There was rain. There was racism. There was unity, and courage, and more rain—then, arguably the best race of the year, even without the emotional context it carried alongside it. Let’s break it down.
On Sunday afternoon, the race at Talladega was rained out. Prior to the rainout, someone flew a plane with a confederate flag trailing it over the track:
After the rainout, much worse news emerged:
Bubba Wallace, if you’re entirely new to this, is NASCAR’s only black driver, and was the primary force pushing (successfully) for the banning of the confederate flag at NASCAR events recently. Yesterday, prior to the race, NASCAR announced that the FBI is investigating the hate crime, and that security would be increased for yesterday’s rain makeup race.
As you might imagine, other drivers weren’t happy about the incident. The report is that Jimmie Johnson—the most accomplished driver on the circuit—texted the rest of the drivers yesterday morning saying that he’d be standing with Wallace for the national anthem and inviting others to join. This gesture escalated, with Kevin Harvick—another veteran, accomplished driver—making the suggestion that the drivers, as a unit, should push Wallace, in his car, to the front of the starting grid. This was the scene that unfolded:
All of that before a single lap was run.
When the race did begin, it did so with rain approaching, and there was a significant rain delay early in the race, one from which drivers returned with the hopes of getting just enough laps in to reach the halfway point and make the result official. It didn’t look likely, but the weather shifted, with precipitation just missing the racetrack. The remainder of the race ran to its completion. And what a race it was.
Talladega is a restrictor plate track, meaning NASCAR puts a restrictor plate on cars’ engines to limit their power, keeping things at more manageable speeds than they’d otherwise reach on a speedway with wide, high-banked turns and long straightaways—a geography requiring little use of brakes and lower gears. Sometimes at these tracks, NASCAR’s struggled to find a good ‘package’—a set of rules and specifications for cars designed to keep the race competitive. But whatever package they tried yesterday worked, and it worked well. There were lead changes seemingly every lap. Combined with uncharacteristically (by my impression) few cautions, this produced a dramatic, legitimately exciting race (while wrecks are exciting, continuous near-wrecks are sometimes even more thrilling).
Late in the race, Wallace took the lead, and while he—like everyone else—didn’t hold it, he stuck around the front. There was a problem, though. He, and many others, were running out of gas.
Thanks to the lack of caution flags, it was turning into a fuel mileage race. And most of the drivers, Wallace included, were losing.
Until this happened:
NASCAR overtime, if you’re unacquainted, is awesome. Two laps, and if they don’t finish the first without a lap, they repeat the process.
Wallace did run out of fuel before he could get to pit road. It cost him a chance to restart near the front of the field, but didn’t entirely ruin his day, because, well (Kraft is Wallace’s spotter):
When the overtime did begin, it was something: four-wide racing, a clean white flag, multiple wrecks while approaching the checkered, a car crossing the finish line backwards, a victory by—well, here are two clips of the final stretch:
Wallace wound up finishing 14th. Not what he wanted, and not what it was looking like he might pull off, but a solid performance from a young driver still getting a hang of racing in the Cup Series, not to mention one dealing with a whole lot of distraction, to put things in the mildest terms.
All in all, a cinematic day at ‘Dega. People coming together to make something positive out of an atrocious act of hatred. A changing forecast allowing the race to finish as planned. Dramatic racing with a man carrying more than any one man should turning in one of the best performances of his young career. A photo-finish victory from one of that man’s closest friends.
Not your typical rain makeup.
Looking ahead, NASCAR has two Cup Series races scheduled next week at Pocono, a trioval up in the Pennsylvania mountains. We’ll have your coverage here before, between, and after the races.
