Intentional Crash @ Talladega? NASCAR Drivers Are Pissed

26 Oct, 2015

The Chase for the Sprint Cup is over for Matt Kenseth, Denny Hamlin, Ryan Newmanand Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Junior is the only member of the group who left Talladega Superspeedway in a pleasant mood.

Kenseth and Hamlin both said Kevin Harvick ended the CampingWorld.com 500 early by intentionally causing a crash, and Newman clearly wasn’t pleased with NASCAR’s end-of-race procedures.

After the race, Hamlin went on his Twitter account to call the day “complete crap. Sorry to anyone who spent $ coming to this circus.”

Earnhardt Jr., who lost a chance to overtake eventual race winner Joey Logano because of the caution that ended the race, said he accepted the results as part of the game.

Kenseth, who has won five races this year but won’t be part of the eight-driver group pursuing the championship, could barely contain his frustration after the race.

“It’s disappointing, but it was a little bit of a circus at the end,” he said. “It feels like we lost control the last two weeks.”

He said the closing laps of the race “wasn’t really racing to be honest with you. It was just a bunch of games going on.”

Neither Hamlin nor Kenseth had strong cars.

Hamlin’s day was stained by an odd problem. The escape hatch on the roof of his Toyota popped loose, costing the team several laps in the pits for repairs.

“Our issues were self-inflicted,” Hamlin said. “We had the roof come apart, and it took us out of the Chase. I saw it was cracking open at one point in the race, but I didn’t think it was too big an issue. It took us four stops to get it down.

“This is a tough way to end our season. It’s tough, but we’ll just move on to next year.”

Newman, who missed the Chase cutoff by three points, addressed questions about the end of the race with sarcasm after NASCAR aborted the first attempt at a green-white-checkered finish.

Asked about the final restart, Newman said, “Which one? The final, final restart? Or the one where we were only going to have one and not any more? And then the No. 4 causing the crash. Which one do you want me to talk about?”

NASCAR changed its end-of-race procedure for Sunday’s event, announcing during the week that – if necessary – it would extend the race by only one green-white-checkered attempt instead of the usual three.

“Well, I guess if you come up with a new rule every week, we’ll have something to talk about, won’t we?” Newman said.

USA Today

Image NASCARonFox Twitter

Mentioned In This Post: