Talladega . . . Shades of Ricky Bobby

I’m not into watching a lot of sports on television like some people I know, after all I grew up in Atlanta during the lean years when all of the major sports franchises to be brutally honest . . . sucked. I was in the stands almost alone during the Braves years before they developed their farm clubs to later become a powerhouse and I was there during those years . . . somewhat jaded but enjoying their success finally. The Flames were great for Atlanta during the 70’s but being a southern city it really did not know what to do with hockey. Ted Turner brought us the Hawks to go along with his Braves but they never amounted to much of anything and the Atlanta Falcons were laughable every Sunday they played always stating in the post game interviews that “they just couldn’t get their head into it” week after miserable week.

The couple of bright spots were the majesty every spring of The Masters and the various auto sports races all over the south. One was just a couple hours drive west on I-20 from Atlanta it was always a great weekend to get away and enjoy the races.

Yesterday was no exception as the 2009 Aarons 499 race at Talladega was one of the best races I have seen in a long time. The ending which leads to one of the scariest wrecks of the day will be talked about for quite some time.

On this day it was the most exciting six minutes in sports.

I’m not talking about the last 15 seconds of an NBA game or the last at-bat in baseball . . . it’s not the three horse races that make up the Triple Crown. It’s NASCAR . . . I’m talking Talladega.

Even if you can’t tolerate auto racing, anyone alive would have enjoyed the ending to the race today . . . well, except maybe Carl Edwards . . . who, despite leading coming into the final turn - ended up sailing through the air like an Alaskan killer whale leaping out of the water. No splash landing here just a completely disintegrated piece of machinery after flying upside down into the safety fence before being thrown back onto the track yards from the finish line.

As the other cars whizzed by, Edwards dramatically jumped out of the burning car and began running . . . and he didn’t stop until he reached the finish line, jumping upon the checkered strip.

Carl Edwards was going for the win, with Dale Earnhardt Jr’s protégé Brad Keselowski pushing him to the finish line. Brad tried the same move that cost Regan Smith the win last year and Carl tried to block him. When Carl went for the block he became airborne, flipped and smacked into the barrier fence. Edwards cut him off and the next thing he saw was blue sky. The next thing we saw was the magnificence of racing to the highest degree possible.

Now it's time to talk about the seriousness of this wreck. 8 Fans were injured although none was life threatening, 2 women were air lifted to Birmingham hospitals due to traffic congestion and one has a broken jaw. We want to send some get well wishes to all that were injured.

Drama in sports is always a function of the unexpected. One can argue that if you know “The Big One” is coming at Talladega in the final minutes . . . where’s the drama? Well, when a car goes airborne at 195 miles per hour and the driver gets out and runs down the track and jumps onto the start/finish line to make a point, nothing is more dramatic than that!

What you do know is that “The Big One” will happen, what you don’t know is who or how many are going to participate. And, that’s what makes it exciting . . . even if you don’t know the players. As this sport gets older the familiar names that made NASCAR a mainstay may have retired now but the path laid down by those great racers gives us a exciting afternoon or evening now.

I can shut my eyes and still bring back the images, the smells of the track, and that roar of sound that is motor racing.

Ice