2002 Aaron's 499 | Dale Jr. goes back-to-back at Talladega | NASCAR Classic Full Race Replay

[Music] this is a presentation of fox sports [Music] welcome to talladega a track that puts the super in super speedway today drivers on edge after what took place here on see you have to saturday the big one in the bush race barely 15 laps old 27 cars over half the field involved in the wreckage no major injuries only a minor injury and once they pick up the pieces who knows what we'll see today as the best drivers in the world battle it out at incredible speeds ready to take on talladega [Music] welcome to talladega the fastest speedway on earth talladega was built to run 200 miles [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey [Music] uh [Music] foreign [Music] nascar on fox welcomes you to the world's fastest speedway the errands 499 on fox presented by pepsi it is a beautiful warm day for racing in northern alabama this grandstand the longest in the world when built this speedway the fastest on earth this big crowd have filled the grandstand and this big infield to see a really big race and maybe the big one hi everybody welcome to talladega mike joy with daryl waltrip a four-time winner here at talladega with several runner-up finishes larry mack who won here with davey allison and had several runner-up finishes here well larry what kind of horse you want to ride today well we're eight races into this 2002 season the big arrow debate who has more downforce who has less downforce it appears possibly the chevrolets are down on downforce this is the place you want to be down on downforce so i do believe when you're down on downforce obviously the drag is down lower drag means you run faster on these straightaways maybe the days where chevrolet gets their first win in 2002. darryl to finish first you must first finish how do you miss the big one yeah i mean i'm i'm with larry on the downforce issue that's kind of a mood point today you better have all those fenders on there if you want to be competitive and and that's the problem you got to anticipate as a driver you always are anticipating what's going to happen in front of me he only can see through the car you can see through the windows of the car in front of you but you can't see any further so when things start to break loose in front of you these cars got a lot of momentum you can't avoid it so avoiding that wreck is the only thing do is be way out front like we saw yesterday or way in the back and how far back i don't have any idea maybe i straight away not at the back of the pack at 190 miles an hour things happen very quickly here we're set to go racing at the world's fastest speedway let's go trackside for today's opening ceremonies and now for our invocation representative from mro moddy self father we thank you for the opportunity to again come to this beautiful state of alabama and watch the beautiful and exciting event of nascar father we just asked today that you continue to heal jack roush and father today we ask that you give the drivers safety their team safety and as the hundreds of thousands of fans leave today give them safety back to their homes for it's in christ's name amen [Music] [Applause] [Music] remain standing please and welcome to the microphone for our national anthem edwin mccain oh say can you see by the dawn's [Music] [Music] whose broad stripes and bright stars through the last fight all the ramparts we was we're so gallantly [Music] streaming and the rockets red cliffs bursting [Applause] gave proof through the night that our flag was still there [Music] again [Applause] [Laughter] [Music] [Applause] [Music] free and [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] and now ladies and gentlemen for the most famous words in auto racing nationally syndicated radio host rick and bubba [Applause] [Music] for racing fans and rick and bubba fans everywhere [Applause] gentlemen [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] how long can you hold your breath can you hold it for 500 miles that's the kind of race we expect this to be today let's go trackside to steve burns mike 45 year old terry labonte makes his 47th start on this sprawling super speedway he's led half the races he's run here and he has two wins he has some good momentum coming in here finishing 16th 10th and 6th in the last three races today he starts 11. met yoko steve one of the constant in recent play racing over the past four or five races they've been the patented drive back good cars dropping to the back just to try to miss the big one well due to the new rules package teams are finding it more difficult to drive back and then quickly work their way to the front one of those teams is johnny benson still looking for his first winston cup win his car works better up front that's where he's going to try to stay if he can hoping to become the ninth different first-time winner here at talladega to dick bergeron in the 65 races here in talladega that have preceded this one there have been an average of 35 lead changes that's a lead change about every five laps and they only count those lead changes at the start finish line if they counted them around the track it'd probably two times three times that many miss mccann in the sixth grade promised me history repeats itself if it does we will see a very competitive race here at talladega today with a lot of different leaders a race whose winner won't be determined until the last lap and probably the last few feet of that last lap to make joy history was always informative i guess dick's one of the few people i knew that found it all so entertaining jimmy johnson the rookie will start on the poll second time this year daytona talladega with two restrictor plate races four chevrolets in the front four spots in this alabama getaway [Music] is [Music] [Music] get away get away [Music] budweiser official beer of nascar is the proud sponsor of the butt pole award given to the fastest qualifier at each nascar winston cup race today's butt pull winner jimmy johnson his second of the season he'll be in that butt shootout next year at daytona since 1979 anheuser-busch has awarded more than seven million dollars as title sponsors of nascar's world award program let me see if i can hold my buddy rusty while it's here rusty wallace this isn't ew up a tv tower got a copy bud here go ahead all right my man uh what's the plan today i'll tell you what we've got a good handler race car but there's a lot of good handling cars out there so i think what we're going to do today is just uh stay in line nascar's warning to everybody about the yellow line again so you won't see anybody dipping down there but uh it'll be a lot of three wide races today d.w it's got to keep defenders on don't tear nothing up and have this baby at the end the end of the race is the whole deal you're going to try to go forward or you're just going to ride where you are follow the rear what's your game plan but i believe i'ma go right to the front i'm just going to do whatever it takes to get up front lead some races and leads some lamps are trying to get away from everybody here all right have a good day you be the man and we'll keep an eye on you good luck thanks a lot looking for his first talladega win 37 races here only one top five finish let's have a look at our walmart starting grid for today's race jimmy johnson on pole and robbie gordon his second front row start of the year four chevrolet is up front there's two good ones right there i guarantee you pontiac and a dodge they're in the third row and the first ford in the field is rookie ryan newman daytona 500 winner there the best dodge steve park in one car had a practice accident yesterday along with bobby hamilton and mike watson of 33 they will have to start at the rear of the field good start for kyle penny 11th and terry lavonny who led last week 12. i've got to keep an eye on old carrie today he's getting better and better every week tony looks hungry fine wine you know he's just getting a little better you saw jerry nader there new crew chief there's mike wallace again have to drop to the rear of the field uh andy petrie both of his cars involved in one accident bobby hamilton in the 55 mike wallace with 33. a couple of roush cars in row 10 hi jack get better fast larry will calculate the mileage for you today jack don't worry he's uh he's the best see brett beaudine and 11 bar that's the fastest from qualifying of the robert yates engine brigade kenny wallace in a one-race ride for michael walter bracing there with john andretti kenny is super sub he just needs to just call him he'll be there frank kimmel is back again in travis carter's car next week in doubt first winston cup race for kimmel here at talladega look where our point leader is see alabama steve grissom in the 44 car this year replacing buckshot jones and uh not sure if that's going to be permanent it's going to take a race to race and provisional land including our number two point man matt kenza and ricky ruthers really quick and uh happy hour yesterday so uh that's the the that particular ace car got to going pretty good yesterday that other one right there that 88 he's not very happy i mean just look at the names of provisional land bobby hamilton and the 55 won this race a year ago the two yates cars 88 dale jarrett 28 ricky rudd and phil elliott shawna robinson arcostar bobby gerhart rick mast and dick trickle in the ray evertham development car failed to make the field dick bergeron on a developing story jerry nader car 25 is scheduled to start in the 15th position he has engine trouble it was hard starting on the grid he had to drop down and drop back a little while ago as everybody else was running along he floored the thing trying to clear it out they think they have a potential plug problem crew chief ken house has told him if it's a problem on the start drop down be safe they don't want to see this right at the start of a big race at talladega treble in the engine for jerry and ado well based on yesterday 15 laps into that race they had a huge crash maybe falling back early here in this race wouldn't be all bad not a bad plan today's track facts brought to you by kfc look at all the records that are held by talladega super speedway the fastest race the fastest qualifying speed nearly 213 miles an hour most lead changes most different leaders in a race and the closest margin of victory they have one race here that was decided officially by one bumper width and one by five one thousandths of a second there's fast food and there's kfc a lot of that is because uh the where the start finish line is that creates incredible finishes here when you come off turn four anywhere else you say i got it one i got it i got it here you're just starting to race that little discus can make a big difference you go back to the race last year bobby hamilton winning the race tony stewart second i mean we couldn't tell who finished third through 30th at daytona the start finish line is is right up there in the middle of the tri-oval right about centered in pit road now those seats are an easy sell because you can see the pits from there when bill france built this speedway let's put the start finish line down here and make these good seats too down toward turn one here's today's race analysis brought to you by dr soules 43 cars will try to complete 188 laps making up the 499 point xxx or 500 miles and the pit window today 55 to 60 laps good tire here we may see teams only change left sides one time in this 500 mile event you want to be out front any move you make on pit road to make that happen going to help you mr weatherman absolutely 82 degrees and our track temperature is 113 degrees you know track temperature don't mean a whole lot here but that air temperature can mean a lot the way these boaters run dr soils look field do better mr field goods uh we're usually referring to good years when we refer to us to feel good but today let's refer to our onboard cameras and we have a dozen of them for you today jeff gordon robbie gordon no relationship michael waltrip some relation to you yes kenny schroeder is i hope that's a lucky charm a leftover from last night's dinner went lucky for the rabbit i don't know about kenny johnny benson elliot sadler with our ford camera get well jack roush injured in a plane crash friday evening flying an experimental light plane and our old spice on board camera that is riding with tony stewart mike i know there's a lot of magic and words did i know when i started this that these words were going to become magic to so many people your check is in the mail here they come and we're going to go racing we're going to go look at these look at the end of that first turn wide open like a lot of racetracks they necessarily will be hunting the bottom they'll just want to see which one of these lines starts to move the quickest it's a pretty strung out start actually it is for here they usually are all kind of wide enough as they go down in that first turn gordon had a really really good card happy hour yesterday he was very happy with it it's always past a lot of cars looks like it's going pretty well for him right now looks like an inside line though it's starting to move there well that's where everybody everybody gets you know everybody wants to get to the inside it's kind of like it's the safest place to be on the start more often has not let the first lap here though hey that 48's got a little steam up on the hood it's got some ponies [Music] man it's got the 15 pushing it along and that's a lot of help too man robby he's already blocking somebody now leaving on track one jimmy johnson on the inside oh they'll get them warmed up fluids will heat up fans will pick up here very shortly kenny wallace tony stewart three wide in the back straight away in the middle you got the comers and the goers here i mean i just look at our score monitor to 43 cars i think only about five was running in the same position they started in at the completion of black one oh yeah this thing just heating up from tony stewart looking ahead of jeff burton let's have a look at speed and rpm really won't see the rpms change that much you know what markfield would see it way down here way up here you see it's going to hang right in here around 7 000. 189 miles an hour 190 191 into the first turn kurt bush swept out high and created that third lane and just thank you they only qualified at 184 miles an hour so they're 191 racing and that's all about the draft getting a pull off the cars in front of you and getting a push from the car's behind this is about all the help from your friends that are behind you there how about matt [Music] the man's breathless he can't speak don't blame him he must be watching the monitor yeah so are most of these drivers daryl daryl this has got to be fun but it's going to be a really tense kind of fun to be in one of these cars it's fun because it's what you do i mean you know you make a living driving a race car this is a race it's really good when you feel comfortable and that's not very often here your cars dance around they move around the wind moves them around so much turbulence lots of turbulence they're three wide but there doesn't seem to be a bad lane it's okay right now we're on fresh tires everybody's really up on the wheel right now nobody's everybody's kind of minding their manners that's the whole thing about this race mind in your manner but you just look at the way these guys are running daryl i mean that that would be trust right there i mean they're three by three for ten rows but what would happen and it's what you have to worry about what happens if something happens in the front of these of this whole pack of cars that's what happened yesterday this is what they came to see the whole field of winston cup cars fanned out three wide all the way back through 40th place and guess what this is the way it will be for the next three and one half hour so you might want to run out the garage get your roll of duct tape take your tv take your tv down because it's going to get exciting kirk busting that 97 car right there the jack ralph's car he's bringing that outside line they pulled up beside rodney gordon in the middle line right there now you see these cars are all buffing around not necessarily the driver doing that when they're three wide like they are there they're going to move around and that's the problem you move around and get into a guy beside you and i'll tell you somebody else and away they go and this track is very bumpy all the way around and you run aggressive shots to keep it poured on the ground to make it run fast on the straight ways they bounce around if we had dynamic scoring it couldn't keep up kirk bush is sixth seventh eighth ninth eight seven six he hasn't moved but the whole pack has moved around him and they're four wide now going down into turn one boys this is just your breath time everybody here is just holding their breath like strickland's stuck in the middle and daryl what's these guys will do again with that 7 8 restrictor plate that takes about 300 horsepower they're wide open all the way around if you catch somebody what they'll do they'll drag that brake pedal it will back off the throttle and just reach up and drag the brake pedal oh yeah it's all about momentum once you get them wound up you cannot back off you do one thing will have you get run over from behind the other thing is if you don't get run overs you lose a lot of spots so you can get bristol stumped here too oh yeah it's a driver's nightmare he's got a car right in front of him he's a little quicker but he can't go around him somebody's behind him bumping him it's just constant confusion [Music] and you never know what line to get in all of a sudden the linearian stops moving and the one next to you moves you got to try to get in the inside in the outside boy robbie gordon in the 31 trying to get in there behind dale earnhardt jr jr got a run around the outside of him out of the truck there is nowhere in the world that you don't see something like the battle there's not a ride there's a little world there's not a computer game there's not a racetrack that you can go and see something like this biggest smile in this field right now belongs to jeff burton started 25th he has snaked his way through this pack up to 10th place jimmy johnson has led every one of the six laps so far michael waltrip dale earnhardt jr in hot pursuit at talladega [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] three one [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] you got michael pushing now you got michael to 31 [Music] so [Music] so [Music] dale earnhardt juniors we're at number eight chevrolet sliced inside of jimmy johnson to take the lead and look who's right behind johnson jeff burton who's come from 25th spot and that was quite a move mike from the outside between michael and the 48 car to get to the lead that was that's quite a move when a trip to a nascar race all collect 1-800 call att jeff green another mover from 30th i'm alive for a while yeah well that's kind of what happens here you know like i said you got comers and goers the guys in the front will go to the back and guys in the back go to the front they'll do that all day long back and forth it's kind of like a little chess match here try to figure out where you can end up at the front at the end of the day the last four restrictor plate races three top two finishes for dale earnhardt jr including two wins one here one at daytona [Music] trying to help michael you see him move over in front of michael to give michael the pull jimmy johnson doing a great job of hanging right there