The Coca-Cola 600 was only a 75 mile show for a dozen or so Nextel Cup drivers on Sunday. As the 43-car field rounded the 1.5-mile oval on Lap 52 of 400, the tire tread from Jimmie Johnson's car flew across the track. As the cars around him slowed to avoid the debris, a chain reaction occurred, causing a melee down the frontstretch.
“All I saw was the tire flying,” said Juan Pablo Montoya, who returned to the race after extensive repairs to his car. “I managed to slow down my car but I just get pushed from behind by Kasey Kahne and that was it.”
David Gilliland saw the same thing. “I just saw a piece of tire come up and everybody started wrecking,” he said. “On the restart everybody is kind of bunched up and everybody is just super-close and it’s too bad." Gilliland was struck from behind pushing the #38 into the car in front of him causing severe damage to both the front and rear of the M&M’S / Shrek the Third Ford.
"We just didn't have anywhere to go," said Sterling Marlin. "We were on the outside and our Pep Boys Chevy got shoved into the wall. There was nothing anyone could do."
I was surprised I couldn't find more comments on this crash. My intent was to recreate the crash if possible. But the info just wasn't out there. At least not yet, anyway.
I was going to put more about the wrecks into my blog on Mears but did not have much info either to go on plus I took a nap during the middle of the race while all was quiet. Thought I was watching DEGA reruns for awhile.
It had a Dega feel to it didn't it? It did at least as far as the crash took out half the field and now we have the other half of the field left feel. But it was worse because there wasn't much three wide racing. Once there was but they were going to commercial. They suprised me when they stayed with the race instead of going to commercial. I mean it was only three wide for the lead at the time.
Usually Fox will stay with the race during an event such as that. Now ESPN might be another NBC theory with 3 minutes of racing and 6 minutes of commercials irregardless of what is going on on the track.
The INDY race was interesting as during a commercial break, they continued to show the racing going on with a split screen although the audio was muted. Though it was a nifty concept..
The IRL and ABC started that last year. They do it every time on national spots. However, they do not do it with local spots. It at least let's you see what is happening, or not happening, with the leaders.
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