Well that was interesting. Or appalling. In looking at Sunday's Sprint Cup race at Talladega Superspeedway, perspective is everything — like whether you were driving in, rooting or paying for some of the 35 race cars that were jostled, jarred or destroyed in a maelstrom of a GEICO 500.
The follow-up Saturday at Kansas Speedway portends more 1.5-mile civility, but storylines abound as NASCAR stages the 11th race of the Sprint Cup season. Some are old chestnuts.
--Logano v. Kenseth, Part II (or would it be Part III?): Well, this one certainly got interesting again at an opportune moment. It’s a promoter’s dream.
The punt heard ‘round the Chase for the Sprint Cup was first revisited a few weeks ago when the series made its first stop at Martinsville Speedway since Matt Kenseth effectively snuffed Joey Logano’s title hopes there last season. Lapped in the October race, Kenseth had wrecked the race-leading Logano in retribution for his spin-and-run for victory at Kansas Speedway, a result that effectively denied Kenseth Chase advancement.
The combatants had been relatively civil — or just tried to avoid discussing each other much — this season, but Kenseth censured Logano for his on-track decorum on Sunday, saying that the Team Penske driver had pushed him below the yellow boundary line and back in the pack before contact from Danica Patrick sent him upside down along an interior wall.
“I don’t think he ran me off. He did run me off. He ran me so far down I couldn’t really lift. I couldn’t get back up the track. It looked like there was no penalty, and we kept racing,” Kenseth said."
Kenseth said of their testy situation: “I thought we were done with that, but maybe we aren’t."
Logano discounted Kenseth’s assessment.
Both drivers could use a win in a race more than an argument back at the scene of their first flare.
Logano won the week after that Kansas win last fall — at Talladega -— but hasn’t reached victory lane since. He’s claimed two of the last three at the 1.5-mile Kansas oval, though. Kenseth is the only winless Joe Gibbs Racing driver this season.
PHOTOS: Crash-marred Sprint Cup race at Talladega
--The first day of the rest of his career: Tony Stewart returned at Richmond, but only semi-returned at Talladega, surrendering the No. 14 Chevrolet to replacement driver Ty Dillon at Talladega in a compromise with physicians. Now he commences the final 26 points races of his Sprint Cup career unencumbered, beginning this weekend.
Stewart’s decision to vacate his No. 24 Chevrolet was prescient considering the carnage that followed his departure. Dillon finished sixth, a fine result for him and Stewart in the broad scheme. Dillon gained valuable experience and a boost to his resume; Stewart improved two spots to 38th in driver points after two starts. He’s 71 points behind Matt DiBenedetto for 30th place, a perquisite for Chase-qualification if he can produce his first win since 2013.
--Middle-distance runners: Jimmie Johnson (Atlanta), Brad Keselowski (Las Vegas) and Kyle Busch (Texas) have won the three previous races on 1.5-mile tracks this season, representing all three manufacturers — Chevrolet, Ford, and Toyota, respectively — and power teams Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske. Success on such tracks, which comprise 11 of 36 races in the Sprint Cup season, will again be crucial in the championship process.
--Monopoly pieces: Different drivers won the first four — and five of six — races of the season, but the power teams and their marquee performers seem to be settling in for long runs toward the Chase. Granted, Denny Hamlin’s win in the Daytona 500 and Keselowski’s on Sunday at Talladega came in races with multitudes of variables, but they don’t deserve asterisks. Johnson, Busch, Carl Edwards (JGR) and Keselowski have each won twice this season with Hamlin and Kevin Harvick (Stewart-Haas Racing) each claiming one trophy.
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