with him as long as well as robbie gordon he's hanging right there too you know guys i want to talk about our points later because i think it was a little surprise on qualifying day sterling marlin in the 44 40 car he qualified 33rd look we got a battle for the lead here between teammates michael waltrip 15 car got some help from jimmy johnson 48. oh easy 48. outside and the 31 robbie gordon has help from his teammate number 30 jeff green well you see what happened to the 48 car jimmy johnson he lost his momentum messing around there and it's going to really cost him he's in the middle right here falling back fast with no help a lot but sterling's all the way up to 15th before i was headed with that story right there after starting 33rd and that was some concern starting that far back well it's still a lot look at these guys i mean there's still a lot of concerns the first 20 laps or so was just really really nerve-wracking from the driver's perspective and everybody watching as well currently in 15th place our daytona 500 winner steve well mike and talking to warren burton and crew chief tommy baldwin this morning they weren't making any changes to the race car but ward burton was concerned about blind spots he's having trouble seeing cars around him so what they did was literally cut foam rubber inserts out to boost his seat in the driver's cockpit a little bit he's having a hard time seeing he said i can't trust my spotter here i've got to feel and see everything matt yoakam steve the move around the 48 car by dale earnhardt jr was choreographed by his spotter ty norris jr told the spotter tell michael just go with me and let's get around this young boy he's looking though in his mirror for the 20 of tony stewart besides working a lot together during speeds they worked a lot together in the draft a lot of respect these two drivers have for each other but their cars work very well together especially with stewart pushing the eight that's why they feel like the 99's running so well because the 20 is pushing the 99. last time i checked jimmy johnson a little bit older in dale jr get around this young boy here except in terms of wins to come experience you know just to put a period on ward burton remember that's not the car he won the daytona 500 because you win the daytona 500 it goes in daytona usa for a year this is a brand new racecar and he was the fastest qualifying dodge so he still got a good ride and you don't get the tack the steering wheel the shocks anything out of that winning car for a year looks like he's later in the 36 he's got problems right here he's falling back and uh losing the draft i i'd say normally that's an engine it i don't hear any misfire or anything maybe he got knocked sideways he's just regrouping if he did it'll take him a while to get over it the eminem global vote which will and that vote's coming from about 75 different countries there's countries voting that don't even get to vote in the politics of their country quite frankly i think a real m m would be pink and schroeder said he don't have a problem if it ends up being pink because whatever color wins the boat he has to drive that car i think that's why i think it'd be perfect okay player in a pink car all right i love it folks run pink jeff gordon has passed his protege jimmy johnson 48 gordon is half owner of johnson's car that's jeremy mayfield right behind gordon and kevin harvick to the inside well there's there's two kind of drivers here mike there's those that know what to fear and those that don't now you're going to see two totally different driving styles and racing styles between those kinds of drivers those boys out front they don't know what to fear i mean jeff gordon started 10th he fell back to about 25th now he's worked his way back to 10. steve what's wrong with kenny schroeder's car mike you're not going to believe this continuing our tradition of talladega's strangeness straighter radio sets a piece of roll bar padding fell off and hit the ignition switch and killed the motor thank goodness he can as strapped in as he is he can reach that switch put that and put that in your book of excuses oh yeah big help today wasn't it yeah yeah put that put that in your book of excuses to why i didn't win but the problem he has he's lost the draft he needs a caution flag to be able to catch back up he has no help back up there to push him back to the pack well right now if there was a caution slash if it happened in front of him he would just barely get slowed down before he got it he's in perfect position that's right dale earnhardt jr rookie ryan newman and michael waltrip leads the errands 499 on fox presented by pepsi [Music] 20 laps completed talladega no change among the top ten dale earnhardt jr still leading ryan newman chevy versus four the top seven had organized themselves in a single five was actually pulling away from that second pack now that group they've wised up they're getting lined up and they're pulling back to that front yeah and you know why because the wise veteran jeff gordon said come on guys you're getting away let's get in line and you see him right there pulling the other guys back up and then rush hour three wide still through the rest of the way the message hasn't gone back that far yet but you see everybody's trying everybody's trying to get into one line as long as you got somebody behind you you're okay as long as you got somebody pushing in you just kind of suck up you're okay see how quick that group is closing with jeff gordon with 24. just a little over a second behind it's closing as they as they get lined up you get lined now they're close enough to sniff the draft to that front pack aren't they oh yeah yeah they're there now about 100 yards what happens these cats back in here those handling i don't care what anybody says they always say oh hamlet don't make a lot of difference to tell them they handle it makes a difference everywhere and if you ever have to start squeezing up out of the throttle because your car's pushing or getting a little bit loose or it's not comfortable and trapping everybody where the gap is beginning to develop as you watch jeff gordon at 191 miles an hour it's from the single file to the double wide cars that's where the gap is building that's it these these guys right here there's nothing they can do it's not like they are in some kind of control they got to hold what they got but they're going to get left behind if they don't hurry up and get in line we have about the top 19 cars lined up and as you say so that group gets organized in a single file it'll continue to pull away well they're still trying to decide which line is the fastest you know on the inside outside middle and they haven't figured that out yet pole sitter jimmy johnson has dropped back in the field to 16th place dick bergeron a moment ago mike and said that the car is more loose than anything else he tried running up on his teammate jeff gordon and said the car just got more loose perhaps more worrisome he has told the crew that the water temperature has risen to 230 degrees that'll make it tougher for him to close up on the back end of anybody 230 where would you like to see that temperature well here you got to be at about 210. these things they start detonating in other words they start misfiring internally you got that restrictor plate on there and the heat goes up and the power goes down and won't run a little after about 2 30 the driver says he can almost feel it start stopping quit running down on him mike skinner changed engines had to start tail end of the field and look at the his progress yeah he was at the tail of the field he didn't even complete his qualifying run the other day and he's always all up to 16th so he's he's definitely making a move in this fourth car and as i was saying about handling you hear jimmy johnson say hey my car's looser and it's been all week he hadn't been out there with 43 other cars all week long you get out there in a little pack of cars pretty happy the tape on the grill temperatures are good but when you put all these cars out there together changes everything the field is now broken up into two packs this is kenny wallace hole center jimmy johnson to his left casey atwood to the right he's trying to follow push [Music] that middle's a sucker hope it'll pull you up in there and he's ah this is the way to go and then all of a sudden backwards you go well the field has split off into two distinct packs mark martin is trying to lead that second pack forward along with ricky rudd it seems that the those first uh seven cars are a good bit quicker than everybody else and they stay single fouling other cars can pull up to them but that's all they can do is just pull up to them and then they get racy and get double file again and as soon as they get there they say oh we caught them let's race now and then they go backwards again is that jeff griffith dropping it yeah he saw an opening there he wanted to get to the inside and uh by the way folks you don't give him [Music] a product of the restrictor plate and you'll get so close to them and you just can't go ahead and get to the rear bumper it's like a wall you run up against it is a wall of air that's what it is and some cars will pull up and go on and others will just die they just stop and he's definitely losing that top six oh yeah he pulled him up there they got single file they pulled him up there but he didn't have enough steam to stay with them now it was 191 look at him now yeah and you can you can drop as much as 500 rpm in and out of the draft and you could lose four or five miles an hour in or out of the draft a good example kenny schrader is running 52-90 the leader is running two seconds six cars then gordon and the second pack has now caught up jeff gordon now when those cars get up behind you and start pushing him then they'll go forward again but you can't do it by yourself as long as they got a little bit of a single foul going on no side by side racing daryl do you mean pushing with the air or literally pushing well to push him with the air i mean that wall of air that he was hitting now that car behind him is helping him break through it 27 laps the talladega super speedway dale earnhardt jr ryan newman michael waltrip robbie gordon still coupled together at the front of the field so [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] welcome back to talladega no change among the front six for extended post race coverage with analysis and interviews turn over to speed channel to get speed channel on your cable system call 1-888-222-speed things are starting to heat up boys the top six is now about the top 12 or 15 running together there will be a time in here when that outside lane will start to pull up there and we were talking about mike skinner a little while ago what a great run to the front he made you know he's running now 39th they have kicked ryan newman the 12th car was running second for about the last 10 laps they've kicked him out but he's got help coming jeremy mayfield in the 19 that group is pulling up to him they'll be his best ally getting kicked out of line jimmy johnson was that harvick or sterling to jump to the bottom of the racetrack right there that was a bold move in sterling and he brought point standing runner up matt kenseth with him well you just have to take advantage of every opportunity no matter how small it may be if you see an opening you've got to go for it because you can't you can't let off that drop and daryl all these moves we see these jump out moves are from the top to the bottom of the racetrack not the other way yeah well you're trying to everybody wants to be on the inside i mean general consensus would be the inside would be the fastest place to be all day long tell that to tony stewart who just pulled out to go high and now he is the hot dog between the bun and you just watch it's going to be very difficult for him to do anything except go backwards and got the 48 car there behind him was that no hdf board behind him it might be a savior for him but you know one reason mike in the corners you'll see them go from the top to the bottom get a run down you'll pick up rpms pick up speed from the top to the bottom well the other reason is you can see the left pretty good you can't see a dead gun thing to the right good point mark martin on the outside of robbie gordon [Music] thank you for getting ready to tighten up that free ride that that front six was getting is over with boys that outside is coming [Music] i mean daryl if you're like tony stewart and jeff gordon and you're in the middle and it's just lap after lap after lap i mean you finally just say i just i can't stay here no longer you can exactly i mean finally you got to say i either got to get inside outside or i got to get to the back and start all over again that's all you can do because your car's all over the place jeremy mayfield led that lap he's the racer's third different leader after jimmy johnson and dale earnhardt jr and i talked to ray last night right here he told me he said dw i'm going to work on that 19 card today we're going to make some changes on it he said i'm going to put it like we used to run with jeff gordon and he said see how i do larry the dodgers in the forge didn't qualify all that well it looked like an all chevrolet show after qualifying but in the race things are really different well i mean again you know if you're a little down on drag if you know if you're if you're hurt for drag once you get out there dirty laundry dirty air it kind of evens everything up all right we've got 34 laps here that we've completed these cars are about now right there big transitions burning off fuel tire pressures are up uh drivers are just getting a little irritated right now not a lot but a little bit things are gonna heat up people gonna start making some uh erratic moves here comes one right here michael walter trying to get a little help from robbie gordon on his teammate dylan hart jr but he moved to the bottom right here going into turn three i mean look how close they're running and this is getting off in the corner at 190 miles an hour well they think they can bump draft and you can't lose you're going straight but you better not try it in the corner dick burton a pit strategy here at talladega will be a good bit different than if you watched the race last weekend at martinsville there on the short track tires were the whole ball game and people constantly came in and fired tires at the car because that helped get them through the corner here tires are far less important than track position unless there is a caution flag we don't anticipate seeing anyone come in to get their car until around lap 50. even at that you're going to see people today take just two tires in order to get a faster pit stop out of this place track position the whole ball game in talladega look at this the cars in the parking lot are not this close yeah and folks this is this is not orchestrated no they are not doing this it's not practicing your uh precise flying guarantee yeah this is not let us entertain you yes this is i'm trying to get to the front it's gonna get crowded off the board here guys bottom necking up here i mean you know as a crew chief i'm running around right now i'm trying to pick my dancing partner when i want to pit what i want to do but jeff hammond i'm also trying to keep an eye on my driver and what's going on out there because what might be his partner now maybe 20 car leaks between them when we get to a pit stop yeah you go through all the practice sessions and you try to figure out hey i'm very good with this car you talked about it earlier the 20 car running good with this guy all of a sudden you can't get to the man you'd like to so you got to start trying to find some friends out there that's part of the race you can find a few friends you can find guys who will work with you so you start trying to make those marriages and try to keep your card in front as best you can by the end of the day don't expect that to be there a little bump there newman into the back of jeff gordon just to kind of push him along into the corner this is like lying a the air down the front he's working the hardest he's breaking that air open for you and everybody else is getting a free ride and that free ride is what pulls you forward so quickly sometime steve burns you know mike it's amazing as you guys pointed out how much these cars move around from the front to the back jerry lobotti started 11. dropped to 38th that went down as crew chief jim long if they were okay and he just kind of shrugged his shoulders says yeah terry says the car is fine he just got shuffled out well then you see the five card he moved up as high as 23rd he's just riding in fact in practice he didn't even run that many laps yesterday because he didn't want to tear up the race car he's just being nice cool and collected and jeff green is the ping pong ball of the day he started 30 we told you he had climbed his way all the way up to fifth and on the last time by in that three wide shuffle back to 27. it's been an up and down day and we've only run 37 laps [Music] johnny benson jeff green right behind and kyle petty splitting the middle now kyle started 11 he moved up he's dropped back to 29th now he's picked up a spot or two you get a little bit of help from kevin harvick in that silver coin and again what you try to do when you're nose to tail with somebody is you got to keep your foot on the floor keep that right look matted and use that brake pedal got a car off the pace here bobby hamilton he went up almost hit the wall i don't know if something happened the car or not up front for the lead michael waltrip goes nose to nose with his teammate and tony stewart as matt told us earlier hooks on with dale earnhardt jr michael walton's down there in the fifth team with not a whole lot of help oh he's gonna find newman's right down there and he's gonna try to push him on those are the two best cars the eight and the fifteen and they're gonna you know somebody's gonna get behind you you can count on that they've seen those two cars lead the race they've been upfront since the drop of the green flag that's who i want to go with you're looking good baby see that car behind ryan newman know the 12th car that's a teammate as well kenny wallace in the 48th dei car dei engine kenny always runs well here ran second here about a year and a half ago and jeff gordon is up there in the mix and sixth right alongside kenny wallace why are the dale earnhardt incorporated cars the dei cars so good on the plate tracks well it's it's certainly we always talk about arrow and they seem to have developed a great arrow package but i gotta tell you i think it's hand-me-down information i think he's working left behind i think it's that notebook that we always talk about i think dale knew things about daytona and talladega that he had figured out with childress and others and he just incorporated into those cars and they always have run good think about how well dale always ran in daytona and talladega well two of his cars earnhardt jr and michael waltrip lead this parade the 98 to kenny wallace and the one of steve park are also out of that shot i've always said your legacy is what you leave behind and they are left behind so much for so many and then these guys are taking advantage of it bobby hamilton in the 55 was on pit road he's back out on the racetrack but he's the lap down also frank kimmel driving the 26th car for travis carter he's in the garage hamilton you've got to be one side or the other of the car in front of you so you can see what's going on you can't just fall right