Stewart’s win not the only big story at Talladega

By Mike Mulhern
Media General News Service
Published: October 7, 2008

TALLADEGA, Ala. - Tony Stewart finally got his first Talladega victory and his first win with Toyota, and he ended a losing streak that dated to August 2007.
Although Stewart was jubilant Sunday after the AMP Energy 500, crew chief Greg Zipadelli was quite emotional. The two have been virtual brothers in racing for 10 years, and now they’re down to their last days together. Stewart is moving to Chevrolet to build a team of his own; Zipadelli is staying with Joe and J. D. Gibbs, to work with newcomer Joey Logano next season.
But those weren’t the only big stories on a beautiful fall afternoon in the heart of Alabama: Blown tires ruled, scaring drivers and sending Denny Hamlin to the hospital with a concussion. And rookie Regan Smith, one of the forgotten men at beleaguered Dale Earnhardt Inc., nearly pulled off the surprise win.
After Carl Edwards cleaned house at the front of the field with 40 miles to go, the race was Stewart’s, but he had to battle DEI’s Smith, Paul Menard and Aric Almirola. It was easily one of DEI’s finest days at a track in some time. And Menard, who wound up second, credited new technical boss Bobby Hutchens, the Winston-Salem engineer who has taken this assignment at the behest of car owner Richard Childress, who has not been a bit happy with the decline of DEI.
NASCAR’s last-lap call against Smith - for a below-the-line pass that rivals such as Jimmie Johnson said they felt was clearly legal - was curious in several respects, principally that NASCAR had the same situation here a few races back, when Dale Earnhardt Jr. clearly went below the yellow line in a pass for the win.
That time, NASCAR officials let the pass stand with a no-call. Smith, however, got bounced back to 18th in the final rundown.
Nevertheless the performances of Smith, and Menard and Almirola, serve ‘ notice that it’s a bit too soon to bury DEI, despite its run of troubles in finding sponsorship.
Johnson, the leader in the Chase for the Championship, had a bad day, a sour engine. He started back in the pack, went a lap down early ... but rallied to ninth in a surprising comeback. He got through the second big wreck of the race, “but I don’t know how, to be honest with you.“
That was the melee that Carl Edwards triggered, with a hard bump-draft on teammate Greg Biffle, who had criticized Edwards’ exuberance at Kansas as too dangerous.
“When you look at the trouble that chasers had, that’s what we all feared,“ said Johnson, who leads Edwards by 72 points and Biffle by 77. “And those two cars, Greg and Carl, rode in the back all day long until it was time to go.
“You still get all these guys together racing for the win and stuff happens, and it certainly did. And you wouldn’t think it would between teammates, but it did.“
So just how did Smith see the last lap?
“I wanted to ‘back’ the corner up going into (Turn 3); I knew I could get a run on him,“ Smith said. “I had Paul giving me some awesome pushes. We came off four, and I was right where I wanted to be on the track. I shot to the outside, Tony went up to block, I went to the inside, and he forced me down to the inside.
“They always tell us in the driver’s meeting if you get forced to the inside then you can go for it, especially on the last lap.“
It took NASCAR a few minutes to give the win to Stewart, but officials then needed considerably more time to provide a precise explanation - basically saying it was “a judgment call.“
Johnson and others said they want NASCAR to make the rule more precise before next spring’s Daytona 500.
“I really feel we won this race,“ Smith said, with support from several other drivers.
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Smith, Menard and Almirola said that the recent run of good performances by DEI teams shows there has been a dramatic turnaround since Hutchens arrived in late August.
“I’m proud of DEI, proud of everybody at ECR (Earnhardt-Childress) Engines…. They’ve stuck with me all year, and it’s not been the best of years,“ Smith said.
“I knew if I made my move too early the whole field would get an opportunity to make a run on us, and I didn’t really want that. The move worked out just how I wanted it to, so I don’t know what I could have done different.
“This is an incredible finish for us ... but I’m disappointed I really feel we won…. The rule is on the last lap, anything goes. They always tell us that in the driver’s meeting. They always say ‘Well, on the last lap it’s NASCAR’s discretion’.
“I guess that was NASCAR’s discretion ... but I felt I got forced down there. It was going to cause a heck of mess if I didn’t give a little room there. It might not say it in the rule book, or in the history books, but this car won.“
The finish should spark renewed sponsor interest in DEI, especially if the three can follow up strong this weekend at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.
“We needed a good run, we needed a good run for the company,“ Smith said. “It’s been a long week for us (with Menard’s announcement of his move to Ford). This is huge for all of us. It shows the effort the whole organization is putting forward.
“We’ve been through a lot of adversity, and yet everybody keeps working hard. That’s the first time we can honestly say we’ve run anywhere close to where we’ve wanted to this year, and that’s good. Hopefully it’s a sign on things to come.“
The media has been rough on DEI, Smith said, which makes this performance all the more enjoyable: “A lot of scrutiny we’ve been given is pretty unjust. We’ve all been working hard to keep all four cars in the top-30 in points.
“The one thing that all of us have to remember each day when we walk through the door is that front door says ‘Dale Earnhardt Inc.,‘ and that name is big as the name NASCAR itself.“