NASCAR looks to get control on aggression

Brad Keselowski says, “Tony Stewart would be proud”

On Sunday, NASCAR visited Talladega Superspeedway. The 2.66-mile transformed the garage area into a junkyard by the end of the race.

26 cars crashed in Sunday’s race at Talladega Superspeedway. That’s baby steps to the 2020 Daytona 500 which saw 32.

Related: Kurt Busch sent airborne in wild Talladega crash (Video)

The race saw several big ones. That’s mostly due to the fact that for near the entire race, the field ran side by side, three wide and even four wide.

The aggression has picked up on the Superspeedway tracks in recent years. Drivers have learned that their best chance of winning one of these wildcard races is to stay up front as often as possible.

The need to stay up front has created aggressive moves to advance positions and aggressive blocks to maintain track position.

At the same time, a new rules package has added downforce and reduced horsepower. The added downforce creates bigger runs when tucking in the draft.

Related: Brad Keselowski says, “You know, I’m just not wrecking enough people. I need to wreck more people so they’ll stop throwing bad blocks.”

NASCAR driver comment on Talladega crashes

Brad Keselowski: “I hope Tony Stewart is watching because he would be proud,” Brad Keselowski told NBC Sports, referancing Stewart’s iconic 2012 where he apoologized to fans for not wrecking enough cars.

Keselowski added, “We wrecked every car in the field, and I wrecked four times in somebody else’s mess. This rules package just has everybody so on top of each other. Runs are just so fast and everybody wants to block and the runs are too fast to block and causes a lot of wrecks.”

Kevin Harvick: “We tried to take care of our Jimmy John’s Ford Mustang most of the day and wound up starting fourth on one of the restarts toward the end and wound up part of the attrition for the day.  Looking up and down pit road it doesn’t look like there’s very many cars that don’t have damage.”

Ty Dillon: “Yeah, I mean, the runs are happening so fast, I’d say 20% of the times the spotters can’t physically react in time,” Dillon said.

“The drivers really have to be on it, feeling, knowing how things go. A little bit of patience goes a long way.

Dillon added, “You can see guys being really aggressive and it does get you to the front with these cars because they have so much grip, you can push the limits. But there is also a counter strategy to surviving these things.”

Tyler Reddick: “It was a lot about survival today with all the wrecks that were happening. It was a wDennild race today, so I’m happy we are able to come home with a seventh-place finish.”

Denny Hamlin: “Just a lot of attrition. We just played the strategy and the numbers game to run in the back until we were locked in. Just things worked out.”

NASCAR on aggressive driving

“I feel like we’re tearing up too much equipment,” NASCAR’s Scott Miller said via Sirius XM NASCAR Radio.

“It’s super easy for them to be aggressive out there in those tight quarters. It’s hurt the show a little bit, so we have to get back to a little bit more calculated moves than just watching in the mirror and hanging a left. We have to get back there somehow.”

Miller added, “The aggression has just gone way up on the superpseedways. We have to kind of get our arms back around that a little bit.”

Related: Keselowski cheekily suggests removing seat belts so drivers are forced stop throwing bad blocks

Tony Stewart Interview
Talladega Superspeedway
2012
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BM8ymZRQEm0&t=30s
Links

Brad Keselowski | Tony Stewart | Kevin Harvick | Ty Dillon | Tyler Reddick | Denny Hamlin | Talladega SuperSpeedway | NASCAR

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