in behind that guy or you're blinded you've got to be able to see folks it's just like in the traffic jam of your morning commute except this is at 190 miles an hour and i hope your morning commute is not right a lot of times we'll see those guys pull out like that we heard jimmy johnson talking about his water temperature you're tucked up behind this car that's just making the water temperature go up we'll stick it out there get a little air in that radiator in it cool that water [Music] it'll put a little down force on the nose too but when you're all lined up like that basically you're trying to see 41 of 188 laps complete dale earnhardt jr back to the front he's led all but 10 laps so far in talladega [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] afford no boundaries moment as we ride with elliot sadler friday evening jack roush 60th birthday present arrived in an experimental light plane he clipped the power line and the plane fell into the lake upside down submerged in eight feet of water larry hicks retired marine corps sergeant major who had been specially trained in underwater rescue went into the water on his second dive found jack on his third dive pulled him out of the water pulled him to shore applied cpr and saved his life larry said i was just doing what i've been taught we think he's a hero that's our forward no boundaries moment and i think there's angels amongst us oh there must be for this man to be the bystander and daryl there's more to the story larry hicks was suffering from cancer and it was thought he might not live out past the year 2001 but he's under chemotherapy and he was there for jack rush you've got to believe that kenny schrader's bad luck continues it took him about 25 laps to lap him here that just goes to show you how slow you're running by yourself once he was left he came to pit road got four fresh tires here on that 45. did anybody mention sterling marlin lately our point leader our point leader there he is just ahead of ryan newman and uh in third place very quietly yes methodically right up there to the leaderboard bobby hamilton got four tires on his pit stop and frank kimmel had a broken shock absorber problem that's why he is off the track sterling marlin started 31st made that big jump up into the top 15 fell back with that big pack here he comes and what i see about this car larry and you know this too every week they start off and they don't qualify too good but before the day's over with that is the best handling race car on the racetrack saw it at darlington saw it everywhere we've been so far this year rocking him he gets that car daytona better and better as the race goes along it don't seem no matter what type of racetrack this is the daytona 500 car this is the one he got out pulled on the right front fender and was penalized to tell you who else has pulled up to that front pack is huck strickland the bill davis dodge up to fifth place strickland has had a real up and down day and we've seen him feel some daring moves but it's gotten him to fifth i'm sure a lot of fans here pulling for him alabama it's been a while since we had two alabama drivers in winston cup race and this comes with no big surprise to me but i think the sleepers in the race are all the dodgers i think that once they get racing and they get the air moving around that that's a very good race car we got we got like seven six dodgers in the top 11. i guess jeremy mayfield the 19 realistically his teammate casey atwood in the seven ray evertham car with jim smith co-owning it there's casey right behind jeremy good sponsor just about stuff serious radio just announced they'll sponsor the michigan gene race and the watkins blood rage no daryl you said you talked to ray i talked to ray abraham as well and one thing he was concerned about he said the gm and the fords are starting to turn the restricted plate motors up a little bit more rpms and he said it just don't seem like the dodgers want to turn that many rpms with a restricted play one of the problems i think that the dodge teams have had is last year they built this car brand new last year's 2001 daytona 500 on last year's aero pack they had the fin on the roof the wickerbell on the back and they built the car around that package and when they took that off unlike the other teams they had no notice so they basically better start all over again that that that's not affecting the engine program so much larry but you gotta remember something with that other arrow package had a much bigger restrictor plate yes so when it went to this small plate the four teams and the chevrolet teams have experience with the small player only a 16th bigger but that's about 35 or 40 horsepower and it changes the power band in the motor now larry if we have pit stops under the green flag that can be a great equalizer here right now first to 20th is only two seconds as jeffrey bodine makes his stop first to 40th is just four seconds i mean what i'm trying to do i'm trying to find me three or four other teams that i don't want to deal with everybody on pit road i mean you get banged and beat defenders knocked in if i can find me three or four guys and you share information are you gonna do two are you gonna do four it does no good if you're gonna change two and they change four because then all of a sudden you get separated from them what you gotta be really careful of is when you come on the pit road is to not somebody's going to smoke the tires guys behind them see that smoke they react so you got to be careful when you come on pit room and not get run over from behind you got to give a hand signal plenty early i think the 44 car had that problem now jimmy johnson is pinning right now he is pinning along with his teammate jerry nadew that was an orchestrated deal so that they would pit together johnson's car they're still concerned about heat they pull the piece of tape off the grill he gets up to 250 as much as 260 degrees and just before the pit stop he was down to 3 30. johnson's away and right behind him his teammates we're going to see a bunch of cars they're all coming to the bottom of the racetrack everybody got to be careful right here we see him get run over a lot there you're going from 190 down to 55 miles an hour on pit road and you'll smoke that right front tire it's about the lightest tire oh yeah buckshot had a plan actually steve griffin sorry aaron steve dw michael rogerson they're gonna make a wedge adjustment he said he's a little bit loose four tires for the number 15. now the chevrolet of michael waltrip [Music] change [Music] these cars will be so much slower than the cars still running on the racetrack because it takes so long to get up to full speed here and one thing you've got to be really careful of as the driver is taking off out of the pits these cars got really high gear ratios in them you can throw the drive shaft out you can break the transmission all right really you got to get the tires that's when it's the best the pack in turn one earnhardt jr just coming out of two on the back stretch and that pack should catch him before he gets up to full speed nick bergeron kurt bush is in he's pretty much all by himself in the area where he is we are seeing people take four tires the reason for taking four tires at this point is they have run so far that they pretty much run the cars out of gas it'll take long enough to put the gas in might as well put four tires in it [Music] and dick johnny benson is in a fourth [Music] those cars that have just come off pit road look at the speed differential it's immense [Music] this will change the complexion of the race these pit stops under green changes everything dick well the crew has been urging robbie gordon to come in they wanted him to come in just a little bit before this gordon's car is so good he just stayed on the racetrack you know when they feel good it's hard to get off the speedway he like everybody else is going to take four tires a few moments ago he called in and said the car was a little bit tight he's been very quiet on the radio that's the only comment he has made here goes robbie gordon matt kenseth has a little lap our number two point man picks up five bonus points as did sterling marlon [Music] here we go right at it again three wide and one of the things that sterling hadn't capitalized on this year is bonus points matt kansas and others have gotten a whole lot more bonus points by leading laps or leading a left sterling hadn't taken advantage of that every race this pack right here they've been back out there now for two laps and they're gaining a lot on sterling mall net group that just came off that road you think merging onto the highway when they're doing 70 is tough try it two and a half times that speed with somebody breathing down your back spotter's hauling at your cruise hot creeps hollering at you you got people all around you you got your hand up in the air brakes don't work too good because they're cold god's tough being about i like it four wide matt kenzit continues to lead he has not yet made a pit stop that jack roush gas mileage with kenza stretches the fuel window here yeah i mean he's okay right now because he's out there to pack and he's running comfortable lap times but the problem will be if he gets by himself and don't get back with a pack he's going to be running a second and a half to two seconds slower because he's going to have no one to run with the draft win and we saw that happen yesterday i think that probably caught stacy compton that race yesterday stayed out one lap too long when he came back out on the racetrack all he could do was catch jason keller he couldn't pass it jason keller the winner of yesterday's bush series race kenseth has his hand in the air he's waving he is going to pick and not only that now he's got to come down out of that traffic so he's got to be really cautious slow down even a little earlier than maybe he would if it was wide open behind him and what's good he'll be on pit road by himself no chance of getting blocked in his pitch or getting into an accident with someone but when he pits and comes back out daryl he has to make sure he's with a pack the other disadvantage to put him pitting by yourself is every nascar official with the stopwatch will be clocking just him coming down pit road and that's how they clock pit road speed is where the stop watch through seconds four wide all the way around turns one and two boy that was that was close that strictly squeezed right in the front of mike wallace strickland has been driving like a man possessed today there's jeffrey barnett look at the big donut on the side of his car it looks like something from martial last week they're putting donuts on each other at 190 miles an hour these cars will have they'll be beat up just like they've been running on a he's just going into turn one right now the pack's coming through the trials well it's gonna be tough for him to get with that pack but maybe he can get with the second pack he's in the middle of one and two leaders just now getting into turn one merge ahead about the middle of the back stretch i mean right now he's pushing that throttle pedal just bending the floor and turning that engine out of the frame say come on baby go now once you get to the back stretch you're allowed to pull up into a lane yeah he's okay he's going to fall in this group here somewhere there's enough of them if there's only three or four they go by and leave me but there's enough of he'll be able to blend in about that late pit stop by kins and steve burns yeah mike pretty good strategy remember these guys are racing for the championship he wanted those five bonus points to lead a lap that's why they stayed at an extra lap or two the first five are going to get past him but he's gonna fall in line in seventh place so not a bad move no good little hole right there there's enough cards in that pack i still don't think he's up to speed totally sterling marlin that group right there the 40 car they're pulling him to the inside uh he's still not quite ready to get in line i don't think larry let's check that gap first to 20th was two seconds before pit stops now it's just 2.1 but first to about 38 was four seconds now it's 10 and first to 40th is 48 seconds and the only strategy was was just getting the five points because you'd have to run 63 laps to be able to do this on two stops don't look like anybody can do that after pit stops looks a little bit like it did before dale earnhardt jr out in front [Music] welcome back live to talladega aaron's 499 on fox presented by pepsi dale earnhardt jr one here in october his father the late great dale earnhardt senior one back to back talladega talladega races three different times top 30 cards within three seconds of each other jeff hammond as we observed some of the strategy at this point 61 laps in the guy like kansas staying out jimmy johnson the pole sitter hitting early what does that indicate as to what we'll see the rest of the way i think there's a lot of guys right now trying to find that combination who they can run with jimmy johnson had fallen back early on hunted around didn't find what he what he wanted came to pit road early now he's right back up to ninth and back in contention so i think a lot of these crew chiefs are trying to find that they can come to pitt road with certain guys and be able to make their way back up to the packaging by the end of the day uh speaking of the pack as we look at the back of the pack and people know about saturday's push race 27 cars involved in the big one last year was caution free here what would indicate here as to someone sitting back there if we might have more problems well right now i think you still early on we've seen a lot of patients i don't think guys are really getting too excited they're willing to fall in a single line and work their way back and forth we've already seen we had 43 cars pressed between only you know three seconds of the lead early on so i think everybody knows the cars are capable and they're showing a lot of patience right now later on that may go away and there have only been two caution free races run here at talladega six leaders eight league changes let's go back upstairs to mike joy daryl waltrip and larry mcreynolds caution free here at talladega through 63 laps let's have a look at our 7-eleven pit summary where they came in or they went out jeremy mayfield that 19 group they did a good job jeremy and and the crew going from eighth to second elliot sadler as well 18th to fourth and tony stewart that group they do it every week on pit road and we want to look at this right here between earnhardt jr walton mayfield this group right here earnhardt jr good pit stop good lap time the lap time is the two laps including the stop but i think what helped ellen hart jr he's at the very last hit box leaving good road he could come down pit road focus on his pit box when he went to lead he did not have to worry about speeding just get up to speed this is the very very last pit leaving pit road he only had to travel just a short distance right there worried about pit road speed didn't have to worry about speed and leaving the big loser on pit road was jeff gordon who fell to 27. he has since climbed back up the order to 16. here's matt mike i spoke to robbie loomis jeff gordon's crew chief and said you guys dropped back did you have any trouble on your pit stop they said no it wasn't a bad stop it just wasn't a 14 and change like dale o'neil jr was a 16 flat no adjustments i did say how many sticks of gum are you on now three he said no i'm on number two but i'm pulling out number three soon so you can see it's very nervous down here for the crew chiefs as well there's jeff gordon's progress through the day earnhardt jr michael waltrip teammates nose to tail jeremy mayfield and elliott sadler who took a provisional is right up there in the top five that's the left car that 33 card just going to lap down and that uses the bottle next to everything up but just remember this is the car too he finished second in the daytona 500 we saw the sign get well jack jack ralph supplies the motors for this 21 car the wood brothers mike wallace now going to lap down along with teammate bobby hamilton here's the burger johnson won the pole in car number 48 he has been troubled with overheating all day long on the last pit stop they pulled some tape off the grill that lets more air get through the radiator it drops the air temperature drop the water temperature 10 degrees they've told them to go ahead and turn the fan on that should drop it a little bit more randy norton who builds the engines for those cars said he can run at about 250 for a while without hurting the engine so long as he doesn't pump the water out they're very cautiously optimistic about jimmy johnson's car steve burns well dick not good news in the 14 pits of stacy compton he came down here with a car they had never tested never taken to the wind tunnel yet he qualified six well he is now very far behind the field they think he has a broken valve spring on the number 14 of stacy compton to update frank kimmel after that broken shock absorber problem he has returned to the race two things on jimmy johnson's car when you start pulling take off there as you know you're going to open that front end up that's going to slow you down so he's not going to be able to run back up there and lead this race like he did at the get-go and the other thing is these cars have electric fans they don't have a mechanical fan like you have on your passenger car like you used to have on passenger car they got an on and off switch for the fan and normally at speed you don't need to run the fan but if you have a heating problem it's helpful you know i'm a little surprised though that the stacy compton group the 14 group is having a foul spring problem normally that's caused from excessive rpms now i'll just show you where the valve spring is there's 16 on you have one on the intake one on exhaust there's the valve springs right there and normally it's a product when you break one of excessive rpms only turning about 7 000 here i'm a little surprised at that more than likely larry that happened leaving the pits more than likely he override the motor leaving the piss and that's exactly what i would say what has happened you have two vowel springs you have an inner and outer and i would say if you're going to tear or break a valve spring it would be leaving pit road ironic it happens right after a pit stop okay our top 20 after pit stops was two seconds apart they're now just 1.2 seconds apart the pack is closing up into a wad again yeah mike i'm curious i want to ask daryl and larry about this stacy compton actually stalled his car when he was leaving his pits on that pit stop on lap 51 wonder if that could have broken that bounce spring then but what it does steve is you you crank it back up you you grab the thing because it won't go it stumbles and when it does take off it just the engine revs up real high before you can do anything with it so yeah i'd say that had a lot to do with it and i mean they pulled such a high gear you know 300 307 where it was at six something last week at martinsville it's hard to get it going you're just you'll stall it out sometimes leaving the pitch yeah when it stalls and everybody's hauling at you and you've got to hurry up and you know you're revving 88 car almost sideways tried to slip under tony stewart and get him back in line he might have got a little pop from that point outside one outside two outside got romney in the middle two outside well you see what he does too don't you so i gotta catch my breath that