at the start/finish line in the name of a dramatic finish.

Where: Martinsville Speedway
Time: Sunday 1:30 p.m. EST
TV/Radio: ABC, MRN Radio
Twitter: Updates @ FanHouseRacing
Forecast: Mostly sunny, High 60s
Distance: 500 laps (263 miles)
Pole Winner: Ryan Newman
2008 Winner: Jimmie Johnson

In his first national one-on-one television interview, suspended NASCAR driver Jeremy Mayfield continued to deny drug use and accused NASCAR of using him as a "a good pawn who wasn't going to cost them any money at all.''

Mayfield, who was suspended indefinitely by NASCAR for testing positive in a pair of drug tests this May, made the assertions on ESPN's Outside the Lines show, which will air Sunday at 9 a.m., hours before the green flag drops for the Sprint Cup Series race at Martinsville, Va.

It's been widely reported that the positive test revealed use of methamphetamine, something Mayfield has denied. He claims the tests were a "false positive," the result of his use of Adderall, a prescription drug for attention-hyperactivity disorder, combined with the common allergy medication, Claritin-D.

Kasey Kahne might have had the only car to really challenge Jimmie Johnson on the longer runs Saturday night at Lowe's Motor Speedway, but a late pit stop and a bad set of tires didn't let that situation play out.

"The tires we took on the last stop shook and didn't turn," said Kahne after the race in which he led 67 laps. "I guess that was our bad set for the night."

That didn't mean that Kahne was making excuses for coming up short with a third-place finish -- his best result since a win at Atlanta in September. Instead, he was stating the obvious.

"We were the best car at times, but the final run when it counted, we weren't," said Kahne. "Jimmie [Johnson] showed up and beat us all."

The Jeff Gordon of old was back for a few laps Saturday night at Lowe's Motor Speedway -- but even that wasn't enough to stop the competition's worst nightmare.

Lined up side-by-side coming off of turn four, Gordon sat to the outside of Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson as the field took its final restart of the night with 17 laps to go. As was the case with the previous two restarts that had quickly turned to cautions in the back of the pack, nearly everyone expected Johnson to have the advantage as made the left-hand arc into turn 1.

But the No. 24, with a full head of a steam, wasn't ready to let Johnson take the lead so easily.