Nascar and Racing Talladega Superspeedway

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.

To hear Jimmie Johnson describe it, the most challenging part of wrapping up a historic fourth consecutive NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship is not getting wrapped up in winning it. No matter how hard everyone else tries to convince him the trophy's been engraved.

He holds a 184-point advantage -- nearly a full race lead -- on second place Mark Martin and only needs to finish 10th place or better in the remaining three Chase for the Championship races to secure the trophy. That's even if Martin wins all three races and leads the most laps in each.

But Johnson insists his approach in the No. 48 Lowe's Chevy will be the same as if he was trailing by 184 points and promised he wasn't about to start being conservative.

"We're showing up to win races,'' Johnson said. "Finishing 10th isn't as easy as it sounds. It is a tough field of cars out there and we need to be on our game. With three to go, we need to race these next two as if we're behind in the points and get every point we can.''

Before Ryan Newman's horrific Talladega flip-roll-smash-and-slide on Sunday, there was Carl Edwards' car somersaulting into the front stretch fencing.

The late Dale Earnhardt had one of his most frightening accidents at Talladega Superspeedway, barrel-rolling through the tri-oval. Before that it was Ricky Craven and Bill Elliott on E-ticket rides. In 1993, driver Jimmy Horton's car flipped over the Turn 1 wall and landed outside the track.

Rusty Wallace's Talladega crash footage -- pick a year -- used to be standard play before any NASCAR restrictor plate race.

The point is -- while there is a justifiable outcry at the scary accident involving Newman this weekend -- spectacular, highlight-reel wrecks here aren't news. They are old news.

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.

TALLADEGA, Ala. (AP) -- Jamie McMurray was the unlikely winner of an uncharacteristically dull race at Talladega Superspeedway, where a ban on bump-drafting forced most drivers to coast until the end Sunday.

It almost cost three-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson dearly. He puttered around at the back of the pack most of the afternoon and almost ran out of time to charge back through the field.

But when Ryan Newman's harrowing accident with five laps remaining caused a red-flag delay of nearly 13 minutes while Newman was cut out of his car, drivers ahead of Johnson began to run out of gas. He was credited with an eighth-place finish -- enough to likely seal his NASCAR-record fourth consecutive championship.

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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

Depending on your perspective, Ryan Newman either had the best seat in the house or the worst during NASCAR's last visit to the mighty and unpredictable Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway.

Carl Edwards, Sprint Cup rookie Brad Keselowski and Newman were 100 yards in front of the checkered flag, set to decide the winner amongst themselves, when Keselowski and Edwards collided directly in front of Newman. Edwards' Ford went airborne, bounced off the hood and windshield of Newman's Chevy, then flew into the fencing along the front stretch grandstands in a horrific-looking accident that led the country's sports highlight reels.

If you haven't seen the video, you will. It'll be played over and over and over all weekend as the Sprint Cup Series makes its Chase for the Championship visit to Talladega this week.

In this week's edition of Inside the Chase, FanHouse's Holly Cain visits with Ryan Newman, the driver of the U.S. Army-sponsored No. 39 Chevrolet, to talk Talladega safety improvements, a rough qualifying lap at California Speedway, reading to school kids, a vacation to Jackson Hole and the benefits of earning his college degree.

Ryan Newman is currently ranked ninth among the 12 drivers vying for the Sprint Cup title as the series stops at Auto Club Speedway of Southern California for the fourth of the 10-race Chase for the Championship.

Newman was a vocal proponent of having NASCAR make safety modifications in light of a horrific airborne crash at the spring Talladega 500-miler. In the midst of a multi-car accident at the front of the field, Newman's car launched Carl Edwards' car into the front stretch catchfence. Debris injured seven people in the grandstands.

For Blake Bobbitt, 187 laps of last Sunday's Aaron's 499 at Talladega Superspeedway were pretty much the same as the rest of the 142,000 fans on hand -- fast and exciting. Then, on the lap 188, Carl Edwards' No. 99 flew into the catch fence in front of her, ripping apart and spewing a chunk of metal into her face and shattering her jaw.

Talk about a bad experience at your first NASCAR race.