that's good that scared me dale jerick starting back in 41st he had worked his way almost to the top ten or twelve and he's falling back down to about 19. jeff hammond [Music] guys i was wondering watching an 88 car what if he thought he's getting ready to run out of bounds guys and jerk that car back up on the racetrack not realizing the man had already started making a move on him and almost got himself in trouble but let's see i think kids is just right up on his back bumper he started to make a run on tony so he couldn't do it and he had to pull back up and he just tapped him daryl when you shake that car sideways and lose your forward bike and the effect there it is right there is the effect to the car behind you as if you'd hit your brake oh yeah i mean we can't anticipate something like that that's what he whoops out then all of a sudden he says i can't make it a lot like what jeff said the yellow lines there when he tried to get back in line kitts has had to run on him where he was at was not going to work getting to turn three you know and that's why they that's why they instituted the yellow line out of bounds they don't want you going in that corner three and four way tail earnhardt junior our leader here's matt mike a few moments ago dale earnhardt jr came on the radio and told his team to tell michael's team that he cannot run the same line as michael michael likes to run down the bottom near the yellow line dale jr says his car gets a little tight trying to run that lane so to ask michael to move up half a lane or so thanks matt two of the top three finishers in the daytona 500 are tailing the field one is 500 winner ward burton the other third place finisher jeffrey bottom hey larry i mean all those years of racing wouldn't it have been nice to have someone to call on the radio and say will you tell him to follow me where i want to go and stop going where he wants to go and he's my teammate trying to help me but you know i think what will happen you know they will move around and see if their car works as good maybe where their teammate's working no disadvantage if it will do that i always call on the rails if you tell someone so to do they stay behind me and they say yeah watch this bill elliott's often said among many drivers of often said i want to be outside i want to be way out back maybe that's why and where warren burton is the eye of the storm is well i know we talked about a lot of people being imported the driver the crew chief but that spotter on top of that grandstand he's his eyes he's his arms he's his legs as his ears he's got the most important job 20 cars are only 1.1 seconds apart 75 laps so far caution free dale earnhardt jr and his teammate are leading and a few minutes ago dale jarrett had quite a moment yes he had a moment what's not to be big m4 nice save one outside nice job he sounded a lot calmer than we did watching it daryl well once you've saved it and you're still going you're yeah you know you got to get that out of your mind think about what to keep going but i like his spotter roman pemberton he was like okay nice save but they're outside yeah you know right back to business i don't have time to dwell on it yeah go man yeah tell me about it later we'll talk about it this afternoon the plus of that is you saved it and you didn't wreck now get going you know guys we're almost 80 laps into this race approaching halfway 43 cars still out on the racetrack and of those 43 39 of them are running within four seconds of each other and that's through a green flag set of pit stops my question about ward burton there does not seem to be anything wrong with his car he's just kind of hanging out as the caboose there steve yeah just went down to check on ward burton and you know earlier i said he was having a hard time this morning making himself comfortable in the race car which dw talks about a lot well right now he cannot find a comfortable place to run he's searching trying to find a place any place on the racetrack a lane where he feels like he can compete right now he doesn't feel comfortable now tony stewart was up amongst the leaders and for a while drafting right off of dale earnhardt jr he has dropped back to 31st well i think every driver has a thought process that he goes through here and and every driver has a point in the race where he thinks it's time for him to take a breather it's time for him to drop back there views this thing from the back and see if something's getting ready to unfold because there's points in the race where it's more apt too than not what you see by the fox tracks tony stewart back there i mean he's losing ground fast to dale earnhardt jr who's leading this race right now you know also what you find out back there daryl you find out you know where your car's maneuverable you know is it better up high in traffic better down low i mean you're i don't want to see you back there but you're getting education about your race car well yeah you might you know get back there where you move around a little bit when you're three wide all the time i mean you know you're pretty well dictated to the line you're going to run by who's doing what at least you get back here and you try it like you say move around try your cards from different places tony's had a tough week here in alabama he was interviewed by a british writer who perhaps took tony's comments out of context saying that the fans here were obnoxious he says he meant they were boisterous they have a great time here and he had a cute t-shirt on and driver introductions saying obnoxious talladega driving he could take the joke as as well as dishes i know as a crew chief i pretty much left the radio waves for the spotter he could do that driver a whole lot more good than i could i came here bobby allison and i've had to run in somewhere back in the 70s 80s early 80s i came down here and i didn't know about bold tide i just saw boxes of tied with rows of toilet paper on people's antennae and i was nervous wreck i didn't know where to come inside the racetrack or not so i kind of know how tony feels dick berger well greg zipfidelli is tony stewart's crew chief it's also his 35th birthday greg why are you guys running in the back today i thought he was getting a little invasion there nobody was helping us when we got up front there after the pit stop so uh we're just gonna go to the back no sense getting frustrated this early in the day uh we got a lot of racing left we got a really good race car we'll just uh we got one more stop to go and then we'll race hard to last stop okay happy birthday starting to look like the tour de france sometimes you want to lead sometimes you want to ride yeah well that's the whole thing calm down the driver is i mean the crew chief in the spotter boat calm down take a deep breath fall back get your composure and then we'll get them out we'll get them later on because if that driver is giving a lot of static across the radio about how people are driving the best thing you can do is get out of there we now have everybody nicely linked up two chevrolets followed by two dodges followed by three fours followed by two chevrolets isn't this nice everybody's found a partner for the time being and you know i think greg simpadelli makes a good point they know they have at least one more green flag stop they actually have two should we stay green all the way so that's going to mix things up so again you're learning about your car you know you have more green flag stops to come now on the outside kevin hart now talk about being misquoted it was reported last week that during the craftsman truck series race he had said he was going to dump boy gibbs in a press conference yesterday harvard denied making such a statement said it was made by someone on another team but it was attributed to him says he did not say that he was going to dump the corn gibbs the two of them did get together and crash however and harvick said he has learned a lot about himself and learned how he is part of a much bigger picture in nascar and will act accordingly from here on out daryl did you see right there kevin harvick in the 29 how hey moved against the 99 car and then he shot away that light gives you a little push away from him when you when you get up against him and go away oh you'll play with the air i mean there's air i keep saying about turbulence you're there all around these cars and you want to know if the buff off one of the other cars when you when it buffers off of where your car's gonna go you're making notes you're making mental notes this whole race all geared up for that last five or ten laps in this show the 98 car we're not used to seeing that as kenny wallace in a one-race ride for michael waltrip bracelets got into the back looking down junior with his hand out the window yeah and you see what happened the 12 lost his momentum and look at all these cars going by flashback one year ago the daytona 500 kurt bush going through the triangle bangs into dale earnhardt senior earnhardt put his arm out the window 190 miles an hour to give curt bush a wave and i said it was it was like the lamb taking on the lion and it was like father like son apple's no road farm with three boys i tell you to go through what dale earnhardt jr and the car just went through there the budweiser car i mean he didn't lose much momentum he has got a fast forward step oh yes he does again michael walter let's see it's a big donut there i believe there was a little donut a little tire rubbing there yeah right there behind the left front tire gets down under him here and the car just shoves up that's again that's a product of that's that dreaded what larry arrow thank you for saying it but when he dragged his car and maybe he didn't necessarily get into dale or junior but as he dragged across the back it pulls delanar junior's car round makes it loose great save i gotta say that's two good saves two good saves you know the third one i hope we don't have any of it strikes there any more aerodynamic push when the car doesn't get enough air going over the hood loses it press down force doesn't want to turn well it's a product of being in traffic as well your car loses the front downforce when you're behind another car of course newman is he's got i think that really upset his composure time because he's getting pushed around now his spotter hall of famer buddy baker well i know what baker be doing right now he'd be shaking his fist and somebody 85 caution free laps at the fastest speedway on earth michael waltrip leads at talladega [Music] 88 laps complete remember at the top of our free race show when kevin harvick said i'm back he certainly is he stormed up to third place and then he got freight trained on both sides he's stuck in the middle he's a little tight right through here guys getting a little tight getting four wide as they come through the triangle that's not a good thing what that does is all those cars full wide like it lets everybody behind them just close up so quickly the closing rate there is pretty fast you got to be careful i mean darrell i don't think we can stress enough why for wide i mean the racetrack is plenty wide enough but it's just you talked about it earlier these cars buffed in and bouncing around one little move the wrong way you take three-fourths to field out well there's when you're four wide and when you're three wide there's very little margin for error when you're four wide there is no margin for error and that's what you got to be careful with you know guys we got to talk strategy again i want to know what that car is doing about 10 laps away from pit stops jeff hammond we know we're gonna have to be there like dick berger talked while ago for two cans so what i'm gonna do i'm gonna give you four tires this time but since we're gonna be near the end i'm probably just gonna do a little gas and go and that you was talking about it when we were at break that's probably what matt kinsen and that group's thinking running those extra laps yellow i really believe they're looking for an advantage the best way you're going to beat a lot of these guys instead of staying there for a can or a can and a half on that last stop just planning on getting just one can get on all pit road and try to get away get it down to where it's a small pack of cars to race with instead of this big gaggle we see behind them so these next two pit stops especially this one is going to be kind of like sitting the stage on how everything is going to evolve before the end of this race especially [Music] remember when jeff gordon fell back to 27th after that pit stop no big deal he is right there fighting for the lead like i said it's a chess game backwards in fourth back and forth the only two cards that have consistently been up front is the eight and the 15. everybody else has kind of rotated around behind me but look at those two roush cars right there matt kenthus from the 17 mark martin to six kensington fell back to about 15th after falling in line while ago now he's done worked his way along with jeff warden up to third and earnhardt jr has to work with ryan newman and sterling marlin on the outside to try to get back to the front but he can do it now there's that car he went around there the six car on the outside and is pulling himself right on back up back kansas that car gets a whale of a run guys 10 laps ago he was shaking his fist at right now but now he's waving come on come on buddy let's go let's listen by dale earnhardt jr [Music] they're [Music] one thing he needs to realize is the last two races marked field today it's been about 90 degrees right so if it's hot now but it's really going to get hot here come july i mean we're definitely into the first hot races that they've had all year long and the other thing is these cars are so slick nowadays and the crew chiefs don't want any air any nacho ducts in the side to slow you down so there's not a lot of air inside the car other than your helmet uh cooler that you run to keep your head cool and daryl he talked about his fire suit they make different layer fire suits the more layers you have the more protection you have but the hotter it's going to be well these suckers they make a lot of heat and all that comes out right up under your feet robbie gordon working the low groove [Music] steve grissom alongside ricky rudd in tow check that's bobby hamilton who's the laptop steve grissom in the 44 he's two laps down he actually missed pit road on his green flag stop while ago but he's here with the lead pack you theorized that might have been the start of his problem i think what happened was he was trying to get on pit road and he blew out the left front tire he locked it up i saw a smoke fly and then he had to go around an extra lap tire blew out all the way around grissom's first race of the 2002 and that could be the difference of missing pit road i mean you had been used to doing this for a year and a half or two years michael waltrip who led 53 laps here last october fell out of that race after overheating at 167 of 188 laps and looked like he could have won that race very easily he was sitting there leading the race all of a sudden the thing got hot on him larry picked him up halfway halfway well i couldn't i just want michael to know he's my brother michael i was gonna pick you but i have to pick after larry and he took you first but i can't both pick this is the car that michael had in daytona and i don't think it was ever talked about what a good car he had there but he ran over something that came up with his teammates cargill earnhardt jr and put a hole in the nose and even though he still ran up front it pretty much kept my thing from getting up there to win the race he's gonna he's gonna kick off dale jr though i can tell you that right now if he drives down there and lets uh ryan newman go back he should have stayed out there and let the eight car draft off of him hard to get to the high side when ryan newman is right there now will newman with the four get any help from those sevens jeff gordon just jumped up behind him in the 24 car jumped out from behind michael and got behind ryan newman in the 12th car i wouldn't be a bit surprised if dale jr was very unhappy with that move here he comes on the outside junior that is junior's got i mean he can go around that outside we saw in practice yesterday darrell that car couldn't go okay he's faster than him but he got to be careful right there but don't touch him he got a run in the middle of turn one and two right there with the help of kurt bush in the 97. that that eight car really picks up a lot of steam through the middle of the corner up high [Music] and i think what junior just sent over to his whole team right there doesn't have a whole lot of help lowlifes got the help now they all left the 97 15 got the 40. that's 24. it's ty nars eleanor junior spotter and he's a great spotter he spotted me when i drove the pennzoil car and he was so helpful when he folded there's two kinds of spotters there's the calm reassuring voice like ty norris and then there's the cheerleaders which do you prefer i like ty norris i like forgotten because i'm already revved up enough i'm gonna do an enough hollering i don't need a spotter doing it dale earnhardt junior back he wanted to we talked about it earlier always from the top of the racetrack to the bottom got that run off turn three he's got to help with jeff gordon here going after that lead again ryan's got a pretty fast car though and i think there's a little message to him right there from junior don't hit me in the back on the bottom front on the bottom chevy's in the low lanes on the low line i think junior wanted to shove the 12 up so he had to get these other cars underneath them big response from the crowd as earnhardt jr goes back to the lead well that's pretty impressive that could have been five to go just as easy it is with 100 to go probably still be like this with five to go oh yeah and what these guys have to be doing the crew chiefs they have to start making these guys aware look we're in this big pack we're about three to five six laps away from pit stop you want to be in the right position to come on the pit road and make that green flag stop we want to be back for pit stops too you are watching nascar on fox [Music] 100 caution free laps at talladega were opening the second pit window under the green flag jeffrey bodine has stopped he is the first to stop as he was on the prior pit stop sequence dale earnhardt jr continues to lead his teammate michael waltrip jeff gordon ryan newman sterling marlon matt kinsen kurt busch mark barton dale jarrett and pole sitter jimmy johnson [Music] based on the earlier sequence of green flag stops over the next 10 left we should see the whole field come to pit road and again i think everyone would take four tires fill that thing over fuel to go another 50 or 60 laps within about 15 laps and it seems like when dale jr gets out front he can pull three or four cars along with him and they kind of get three wide behind them and seen this earlier doing it again he just got such a fast car there's only a few guys that can hang with him well there are leaders and there are followers [Music] you know where i want to be i don't want to be a leader i want to see nothing that might winch you what i'm saying when he wants to lead they don't want to race him they want to line up and run with him if i was a spotter and if i was a crew chief i'd say stay with that eighth car wherever he goes you go with me a problem not a problem there it can be that you know if you're coming in there three wide there's a car coming out of the pits coming up on the racetrack man that can