Talladega: "Insanity on four wheels''

Exciting, thrilling and spellingbinding are some of the words you could use to describe the racing _ particularly at the end of Sunday's race at Talladega Superspeedway. Scary and hoffiic are also words you could use at the sight of Carl Edwards' car crashing into the catchfence, debris flying into the grandstands.

Or you can describe it as fourth-place finisher Marcos Ambrose did: "This is crazy racing, it really is. We can try and legitimize as much as we'd like but it's insanity on four wheel.''

Eight fans were treated. Seven fans were hurt with the injuries ranging from cuts to broken bones. Another fan was treated for a medical condition.

Edwards, who spoke out earlier this weekend about how much he dislikes restrictor-plate racing, said after his accident: "I guess we'll do this until someone gets killed and then we'll change it.''

Wow.

Edwards is right. How many times do you see a traffic light added at an intersection AFTER a crash where someone has been killed? One thing about Talladega is the idea of danger has always been a big part of this track. Yes, there's nothing like watching them race three- and four-wide but the question becomes in our serach for entertainment have things gone too far?

Dale Earnhardt Jr. thinks so.

"For years we have had wrecks like this every time we come to Talladega ever since the (restrictor) plate got here and for years it was celebrated,'' he said after his second-place finish. "The media celebrated it, the network celebrated, calling it the Big One, just trying to attract attention and trying ot bring people's attention to the race.

"So, there's a responsibility with the media and the networks and the sanctioning body itself to come to their senses a little bit and think about, you know, the situation.''

He's right, but there's also a responsibiilty of the fans. Could you feel the same way if you saw the picture I saw of a bloodied woman injured in the stands from flying debris? Her mouth and chin were bloodied and blood smeared on her leg? She was strapped on to a stretcher, her head immobilized as a precaution. And she was lucky. It could have been so much worse.

For those who might say this is an overreaction by many, here's what Ryan Newman says to that: "There's no such thing as overreaction when it comes to safety.''

While no one knows exactly what to do ... and series officials have tried to do away with the restrictor plates which cause some of these problems .. if nothing else, the incidents this weekend should remind NASCAR officials, competitors, teams and everyone that safety should remain at the forefront. It's easy for some to skip over since the COT -- forget for a moment what you think of it as a race car -- is so much safer and combined with the SAFER barriers no doubt has reduced driver injuries. There hasn't been a driver fatality since Dale Earnhardt's death in 2001. Let's hope that streak lasts a long time.

So, what do you think? Is Talladega fine the way it is? Should there be changes made? Or is this an overreaction to an incident where the driver walked away and no fans suffered life-threatening injuries.

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On to the race.

# Brad Keselowski was making only his fifth career Cup start and scored the win. He got on the rear bumper of Carl Edwards and they charged on the outside line the final two laps passing others quite easily. Keselowksi went low to get by Edwards, but he came down to block.

Keselowski recalled last fall's race here where Regan Smith went below the yellow line to take the lead and crossed the finish line first only to not be scored as the winner. Keselowski knew he couldn't go below the yellow line at the bottom of the track, so he held his ground. When Edwards came down, they hit. Edwards spun, got airborne and then crashed into the windshield of Ryan Newman's car, sending Edwards into the catchfence where the force loosened poles and streched the cable -- but nothing broke, according to track officials.

Some will argue if you take away the yellow line rule -- either all together or for the final lap this doesn't happen.

Wrong.

"If the yellow line was not there, I would have gone underneath it, yeah, for sure,'' Keselowski said. "But he probably would have blocked even lower and it would probably have been the same thing. So, who knows? I would probably have blocked to the grass. If I could have gone to the grass to win, he would have gone to pit road to block me. tha's just what racing is, that's what we do.''

That's why officials have an out of bounds line like the yellow line rule.

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QUICK HITS

# Winning car owner James Finch dedicated the victory to the family of Neil Bonnett. Finch noted that Bonnett was killed driving one of Finch's cars in 1994 at Daytona. ... Also, Finch runs a Nationwide team and a part-time Cup team. He has about 25 employees. The top Cup teams have 300 or more with Hendrick Motorsports at more than 500.

# Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished second and climbed 3 spots to 15th in the points. He's 45 points out of 12th,  the final spot for the Chase.

# Did you notice that Marcos Ambrose finished fourth, rookie Scott Speed placed a career-high fifth and rookie Joey Logano was a career-best ninth?

# Kurt Busch is the new points leader. He leads Jeff Gordon by 5 points.

# Greg Biffle climbed into the top 12 at 10th. Kasey Kahne fell out, falling four spots to 14th.

# Sam Hornish Jr. finished 34th, running the whole race despite being sick. Penske Racing flew in Travis Kvapil to be a standby driver but he was not used.

# Mark Martin won last weekend at Phoenix. This weekend he finished last.

# There were 57 lead changes among 25 drivers.

# The series heads to Richmond this weekend. Rememember last year with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kyle Busch in the closing laps?  What will we see this time?

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