create a real habit give a call to hud strickland you saw there from calera alabama he's been driving bill davis's dodge in and around the top ten all day michael walker he tried to jump up in front of matt kenseth but the dale o'neil jr saw what was going on he jumped up in front of those guys and dale jarrett both of the yates cars he and ricky rudd qualified very poorly but dj has raced himself up into seventh place and a big near-miss earlier and here's another one jeff gordon matt kenseth almost touched see that's a product of not being able to see out that right side he didn't know he didn't really know his hair but he never saw him he felt it that car went over there he felt that that buffer of air and he went back you feel it a lot of times before you see it yes sir folks the best way i can describe that is you're going down the highway you've got the driver's window open and you crack the passengers window the air pressure inside the car changes you feel that it's similar to what these drivers feel when a car gets alongside yeah you can hear and you can feel can't always see [Music] and you can see that that's dale jared a good shot of him he's trying to look over to the right a little bit see who's over on his right side but there's really not a lot he can see over there but look what a rough round he's getting right here that was given to dale yesterday by a little girl from the make-a-wish foundation he said let me have that bear i can't think of a better pastor i would want me than this little bear for tomorrow he's hiding behind his seat though he needs to get up there where are you from pit stops for the leaders imminent 104 laps complete and you know daryl we always talk about it and i know we both are fans of the full face helmet but that's one of the reasons at the speedway especially the dylan hart senior wanted that open face helmet a little better vision yeah a little better vision and plus the air blowing in the car through the side windows to the driver's side there he said he could feel that [Music] like you were matt about the heat inside the a-car daler mark jr remember he just started wearing a full face helmet he too used to wear an open face helmet tried it happy hour last year at for the homestead time in atlanta and so he isn't quite used to how hot it can get in that car with that full face helmet as a nine car though got a little bit in the grass there coming down the road we got out of bounds how about out of pavement but i mean that's what happens when you get too many cars coming to pit road one time you're trying to get to 55 miles an hour and remember they start clocking that speed 75 feet before the entrance of pit road michael just but you see his arm out the window he's telling those guys behind him we're coming to pit lane guys don't run over [Music] second group have made their stops and come out we see more coming though we see it looks like about 15 cars coming to pitt road we'll see about two more groups over the next few laps and they include the leaders [Music] earnhardt jr all the way down in the far end pit and michael waltrip and if there's one place you don't want to get caught speeding on pit road you do not want to speed on pit road here it would pretty much end your day steve burns mike michael wadrup says he loves the way the race car is handling right side tires are already on the jack man jeff kerr slams the jack in chris crumley changes front tires no adjustments [Music] [Applause] off pit road along with michael waltrip jeff gordon rusty wallace jimmy spencer sterling and bobby labonte now you heard that damn junior's engine how it kind of spit out the pipe when he dropped the clutch that's that's the rev limiter they don't want to turn this motor over about 7 200 i would suspect here comes a lot of the roush cars right there 97 and mark martin that group they're getting a little better fuel mileage than most of the other cars [Music] now kurt bush is on his way in right now this is uh mark folz on the front end of the car he's carrying tires he's from west virginia in the back aaron pirat from lexington kentucky andy thurman changing front tires he's from louisiana kevin gilman on the back tires he's from saint johnsbury vermont the crew and he's gone now can he and mark martin get out together and draft back up to speed together answer yeah they're going to be close it's going to be close the lead pack they're coming off turn four entering down through the travel right now ricky craven mike skinner brett bodine and dave blaney all pitted on that lap as well so jeff burton has become the leader with matt kenseth behind here's dick jeff burton's on his way in and frank snyder the crew chief has just told him nice and smooth guys four tires mark armstrong just before this race began assembled this entire pit crew behind the war wagon and he told them all he said there are a lot of races to win but this one is special we have the car let's all pull together and do it these guys working hard trying to win a race for their fallen krugman fall of team owner jack brown [Music] he had too much break he slid almost through his pit his crew had to back up the car so it wasn't a slow stop it's just his entry total time on camera very slow it was costly on the racetrack i was looking down at pit road when they backed him up it also hurt jeff gordon trying to get out of his pit box lost him a lot of ground as well you heard frankie stoddard jeff burton's crew chief screaming 39-39 what he's telling 3 900 leaving that's 55 miles an hour on his tag one of the things that we it's kind of a technical thing i'm just going to say this one time some of these cars have what we call an open gear it only pulls off the right rear tire so it's difficult to make a pit stop and get out of the pitch because that right rear tire wants to spin most of the guys have gone to the same gear we run everywhere else it's got a ratchet where both rear tires are pulled as it leaves the he's our leader almost identical to the situation 50-something laps ago he's right there kind of the front of that second pack gonna be very critical once again for him to get the pit road get those four tires and get back with that group again we often see this with the jack roush team there are four roush cars and usually one of them is picked to be the fuel mileage i won't say rabbit how about tortoise the car that's going to stay out the longest today that setup's under matt kinsen he has stretched the fuel mileage on both of the first two green flag runs now watch steve hart and tony stewart [Music] the spotters are high on the press box route from near the press box roof in the tri-oval in the center of the right center of the tri-oval racetrack there they are so sometimes the cars are a mile away from the spot there's a lot of them used binoculars i mean i've been on that spot or standing where it gets real critical is down that back stretch you can't take your eyes off that car at all matt yoga larry when you talk about the spotters the 24 car has pepsi colors today the blue is very close the same blue used on jimmy johnson's low chevrolet so spotter ron theo had rodney loomis add some neon green tape all over that 24 car because the numbers on the roof are very close the same colors johnson's they added neon tape on the spoiler the front valence also on even the pull tabs on the tearaways on the windshield just so wrong i can see that car a little easier and it's on the back stretch the perspective of these cars coming toward you or going away from you is very difficult to tell when somebody's moving around guys let's talk about the 17 matt kansas he's leading the race we just completed 112. that's the same distance he traveled earlier he's on 56 but what i don't like daryl he's in the middle of that patch he's coming hard to get the pit road there you see him hunting the bottom of the racetrack i'd say he'll build pit road this time he will and he told the 99 team to let him out let him down on the inside he's going in big hand wave to alert the drivers behind him and he knew he had to lose as little time as possible getting to the bottom because every little bit of time he lose would be critical right there but larry by the same token he's got to slow down earlier to get to the bottom and look at all these cars that are going by and where if he had been up there with everybody else he could have drove 170 mile an hour in the pit room right there that's where pit road starts spit road speed limit starts right there and again you mentioned it earlier he's the only one on pit road all eyes are watching tear off on the windshield a long time there on the right front it appeared kentuc gave up the lead to his teammate mark martin who is now leading the field's halfway down the back stretch right now they're completing the left side towers he's gone now you're gonna be real critical you get up to speed got to maintain 55 miles an hour you don't want to get caught speeding and be back with that pack they're in the middle of three and four right now yeah that speed limit what kills it just takes so long to come from the far end of the pit road all the way down through there and that pit stop was about three seconds too long and we're about to see the effect of that well he's got it i mean he's got to take up two full cans of fuel so i mean he can't just get a half a can of the second half of the second one and go they had a little trouble on the right front and here here comes the four o'clock express he's in turn two this pack's coming and i mean they are coming in a hurry they're coming into turn two right now but there's enough of them he'll be able to blend in last time he did this six cars went by and he was able to get into line in seven let's see what happens here i don't believe there's a hole in seventh round but there's no room for him he's gonna get cars to help him because there's not enough room for all of us to go by at once all right there's his teammate mark martin right there the sixth car if he can get down there but i think mark just got too much momentum he's going to go by on the high side right there it's just not a hole to get into like there was early john andretti dips underneath because kenzik is still not up to full speed it takes over it takes overlap to get up to speed and he pays the price he pays the price that time matt kinsen crosses the line in 25th position caution free laps in the errands 499 on fox presented by pepsi so so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] the caution is out for the first time today at talladega debris in turn four has put us under the yellow all the teams had just made green flag pit stops and all came right back in again i don't think it was a i think they just wanted a break i think the drivers all told them on that pit stop let's have we need a break out here three cars did not stop matt kinsen jimmy spencer ryan newman let's see these groups right here dale earnhardt jr michael waltrip dale jarrett just topping that tank off the field they've been out there only about 10 or 11 laps so no need for tires just go ahead and fill that thing with fuel why because at the end of the race when you have to make another green flag stop it i don't think anyone can make it from here you'll spend less time on pit road in your pit box less fuel to put in i don't think anybody can make it from here but how good a mileage is that 17 cargo and cautions will help and he just went from 27th on the last lap we ran under green to first because he didn't have to stop if i see him i'd come in and top back up 70 laps to go matt kenseth ryan newman and dale earnhardt jr kenzit and newman did not yet pit under this caution yesterday top five finishers from yesterday's bush grand national race brought to you by old spice jason keller picked up his second win of the year in search of his first championship stacey cobston and tim fedouwa on the lead lap todd bodine and casey mears a career best for the rookie 27 cars knocked out in a big crash here are the points jack sprague the leader keller just 22 behind former champ randy mcjoy kenny wallace and rookie scott riggs in the craftsman truck series standing is brought to you by sears robert presley up 20 on ted musgrave david starr rick crawford and mike bliss there were 70 laps to go one to go we had about four cars four or five cars that came back to pit road topped off they were already back in the field john andretti dave blaney tony stewart ward burton and bill elliot 35 cars still on the lead lap with 70 laps to go jerry and they do in the 25s back on the racetrack had a broken shock mount run such an aggressive shock package here it's hard even over those beefy mountains but he's back out there eight laps now 43 cars started 43 cars running far cry from yesterday when we put 27 cars into the garage on a lap 15 crash you'll see kenseth on fox tracks coming up to speed as remember the start finish line is down toward turn one not right here in the middle of the tri-oval as it is at daytona pace car speed 70 miles an hour bring them down that's the start that's the restart area right there in the center of the trial look at it climb already over 100 miles an hour almost 120 by the time they get to the start finish line and it will continue to climb all the way around the straight track and even then some darryl yeah it will probably be back to the start finish like if it gets at full speed and some great news as matt kansas leads this race his car owner jack roush injured in a plane crash friday evening that's his condition at university hospital in birmingham upgraded from critical to serious so very good news yes [Music] very much our prayers are certainly with jack and his entire family and organization here the end of the back stretch 185 miles an hour over turn three falls down a little bit right there only a couple of miles are in the middle of three and four taylor hart jr to second and looking for the lead kenzit to block as they say on the squares close the door just kind of close the door ryan newman's go go from second to about six but time they get to the start finish line steve bobby ross and burns you guys seem to be getting great gas mileage tell us about your strategy well we're getting a little better gas mileage and everyone and all the guys pitted they were around us kept us in a draft so i just stayed out there and uh you know same with the second stop here when they did that again i stayed out because they had the cars all around us was running the same speed so really didn't have nothing to lose except for just you know if we cut the college got to caution a little earlier we'd be on our own laps so uh you know it's running good it's just intelligent you've got [Music] matt why did you stay out and not come in at least top off we only had about nine laps with the fuel burned off and we were in the back because of that bad pit stop so we figured it'd be a lot safer to be on the road uh we might hurt a couple positions at the end of the race but no one else can make it to the end and figure to be safer if a big wreck does happen trying to pull off their first time win and join eight other drivers who pulled off that feeding here by the crowd someone has retaken the lead now this is a little different this time when earnhardt jr went with michael waltrip michael could not stay with him at the front kansas got a pretty fast car i mean he's able to hang right there you want to know what blocking looks like now kenzie has helped from his roush teammate the board of 97 kirk bush let's see how strong dale earnhardt jr in that eight card budweiser car is right here because he's being gamed up by those forwards right now look at that one time four rounds cars and ryan newman into the middle you know what we haven't done today crank it up 20 000 horsepower man michael just got [Music] [Music] so hey [Music] 123 laps complete of 188 65 to go 35 cars still on the lead lap and just three seconds apart from the first to the 35th you thought i was going to pull that trivia question on you didn't you well as all the spotters are killing their drivers be patient they will be coming i've been holding my breath all day but it's after these restarts they're bunched back up fresh tires adjustments that's when you really hold your breath for a few laps and then you just heard the crew chief on the 12th say even this far into the race they're still anticipating the big one four wide and it won't be too long now larry until some of these guys have been kind of cooling it at the back like tony stewart and a few of them they're going to start trying to get near up here to the front as you can see things are picked up near the front he's flirting with that out of bounds lying down there down the back stretch four wide going into turn three goodness is picking up boys goodness is picking up he had to fall back in behind kurt busch it's wide enough but it won't work getting into turn three and you get so frustrated because mike knows he's got a fast car but look where he is how about it well kurt bush is also frustrated i'm listening to him on the radio and he's very annoyed that people don't want to seem to run with him jimmy fanning just came on the radio and said kurt you've got no friends out there and you can hear it in their voices they desperately want partners but they're not getting this afternoon and listen guys it's not like you can orchestrate these things you can't set things up you go with the guys that's with you whoever's around you that's your partner at the time because it's going to change i mean ten years ago eight or nine cars from the league draft you could do it we look at this pack out here how do you orchestrate a parker or a friend i wouldn't even want to be looking for somebody to run with but also daryl this is only kirk bush's third restrictor plate race ever is this where spirit that experience comes in does you want to go with the people you know i think so because they don't you know he doesn't have enough experience to know what to do all the time might know what to do to get to the front but does he know what to do all the time no disrespect to him he's a great talent we see him win races but this is this is chest at its highest level and now a rookie leads this race eight drivers have scored their first victory here three drivers have won here in their first ever talladega start and if those eight six this was the only race they won was their first race here and the thing is that's really interesting to show you how things are changing the 8 and the 15 have dominated this race but richard brickhouse won his first ever start here so did donnie allison so did pete hamilton and there are the drivers who won here and those six with the bullets was there lone winston cup victory what will happen today 126 complete in talladega [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] mark martin's four leads the chevys of dale earnhardt jr and kenny wallace the forward to brian newman jeff gordon chevrolet and six fords behind them but not further back michael waltrip along with kurt bush and robbie gordon have been playing 190 mile an hour croquet as earnhardt jr takes the lead can you spell composure because the guy in that blue car right there is just about to lose his that would be the blue 15. i can i mean he's not doing his car anything even beating up the side he's beating his car all up and he's just falling back and i think his frustrations this is when you've been out there on the racetrack for the last two and a half hours you've been up front all day long and now you find yourself falling back in the clutches of all these other cars now is when you got to think now's where you've got to figure out how am i going to get back to the front because you know when you've got a fast enough car to do it darrell have you ever seen where maybe after a caution sometimes a driver will somewhat lose his focus a little bit after running 100 something laps without a caution and you have a caution things change i i have larry it's happened to me i've always you know thought well gosh we've done so well i think i'll take a little breather here and see what happens michael waltrip has fallen back to 26th and that's he and dale jr have led this race from the get-go up until this caution flag came out now it's junior and michael waltrips other car the one driven by kenny wallace on a one race wonder kind of ride now michael was talking right now you tell you that's a dream right there no machine here's a fella looking for his first winston cup win on a track that has rewarded eight first-time winners and i believe kenny wallace could have won this race last year or two years ago now but he helped dale earnhardt win the race he stayed with dale he came in second but he helped dale win the race michael waltrips bush crew is looking after this car doing the pit stops on pit road ford kenny said he helped earnhardt win that race because earnhardt helped him get all the way from the back to the front it was the race where he did that system started 17th and then five laps was leading the race and kenny helped him all the way to the front up through the middle right through the middle 55 laps to go here's our subway race summary nine leaders 24 lead changes 186 miles an hour the average green flag lap still 35 cars on the lead lap none in the garage and only one caution that for debris it lasted four laps well i still think at the end of the day certainly this is no great prediction but that eight cars it's hot you got to be i mean he's gotten out he's falling back a couple of times but he can get back up he takes that high line goes around him on the outside his car is so fast through the middle of the corner he's shown strength the entire day brian newman after such an impressive ride [Music] get off the pace he's losing ground fast if it is an engine problem this be three weeks in a row that team has suffered engine problems caused by a busted radiator last week at martinsville yeah he's definitely falling back there he's got a cylinder down down on cylinder kyle petty battling along in the bottom lane started in the sixth row today this is when people surprise you just like michael just like he's surprised how well everybody's how good everybody's running because everybody's getting everything out of their car now they can they're not holding anything back they know they've got to make one more stop they're gonna get all out of these babies it can now's the time to show talked about kyle he's in eighth place we're riding with jeff gordon who's tenth matt what's the story on newman mike matt borland jumped off the box and said he's down on the cylinder they're talking to the engine specialist the engine tuner on this team right now and they're also going to get back and talk to ryan but right now it does not look good for ryan newman he's battled up toward the front all day and now falling to the tail end of the line but still on the lead lap jeff mike one guy we don't want to overlook here is elliot sadler run second to daytona 500 started way back today has now worked himself up to third place and looking pretty strong again his best finish here in five races 17th in the year 2000 [Music] 135 laps complete 53 to go in the world's fastest speedway [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so so [Music] [Music] [Music] dale earnhardt jr who's won two of the last three nascar restricted plate races that's daytona and talladega and kenny wallace who had one of his three career second place finishes here is in second place elliot sadler the daytona 500 runner-up he is third bush jeff burton the top five sterling marlin in that 40 car dipping down the low side seeing if anybody come with him right now he's pretty much down there by himself get the interval on the fox track losing a lot of ground yeah there's help coming but it's a long way back there i mean it's already getting close to a second back that's what they that's what they told general custer yeah that ain't helped that's released he's got a little relief when he gets back let's just watch the fox tracks though once this group gets to it let's see if the interval starts to shrink it's up to 1.2 seconds but he's setting up there so you know cars are going by him left and right he lost his momentum yeah they're splitting him right now he's caught in the middle a little bit of help from bobby labonte coming but oh boy it's easy now that wasn't the kind of help you need these cars maybe they're not as big as they look maybe when you're out there they're not as big as they look from up here they just fit in places michael waltrips finally gone up to the high side but robbie gordon and ricky craven touch point michael at home and robbie gordon i don't know if they're working together until that made up my me because you don't have mind work with me just don't work against right well fellas guess what else we haven't done tonight cranked it up so this must be radio shack trivia we talked about the three drivers richard brickhouse pete hamilton donnie allison who won here in their first start but who started the most talladega winston cup races before getting his first win here [Music] sterling marlin here this just research from the week ahead that's all oh yeah i can't believe it how about that chris myers he's right on the money that's an upset what's happening i'm impressed [Laughter] how about this guys look where dale jr's got this bunch running now he list leads them wherever he wants them to go he's got them all running right out next to the wall he's the pied piper of talladega right now he said let's all run up here a while so they say yep kenny wallace is doing exactly what i do i'd follow that car if he went in the garage i'd go in the garage [Music] kenny wallace's car the 98 don't want to run that high it don't drive good never see ryan newman in the 12th car going to the garage in the last three races he's went from second to 17th in points with these engine failures don't go deep in points today he is the first car out of the race let's lead three like three races that's the way we used to run this joint here now the way they're running it now is the way we used to run it because we've run a lot faster we'd be running 195 miles an hour you had to go all the way up there just to keep it actually you watched the car up there but these guys were driving them up here today pretty much the top 15 cars are single foul they're running that high line still i'm sure dave junior thinks this is you know knowing him the way i do he said this is really cool no matter where i go they all go with me it's a great problem to have oh yes it is and as you can see it's getting everybody kind of single foul everybody's trying to get up there we've only had one caution flag and that for debris no contact to cause a caution dale earnhardt jr has been in front for the majority of this race but there are still 45 laps to go in talladega [Applause] all right there hasn't been a big one that had a lot of big saves of jeff hammond uh which friend can you count on now with about 41 laps remaining and dale earnhardt jr in the league you got to be kidding me chris here at talladega it's basically supporting the race there is no such thing as friends you're going to do what you have to do stay out front and use whatever you can use and one more pit stop involved in strategy you're guessing depending upon the driver within about 18 15 miles to go 15 laps and continuing that range i'm really looking right now for guys to start coming in between lap 170 175 probably gonna be one can of gas we can get off pit road the guys might be the ones got to watch kevin harvick up to ninth jeff gordon eighth with dale earnhardt jr leader let's go back upstairs to daryl walter larry mcreynolds and mike shaw larry the gas mileage you're getting could be the key to victory here as to how long you're gonna need to make that last stop i mean yeah there's some teams gonna need to be there about seven or eight seconds matt kinses may only need to be there about four five five seconds down seven or eight seconds they can almost change two tires but i don't want to do that i don't want to take a chance of a lug nut falling off or anything i just want you there just long enough to get enough fuel on that thing to finish i just i just got to say something i can't believe what dale earnhardt jr is doing to this field now we race around the bottom of this racetrack we have forever he decided he wanted to run up in the hive against the wall in the high groove everybody fell it followed him up there matt kenny wallace came on the radio and said to his team please tell dale jr my car is not as comfortable up high as it is down low would he mind going back down low so ty norris passed it up to dale junior junior says well my car feels pretty good here and i think i'm gonna run here he can run wherever he wants to yeah well it could be any number of things i i i tell you what i tell kenny wallace if it was comfortable i'd be out there driving you know you run where you gotta run and right now you stay with that eight car running a high line is gonna save his tires a little bit but i don't really think that's the issue he just happens to have a car that runs nice and fast up around the high high side guys we just heard pat trice and the crew chief on the 21 talking to elliot sadler they pitted on lap 116 took gas only they're gonna pit in about 20 laps and their strategy what they're thinking about now is again no tires in just one can of gas the wood brothers have won here five times with a 21 car donnie allison we've talked about in 71 three times with the silver fox the great david pearson and their last victory here in 1980 with the alabama gang's neil bonnett look down on the inside guys there's four cars ripping up a little grip down there's gonna try to come to the front we've got a problem with kent's car i think he's back in 15th position [Music] watch the hood on this car oh yeah see that's that turbulence and the wind buffing around on it the boat the boat has come out right there's a boat right there and it's come out of the hood steve yeah mike we've heard sterling marlin talking to his crew chief lee mccall and tony glover and he's been screaming saying get nascar to talk to the 17 that hood's going to come flying off but he's been saying it for the last five laps well the good thing steve is it's the hinge at the back of the hood and not one of the pins at the front of the hood that's gone as long as the vibration don't shake the pins out but normally for the race the team's actually taking the kids in so it still has four hook pins plus the boat on the right side the the pressure the air pressure will hold it down you'll see it buff up every now and then that's just cause little wind will get under the hood but at these speeds daryl you almost feel that has to be affecting that race car aerodynamic it would hurt the performance it hurt the engine and everything larry one other thing you didn't make mention that a minute ago is nascar's also got what they call hood covers on these things now in the event a bolt does come out to keep the hook from flying all the way off the car will not help there in the next but it will as far as the safety issue keep the hood attached to the car and that all started after the 1997 daytona 500 ernie irving in a 28 car his hood went in the back grandstand but that bottom line with michael he finally got some help down there and now things are gonna then this is then it's gonna pick up again dale jr is gonna have to decide what he wants to do here here comes the 21 car on the bottom he needs to drop down in front of you he went down because he was looking in the mirror and he saw the card jimmy johnson come down behind him so he made the offensive defensive move off the same time and he may pay the price here look at michael though he's dropping even lower looking down he's got dale jarrett he's got kyle penny down there he's got lots of help is he going to slide up in front of ellie and sadler right here though no he's going to tag on to kenny wallace there's another teammate now we'll say okay now i think i'll run the bottom a while now kenny wallace he didn't like being up top now he has a friend out at the bottom but look who else goes to the bottom junior nate he's back to the bottom okay now the leaders family owns the third place car the guy driving the second place owns the second place car the guy driving the second place car owns the third place car pretty incestuous out there daryl i don't like this this is getting ugly back in here guys pull them all back up here we get three wide and as far as the cars go mike and who owns one i don't think anybody remembers until i go not this late in the race they count the change when it's all over with that's how they know they're still three and four wide back here every time i've seen hunts trickling that 23 he's right in the middle of something and he's made it work pretty well today well you got to give kenny wallace you got to pat that board on the back now he's following that 8th car high low and he stayed with him and you got to give michael a pretty good cut pat on the back as well he fell all the way back to 21st position and was beaten and banging back in there three wide and here he is right back in the third we can pass here let's go down to our ford cutaway car and jeff hammond to talk about matt kinsler's problem that's right mike just want to let you know right quick this right here is a hood pin that holds the front of the hood down goes right here this is what holds the front part down this is where my bat's got his problem this bolt has come out of this back hinge and the hood is bouncing up and down but as i said a minute ago here is the hook tether it's attached to the roll bar and then bolt it up here to the hood through a metal plate to keep it attached just in case a bolt does come out it helps keep the hood attached to the race car not allowing you to get it on the race rack it could also be a problem with the competitors but to get up in the grand stands which is a no-no this right here will help prevent that from happening mike so kenza staying on the racetrack should not present a safety problem at this stage tony stewart coming up behind kenzit jimmy johnson right behind stuart we've had a lot of unfamiliar names at the front today but as this way race unwinds here you're going to start hearing names like jared where'd he come from early went to the back now he's working his way back to the top ten up in 12. how quickly things change at talladega dale earnhardt jr the leader 33 to go [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] we're gonna have to pet sometime we're just not sure well we'll let you know we're probably 15. [Music] 29 laps to go at talladega three chevy's a ford and two dodges the first of those fifth place kyle petty kyle finished second here in 1985 he has 18 top tens here and 41 starts the most recent of those right here in the spring of 2000 here one thing you need to be looking at we keep talking about this last pit stop if i'm the pit crew me thicker chief and i'm trying to tell my gas guy i said look man this is all coming down with your shoulders you've got to hit that gasket filler as quick as you can listen to my call you start telling the driver you go on my command also you'll be telling to hustle in and hustle out the guy who's going to be the most crucial part of this whole equation as a gas man if he can hit that filler neck without any problem and run with that car they can pick up some valuable time for the pictures right now but jeff let me tell you the other valuable person we saw states compton do it earlier that driver his adrenaline's flowing he has to get that thing in here and he cannot stall that car and he definitely cannot speed on that road critical stop one other thing larry when he comes off the pit road don't flat spot it don't spin it out that's the thing you got to worry about if you're not going to change tires it's so easy to lock the front right front up here and flat spot so driver's got to be he's got to do everything right [Music] one caution all day that's merely for debris lasted four laps 161 complete wow 27 to go kevin harvick and robbie gordon are starting to make their presence known in the top 10 and you see a lot of movement in the movement will grow as these laps flying down trust me now's when you take off the gloves boys that's when you go for it yeah jared that ups car got kyle petty in the sprint car behind him starting to work that high side this is a battle for third right here beside michael walker in the 15 car i take that back now's when you pull those gloves up over your elbows kenny wallace has not left the rear bumper [Music] five dale jr i wouldn't want that to happen to me and look at the swarm behind him this is the first serious challenge earnhardt junior's had in quite a while [Music] i think what we'll see here is i think you got two race cars that are pretty equal they're gonna run side by side for a while i'm afraid of course these cars now they're coming in a pit they'll be out of the way they wanted to get out of them man that's the best place for them i saw trouble there frank kimmel and jerry nathan how about dale jarrett start at 41st here he is in the lead well we saw that at daytona you know those guys in the forge they complained about their cars and uh they race pretty darn good oh kyle caught up with the field accordions back man trouble stuart in the wall here we go here we go robbie gordon the 33 harvick is around here we go guys the big one it's a matter of time at least 20 cars [Music] the way this started kyle petty got ran up high going into turn one and as he tried to get find a place in line the whole field kind of accordion together mayhem ellen hart junior dale jett racing back to the start finish line obviously the caution is out kyle petty in the 45 he actually made it through the wreck bobby labonte rusty wallace was the last car to get through and bobby labonte just got the 19 right at the very end of that ride mark martin in the viagra car running up front ricky craven 32 car tony stewart's going by and the whole right side of his car is he's got into the outside wall jeremy mayfield jeremy came up in front of bobby labonte bobby wasn't going very fast oh matt kenseth number two point man second in points and jimmy spencer who was toward the back of the lead lap cars could not escape it [Music] sterling marlon made it through yesterday lap one lap 15 today lap 164. now watch kyle petty on the right side of your screen right back here here's kyle he's trying to find a place in line and everybody scrambles mike wallace in the 33 and up against the wall there elliott sadler the inside wall takes a hard hit on that inside wall guys that is a heavy hit mark martin terry labonte now watch here's bobby labonte right back here watch this that was mayfield mayfield come across and got him i'm sure he thought he had made it through elliot sadler took that hard hit but he's okay matt kenseth is out of the car and okay [Music] bobby labonte has climbed out 29 in the 31 both the childress cars steve park has climbed from his car and so has dave blaney 10 car on pit road with damage from tony stewart nudge wall mayhem nowhere to go and the leaders will pitch steve burns kenny wallace is into the 98 if this race had stayed green they would have gone gas only but they're afraid crew chief bobby kennedy down chairs out of the pits crew chief afraid they're gonna run over something four tires for him let's go to match steve a two-time change for dale earnhardt jr and he will be the they 88 also debating about going no tires on their last stop around lap 172 or so to dick bush came in he took outside tires meanwhile up and down pit road this place is just full of race cars that are all better steve parker the number one is getting serviced tony stewart's car has been up his crew is working on it stewart a lot of damage in the left front corner of the car several cars damaged beyond repair but they're going to try to get as many of them back out as they possibly can for the most part the leaders they took two tires and full of fuel so that they're good to go from here you know the only thing you worry about did they run over debris with those left side tires a few of the leaders took four but for the most part most time just took two times and just like yesterday rusty wallace got a little damage over he got in the back of somebody obviously uh but just like yesterday if you were in the front it was safe but anywhere else and you were in big trouble darrell let's have another look yeah you see right here as they come off the corner of course this is the lead up here the guys out front boy watch that 21 car go out across there and i mean that thing is picking up speed bam right into the end of that wall it's a good thing that was on the right side he climbed out and walked to the ambulance elliot sadler was okay robbie gordon right in the midst of this man look how quickly you see how quickly that car turned just makes you dizzy watching happens in a hurry someone caught him in the right rear darrell i'm not sure who is this mayfield [Music] right [Music] it was uh kevin harvick tipped robbie gordon there in the middle of it [Music] and look that's bobby labonte spinning around there by kyle i don't think i can't tell if he hit anything he gets it straightened up and i'm sure he's thinking man i may have made a great save until then dick robbie gordon started on the outside of the front row ran well all day it looked like he was headed for at least a top five finish maybe even a win he's now behind the wall car jacked up what happened out there uh i don't know what happened total disappointment for the singular team you know um [Music] we had a really good car driving along somebody flipped me from the back so i don't know what happened i was just holding my own line so uh who knows i don't know who did it but it's just kind of been our luck all year this team's really really coming around we we just need some luck and that's just hurting us but um you know i'm really proud of the guys they did a good job all day we kind of had a plan we were just going to ride around in the back there and position ourselves for the end unfortunately we weren't in the position where we could miss the missed the big wreck uh we're glad you're okay robbie johnny benson getting some some water and air from fire extinguishing foam there and powder he was trying to limp around to the pits and something in the left rear of the car caught fire darryl that powder is designed to suck the oxygen out of that fire and inhaling that is not good no it didn't and you know we've got those uh coolers in the car that blows air into our helmets if he got some of that sucked in that uh in that box and it blew it even inside of his helmet that could be really bad a lot of times air for that box is in that left or a quarter window so it was all going right through his box into his helmet possibly all three of ray abraham dodges involved bill elliott jerry mayfield and casey out there's the five car involved in the crash mike wallace dave laney mayfield park robbie gordon kenseth bobby labonte harvick sadler grissom schroeder benson andretti martin skinner stuart spencer wallace mayfield cars everywhere i mean the fifth place car had a problem that's what happens [Music] elliott sadler this has got to be a bad ride right here unfortunately he got around on the right side a big crash in talladega 21 laps to go we'll be right back at talladega we're under the second caution of the day the first one merely for debris and this was the big one johnny benson is being treated by the emergency workers here you can see john johnny he's sitting up and he's okay but he got some of that fire extinguisher powder apparently when that car caught fire at the left rear and that's nasty stuff you don't want to be inhaling that yeah it was uh i mean it was a bad thing they had to put the fire out and he's still in the car steve burns mike dave blaney just come from the infield care center dave first of all you're okay yeah i'm fine everybody that's all i was uh man i was too far back from it to even see how i started i just uh benson's rear end went up in the air and i hit it and uh just hung on all right thanks dave let's go to dick margaret uh steve parks crew is working on the nose of this car and they have a great deal of work to do they're trying to fabricate new fenders for the thing they're going to have to change the radiator an awful lot of work this is the second wreck of the weekend for park he was not the villain in either of those the first one it was a cut tire in practice this one an innocent victim steve what happened out there uh just looked like the 33 got into the 20 and you get so late in the race he's done call for i mean the 20 wasn't doing nothing wrong and uh it just you know all the fans i saw the big right yesterday and didn't want to see today none of us wanted to see it and happen so uh unfortunately the pennzoil car got caught up in it but these guys are working hard to get us back out and get as many laps as we can okay thanks to steve burns bobby tell us what happened yeah i looked up i just looked up i was looking and the 29 car got sideways i don't know who what made him go sideways at first but he was sideways i think i clipped him in the right rear just a little bit which turned my car to the right slid sideways and it went back to the left i got going straight and guys were still wrecking on the inside the 19 car just was sliding and i ended up hitting him after i kind of got straightened out i believe it'd been all right if it hadn't happened it's all right 12 cars are behind the wall under repair one good thing about that this incident other than that no one was injured was that none of these cars tried to get airborne no and the reason why is the roof flaps that nascar done a great job of creating and as we see these cars come off the corner and i mean it just all of a sudden the 33 gets into the 20 and then it becomes a 20 gets forced into the wall which takes the 33 and turns him around and they start bouncing off of other cars but watch there's a roof flap that's deployed right there and if we roll a little bit further you'll see the 29 i think here his deploy right there and jeff maybe you can explain to the folks at home what that's all about i hope i can daryl but let's talk about the total package here it starts first with a side glass which helps send that air back over the top of the car then we got a little about one inch deflector strip again it kind of breaks that airflow up and when that goes in operation it also activates the roof flap when you start backwards or sideways it comes up and just like on an airplane it makes this car decelerate it's an air brake probably one of the greatest safety factors to ever come up here in nascar has kept a lot of these race cars on the ground gives the driver an opportunity to keep all four tires and his foot on the brake and slow himself down keep him flipping upside down down the back straight away and one of the guys who was very instrumental in making this happen was jack roush and roush industries and daryl the story of how those roof flaps were developed is really interesting well it is they took the nascar jet they went down to the darlington airport and they tied a lot of they tore up a lot of cars they tied cars on the back of a flatbed and they used the engines off the jet to make the air to blow air 180 miles an hour and they they tried blowing the deck lids up they tried all kinds of different devices to keep the car from getting airborne and in the process they came up with the roof flap based on an airplane and i have to say as a crew chief when they first came out it's like what in the world are these things but you look at what how instrumental they are keeping these race cars from flying like airplanes and getting upside down and the other thing is they deploy by the air blowing across them there's no gadgets in there no motors or anything to make them go up you're riding with johnny benson brew mayhem and the errands 499 on fox presented by pepsi 18 laps to go welcome back live 14 laps to go in talladega dale earhart jr leading dale jarrett the errands 499 on fox presented by pepsi aarons you can buy you can lease and some guys might want to lease a car about now in the place uh known for having the big one unofficially this is the biggest one in a winston cup race and 24 cars involved in this crash 21 the previous mark on record in 1973 and then the bush race yesterday 27 cars involved jeff hammond let's talk about three factors here as to why this takes place restrictor plates the aero package and the drivers which is to blame chris right now this right here has been been basically the culprit they say for a lot of this right but i don't i don't buy i don't buy that at darlington we had 13 cars involved director it was unrestricted all right what about the aero package arrow package again they've tried so many different combination the barrel packages and still they have not been able to get away from the big one it is a nature this is nature of the beast talladega it's always been this way so can the drivers i mean they're put in a position here where they really it's too many cars going too fast 188 miles per hour and not enough places to go closest to the competition we talked about it earlier in the show that's usually what gets you in trouble it's usually driver induced you know somebody makes a mistake it doesn't mean they did it deliberately but it's the closest of the competition all right amazingly again no serious injuries as we showed you johnny benson uh treated for uh some heat but to doing a much better and for some problems with fire on his car let's go down on track side with dick berger jeremy mayfield was one of those 24 drivers involved in the big one this afternoon in talladega the crew trying to get the car back together get it back on the racetrack prefabricated radiator brackets all ready to go they're welded back on again this is an enormous effort jeremy why all this work when this race is almost over well i mean points are everything anymore and it doesn't take much to get you down or up so we're gonna try hard to get back out there and get a few points back and uh just hate it for the dodge dealers uaw dodge today i mean it was a good car all day you know we just kind of got caught up in a mess there but uh we'll be back next week california we're glad you're okay to make joy frank kimmel was not at the big one but he can gain 15 spots if he runs the rest of this race without losing another lap let's listen to dale earnhardt jr's in-car radio here i just hold the point no point i want points no points a lot of points come with that trophy i want to win but i ain't going to end up on my roof this car is too much to me now i won't read the list but 20 cars were docked for pitting before the pit road was open and go to the tail end of of the line as we're getting set to go with 14 it'll be 13 laps to go when they come back and what dale jr is saying is he is not going to cut somebody off or block somebody if they get a run on him to win this race uh this puts a real chill on the drivers they've seen what's happened they're just thankful everybody walked away and nascar's got a dilemma here guys there's 200 000 people here to watch this show today jimmy johnson 48 he's laying back just a little bit just again they all trying to time it just right when they get this restart on the screen flag earnhardt jr the leader ninth in the point standings he has led the most laps so that's a ten point bonus and listen just because there's 20 some cars ready the intensity is still going to be there trust me out of the race john andretti johnny benson elliott sadler bobby labonte and mike wallace from that crash other cars look how far out front dale jr got holy smokey but you know those 22 cars on the lap realistically only 13 don't have damage i think good you know the cars are good enough to get up there and bid for the win deja vu saturday's race all over again but with a lot more cars in contention after the big one oh i don't i wouldn't even say that we're finished yet because i mean now we're going for the win and we've only got a few laps 12 to go when they come back to the line listen jumping out front a big lead like that is not really a good thing because you're a setting duck they've kicked our pole center down to the bottom right there he's going to go from about third to about seventh here before they complete this first lap after the restart [Music] jeff gordon right behind his protozoa jimmy johnson [Music] they are sixth and eighth right now dale jarrett wants to be right where he is and he wants everybody to stay right where they are if michael would help dale jarrett now that would be something he could might get by bill jr but i don't think michael would do that dale jarrett sandwich right between those two dei card dylan art jr michael walton oh here you go michael's gonna get a run down under him [Music] he thinks he long as he don't gain a position daryl before getting turned one looks like he got back up in line he did and the 97 really forced him down there his teammate and he lost the momentum trying to do that looks like he's hung on the bottom right here red bow down and that 11 card down to the bottom right here and this is a good run for him he's running tenth right now well i can't believe the way bill jr can shoot out there look how far out front he got chevrolet has not won a race this season the longest winless streak to start the season since 1992 when ford won the first nine races here comes our pole center right down the bottom underneath michael dale jr is loving this get side by side work both sides of the street suck one up didn't get the other one let them run side by side jimmy johnson he's got the help of kurt busch that 97 sterling he's trying to push michael walter for the 15. 10 to go this time do you need a friend here daryl or every man for himself oh yeah well if you're out front you just want to get somebody behind you that'll work with you i believe that 15 car would be my choice mark martin's car rolling on the back straight away he'd come out from the garage with a lot of damage oh boy there's still titan coming off that second turn jeff gordon in the 24 car he's down at the bottom he's got a little help from brett beaudine in the 11. well he's got his teammate right behind him too so everybody's working hard right now 10 to go and anybody can win this thing [Music] robbie gordon down on the apron again damage from that big crash dale earnhardt jr his teammate michael waltrip ducks to the inside as they come off turn four this just in the driver's seat i mean he can go where he wants to and it affects the cars behind me he can suck one guy up then he moves over and sucks another guy up and who's coming to the front after being tail out charlie most of the race jeffrey bodine finisher in the 500 he's right in the middle of that mix in the 0-9 and the reason he was at daytona's he missed the big right they've not even competed in a race since daytona dick berger oh jeffrey beaudine has not felt well in that car all day from lap 50 on he has been dehydrated he has not felt well on every pit stop they've given him cold water he stuffed ice into his uniform remember he has not raced since the daytona 500. this is a very hot day beaudine an incredibly heroic effort just to still be in the car that we're looking for something there's a caution on the speedway mark martin's car cannot make it back to pitt road that draws the caution we will get this race restarted but dale earnhardt jr will bring them to the caution flag and we're inside ten left to go so we'll be a single foul restart thank goodness for electronic scoring transponders i would hate to have to sort out that run to the line to give you a restart from about fourth to 20th well the fourth place car was three tenths of a second behind the lead the 18th place car was one second behind the lead that is a gaggle of calls we're gonna finish this underground we'll be right back welcome back live the errands 499 on fox presented by pepsi with 25 laps to go dale jarrod was leading coming out of turn two there was a 24 car pileup and there is what remains with six laps to go we're currently under the red flag the command has just been given to fire them up with dale earnhardt jr try to win his first of the year in chevrolet trying to win its first of the year jeff what should we anticipate given the situation here over the final few laps don't don't touch that dial as they say because this will get wild and willing i'm sure a lot of these crew chiefs right now at least i was i was out there on the pit box i'd be saying man pull those belts tight spotter you got to be on your best game boys let's get back in this game everybody's been down a little bit had a chance to talk about strategy we got to go racing again and you've got to get refocused on what the job at hand is yeah and and with the single file restart given the situation is there a better chance for somebody to make a move this is right now where you can't really anticipate anything depend on what dale jr does to his teammate he could stack a lot of things up remember at daytona we had to restate their ear restart late in the race and also guys got into one another spinning down across the grass you never know what's going to happen all right and that's where uh the precedent of course was set for this finish and let's go uh back upstairs so far this year three wins for dodge three for four two for pontiac none for chevy but four chevys four fords and two dodges in the top ten they will open the pits and give them one to go well let's see if we can talk to jeff burton in the ford the best ford out there right now jeff burton this is dw in the tv tower bud you got anything for them chevrolets well they're a little faster than we are but i have a feeling they're not content to run first second and third here that means that there'll be an opportunity to make something happen when one of those guys tries to make something happen so we're just going to be on our toes and try to try to make the right move when they make their moves and keep the guys behind us from making a move before we make our move we'll see if we can do all that it sounds easy but we'll see if we can make it happen you know ward's right there with you too bud should you all team up maybe he helped me out there just a minute ago i was about to get in trouble when he came up and uh saved me so i got the big cat in my mirror and i'm hoping that that we need if i need him he'll be there for me but he's got to race his race too you know it's uh it's every man for himself out here he's got to do what he's got to do to get the best finish he can get if that means he helped me and get a great finish and then he'll do it if not then he can't because that's just the way it works you know well you got one to go here bud thanks for talking to us and good luck when they come back to the line they will take the green flag with four laps to go and 500 miles of holding your breath is going to come down to about oh 11 miles of a shootout and the finishes here have been really close in this race the last five years no race has been won by more than two tenths of a second look at those numbers yeah well again we talked about the start finish line where it is so when they come off and turn forward nobody's safe the race starts when you come off for four it's a long way down here almost to turn one to where they declare who the winner of this event is going to be that extra quarter mile can make a big difference look how far that is look at that that's way down here's where we got to go to yes it is and you mentioned earlier under 10 laps to go a down finger restart only lead lap cars and there's 21 of them single foul lead lap cars to the front so no lap cars to contend with now the last restart dale jr shot way out there and and that's really great that your car's that fast but you're a set and duck those guys are going to get a run on you and you may not be able to block them all so he might want to lay back a little bit and get michael going with him at the same time yesterday in the bush race jason keller led stacy compton caught him but could not pass it if earnhardt jr gets a big jump and they catch him will they be able to come go around there's a there's a number of cars here so what's going to happen whichever way michael goes if he decides he wants to race dale jr for the win whichever way he goes jeff burton or one of those other cars are going to go the other way and then they're going to that's when it's going to get interesting see the fox tracks pace car pace car speed on the racetrack roughly 70 miles per hour pit road speed 55 but on the racetrack it's 70. now there's not a lot of laps to work with here but i'm telling you if i was those guys i would lay off a deal junior let him get that big run and then i'd chase him down that back straightaway and try to make a move on him another way we go a big lead is good except daytona and talladega on a race in other words daryl you don't want to battle him one-on-one you want to gang up on it yeah you need help looks like everybody's about equal except dale jr he's a little quicker to every man for himself you heard it i just don't think you want to wait to that last slap there i don't you want to do it early got to do it you got to do it if you had to do it do it right now green flag dale jarrett ran into the back of sterling marlon as they took the green here we go trying to anticipate the start burton ducks out hooks up with his brother jeff jimmy johnson just ahead of them and there you see dale junior getting that big big lead buddy i just don't know about that clarence picking jeffrey [Music] that's an awfully big lead to have there daryl it is oh here comes ward burton right behind him kirk bush and sterling marlon now that's what dale jr wanted to see get that much behind you get them racing each other get them side by side slice some dice play both sides of the street work the middle here comes ward daytona [Music] i don't think they got anything to worry about but i don't know if michael's going to do that or not those guys running side by side that's not going to help nobody right there as far as michael three laps to go see one thing that michael's worried about is that his car is not faster than dale juniors and he's gonna have to fend off these guys when they get to him he ran through a little speedy dry there you saw a little dust up from michael's onboard as they went into turn one for junior's car just so fast through the center of the corner he just is able to pull everybody right there whoa jimmy johnson and that 48 got a great run but see what that ziggy and zagging did [Music] a lot of folks behind him just not a lot of help not close boy this is really nerve-wracking for dale he got to make the right lead he's got to make the right move to keep those guys behind him two laps to go here comes jimmy johnson he's got a fast car he can't find any place to go he got no place to run it got a big run now here comes michael right to the back bumper of earnhardt jr but watch that eight card pull through the center of the corner he really accelerates right through the center [Music] he's worked himself into the picture and there's jeffy gordon right there with him right on his rear bumper 24 car now they've kicked jimmy johnson the 48 car up to the high side he don't have a lot of help we'll be coming to the white flag but guys and four of the top five as they come to the line make that five in the top six are 500-mile race winners here we go i think if he runs the bottom it's gonna be hard for him to get by him on the high side yeah i don't see any way i mean they're gonna lay off of him and try to get a run on him but he's just too fast one lap a goal they got that run if kurt bush can get right to the backbone [Music] [Music] here comes michael to the bottom and he's gonna right now junior wins in talladega michael second kirk bush third jeff gordon fourth kenny wallace fifth in that michael how about that that's three dei cars 8 15 and 98. first second and fifth for dale earnhardt jr his second straight talladega win he's only started five wins to cup races here he's won two of them and he's won three of the last four restrictor plate races well i tell you those guys gave him one fast race car today i mean he just had a car that could lead the race nobody could pass him everybody tried let a lot of laps dominated this show kurt busch finishes third in this race for the second straight year and let's go to dick bergeron and that with tony yuri senior he is on his way to victory lane how much it today was card how much of it was that young man behind the wheel tony well it uh he's one hell of a wheel man here but uh i think we owe that one right there to michael waltrip uh this dei brigade at these speedways has uh turned into something big we even had kenny wallace coming on there with our old 2000 car so uh uh steve got messed up in the wreck and uh he got tore up but uh all mdi cars running good richie did a one heck of a job in that engine shopper fab shop great job all their cars ran good this week they all fought back good and uh took 220 people in dei to win this race well congratulations go on eventually celebrate hey look at this donuts in the infield [Music] remember the 98 daytona 500 bring those donuts in the infield right there grass before victory lane taylor hart and here's junior performance they're just going crazy in nine races this season quite a group of winners nick earnhardt jr has his fifth top five finish first win of the season fifth win on a super speedway sixth of his career and it's the seventh straight talladega win for chevrolet and chevrolet's first win this year 2002. michael walter kirklist and jeff gordon did a great job of coming back on coming fourth in nine races daryl he's the seventh different driver to go to victory lane [Music] got to be one tired young man it takes a lot of not only physical ability to hang in there all day but a lot of mental ability as well it's a physical and demanding track but it's also very mentally demanding he led 133 of the 188 laps his dad was the intimidator today junior was the dominator get that right matt [Applause] [Music] daley jr breaks a winless streak dating back to his win here last fall this is a big win you were a little bit cautiously optimistic about this car after the re-body the boy it sure came through today yeah it was it's a good car uh we tore the body off at daytona so for it to come back and be as good as it was today says a lot about the fabrication department at dylan incorporated they work real hard and uh i want to thank all them boys i mean this is this is their race and uh what a teammate i got michael waltrip um not many people i don't care if they are your teammate are going to do that for you and help you so he deserves as much credit as anybody for where we are right now now you and michael were concerned about the pack of wolves behind you because he was doing all he could to hold them off how concerned were you that maybe they might get by well i mean all day we led so it's like yeah i don't think anybody beat the car but you know they gang up on you leave you by yourself i think that be honest with you i think the 48 had wanted a good enough good enough card to run with us 12 was good but uh what nobody helped them because they're rookies and and you know that we had about the same car they did everybody's seen what we've been able to do on a research place it ain't known ain't no secret a lot of hard work and uh it's paying off you averaged 26 in your rookie year third last year average finishing the plate tracks one for two this year how did you turn it around well we've always ran up front uh even in my rookie season we were qualified up front running up front tony senior and the guys have always had good play play cars always and dei has got the best motors you know i don't want to say too much because they they didn't keep working but i'm real happy with what they've done this year richie gilmore and everybody back uh the uh just a great win for us uh we're gonna try and fly championship and um you know we keep doing that so we'll have it his sixth career win and 84 career starts to steve burns all right thanks matt michael waltrip talking to steve meal michael tell us about the closing laps she told dw the survival of the fittest tell us about the end well i was looking i was on him but his his car was just faster than mine today you know any time you get a break like he did on the restart and you can't just come flying in on him uh you know he's got a fast car and we just barely crept back to the back of that car with our napa auto part chevrolet and uh couldn't never make a move and then the last lap kirk got a big push on us and actually pushed me up inside junior but a little too little little too late but very proud of richie gilmore and all the boys at di that build these engines and these cars it's a lot of fun to have a car that you know is just going to be one of the best ones here you know junior not talking for the race and he said i believe you're the you're the man today and uh you know he just was a little bit better so that's that was fun though um what about my erin chevy my boys bobby right up there the cheryl's ford posse is looking good we worked out an agreement with the dirty mo posse junior and him and so we got a few things working y'all got to come up with a better name than the cheryl's ford posse though well we're just barely a posse let us get our stripes our colors first and then we'll be we'll get a cool name we're more of a unit now we're more of a group all right thanks we're like the volunteer fire department all right let's go to dick parker well kurt bush's first ever career top three came right here at talladega in this event and you've matched that again but i was watching that race and it just seems as if you were riding solo out there how'd you pull out a top three running solo when no one wanted to run with you having fun aren't we nick this is awesome it was kind of like a college test you go in you sit down you're overwhelmed because it's such a big room there's so many guys taking this test you're trying to be the best of the best so you can be the teacher's pet so to speak and you're making decisions you're working your way through you're filling in the right answers you might stumble across one or two but you keep your head smart you keep your head down and you keep working at it and we ended up with the top three today we were best in class i think the ford's really balanced with the chevys the pontiacs and the dodges there's just nothing we had for those dei cars that are strong we need to figure out what they've got going so we're best in class today just an awesome run this rubbermaid team's for real i'm having a gas just we'll try to get this win for rubbermaid we got that win for sharpie rubbermaid we got some more special paint schemes coming it's just a great combination going on and this guy is for real as well tonight joy thanks dick dale earnhardt jr is today's winner chevy congratulates dale on the number eight monte carlo as we welcome you to our aaron's 499 talladega post race show presented by pepsi and dale will tell you the only thing that comes close to monte carlo's reputation on the track is its reputation on the street more champions depend on chevy will be there he led all but 55 laps today that looks like fun i like to do that i guarantee he's having fun i guarantee he is too of course he will pay for that grass nascar officials have reviewed the fifth place finish of kenny wallace to determine whether or not he unfairly improved his position by going below the yellow line on the final lap [Music] determination of the officials is that he did benefit by going below the yellow line and he has been moved from fifth to the last car on the lead lap 21st oh michael michael's not gonna like that here's a look at the order of finish fire department's going to put out a fire sterling marlin in fifth boy he's gonna really distance himself from matt kinsey who finished 30th today in the points jimmy johnson kyle petty good run good run good rusty wallace with a damaged car i mean he did a great job to come back up there to v8 and burton he just fell back and then ward went way back too how about hud strickland 11th place finish in his hometown race jeffrey bodine nice backup of his third place at daytona brother right behind him and kenny wallace came across the line fifth yeah matt kenseth number two point man tough day cars that was strong mark martin elliott sadler all those guys involved in the big wreck with about 20 25 laps to go steve burns is with kenny wallace all right thanks mike kenny wallace tell us about that run you guys just show up out of nowhere how'd you do it well i'll be like little e this is for everybody back at the louvre st louis nelly and the whole bunch uh it's fun you know it's really fun let's say hi to my daughters book brandy brittany you know i just want to get that out of the way but this was fun um you know to run up i up in the top three all day long you know made me feel really good you know this is for the legend that lives on dale earnhardt i mean uh this is dale's place hell this is his series uh we're just still taking care of it but literally up front i mean he he's a great race car driver and his car is just so fast i just i couldn't do nothing with him kenny i hate to deliver bad news but they're telling me that they're gonna drop you back to 21st for dropping under the yellow line well i tell you what sterling i went to go underneath sterling he body slammed me put me down or so i mean if that's what they want to do did you hear this they just said it they're going to put me to 21st because when i got underneath sterling he slammed me put me under a line come start finishing this is drama this is drama the drama of 12 extra miles now that was yesterday he did great he can fight them with them about that but i'm proud of you with your volunteer fire department yeah you're part of the dirty no that's not you're part of the cheryl sport volunteer fighter here's what i say nascar is the greatest division in the world i finished fifth today i know that so hell whatever the hell they want to do everybody knows a finished fifth right right i mean everybody's seen it i went underneath sterling right i was underneath him he turned left what the hell was i gonna do he run me in the yellow line so when you're in your heart and you know you finished fifth that's good all right thanks kenny wallace let's go to dick bargain okay with jimmy johnson he's got a smile on first the engine was overheating then it was hot in the car you still pulled out a top 10 finish it was a great day for us i'm just so so proud of the guys bringing this put this car together and we were able to come down and sit on the pole without any testing or wind tunnel time and then to get in the race i knew i had a lot to learn and i wasn't sure what i really learned from daytona man it was cool i had a blast everybody really used their heads out there today and uh it was a good time it was hot for sure i mean it too wide you know we get enough air to the grill and get to keep the car cool but as soon as you'd get in the pack and three wide the oil temp would go to 280 water temp was 250 and all those you know the oil lines run right by and it was pretty warm in there and that caution didn't help a bit but very proud of like i said everybody hendrick motorsports fab shop motor shop and all sport from the employee owners at lowe's uh you know we're we're a little down because we thought we had a shot to win it but i just gotta lose some before you win them yeah you did a great job today congratulations to chris myers all right thank you very much down there let's take a look at the points as we have completed nine races now sterling marlins still your leader matt kenseth taking a hit rusty wallace who's yet to win this year hanging in there at third earnhardt jr with the victory jeff moves all the way up to fifth yeah you got to watch these guys right here they're really getting stronger as we go along i think dale earnhardt jr said it the best you know early on he said i'm going to finish this race i'm not going to do something stupid and lose some points i'm going to keep making points and points is what's important now dale earnhardt jr celebrating and uh terrific support from a teammate michael waltrip i'm telling you i've never seen two guys work as good as they do on these super speedways you see it time after time at daytona talladega who's ever out front the other guy's willing to cover his behind and that speaks volumes of what this team's all about they respect one another and they know what the job is they've got to win and finish second real quick you agree with kenny wallace being penalized no i i really would like to see that again because i really believe he had position on sterling talladega this weekend saw more crashes than an amateur playing the stock market 25 laps to go 24 call cars were involved in the wreck today no serious damage but in the end dale earnhardt jr survives to win in talladega thanks for watching nascar on fox

Channel: NASCAR

Views: 88,907

Keywords: NASCAR, nascar, NASCAR Cup Series, nascar cup series, nascar full race, nascar full race 2021, nascar 2021, nascar 2022, nascar highlights, nascar youtube, #nascar, #NASCAR, 2002 Aaron's 499 | Dale Jr. goes back-to-back at Talladega | NASCAR Classic Full Race Replay, dale earnhardt jr., dale jr wins talladega, 2002 aarons 499, dale jr. four in a row, dale jr wins at talladega superspeedway, nascar cup series dale jr win, talladega, talladega superspeedway, the big one, dale jr wins

Id: U9kG-vW7zG0

Length: 183min 18sec (10998 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 02 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/chromehorn88]

Looks like I know what I'm doing this Sunday

[u/jmnordan]

HD and commercial free for 500 miles at Talladega. Can't get any better than this!

[u/The_Reelest]

I would love to know all the little tips and tricks the Eury’s used to make those cars go at plate tracks back in this time period.