21-car wreck in NASCAR’s traditional Talladega crash-fest

Weekend Racing Wrap

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The NASCAR race at Talladega was forced into an early start due to impending rain and as usual the superspeedway encounter saw a series of high-speed crashes.

NASCAR Cup

Race 10 of 36: Talladega

Brad Keselowski survived the traditional Talladega carnage to become the fourth different drivers to win two races of the ten run so far. More than half of the 41 starters were involved in the ‘big one’ which was triggered when Jimmie Johnson was tipped into the wall by Paul Menard.

A crash-filled three-and-a-half hours also saw Chris Buescher survive a dramatic roll and Dale Earnhardt attempt to control his car using the steering columns after the wheel broke off. He was later eliminated in a powerful crash involving Carl Edwards.

Guest series: German Formula Four

Round 2: Sachsenring (races 3-6 of 24)

Victory from ninth on the grid in race three at the Sachsenring for Joey Lawson extended his points lead over Mick Schumacher. Pole sitter Jonathan Aberdein was knocked wide by Kami Laliberte shortly after the start, opening the door for Simo Laaksonen.

A 35-strong field meant a busy race featuring several Safety Car interruptions. Mawson had worked his way up to fifth by the first of them, after the second he passed Nicklas Nielsen and then tracked down and passed Laaksonen for his third win of the year.

Wins for Mike Ortmann in the weekend’s other two races moved him up to third in the standings.

IMSA Sportscar Championship

Laguna Seca (Race 4 of 12)

Video not available yet

Separate Prototype/GT Le Mans and Prototype Challenge/GT Daytona races were run at Laguna Seca and the former saw a breakthrough victory for Ford’s new GT racer in the hands of Ryan Briscoe and Richard Westbrook. Michael Shank’s Ligier shared by John Pew and Oswaldo Negri took overall victory.

The second race saw Robert Alon and Tom Kimber-Smith take Prototype Challenge honours in their ORECA-Chevrolet while the Porsche of Mario Farnbacher and Alex Riberas won the GT Daytona division.

Over to you

WEC heads to the sweeps of Spa
What racing action did you watch last weekend? Let us know in the comments.

Next weekend the DTM season kicks off at Hockenheim on a bumper weekend of touring car action. The World Touring Cars heads to a heavily revised Morocco street track, Britain’s championship will be at the high-speed sweeps of Thruxton, Australia’s no-longer-V8 Supercar Championship is in action at Barbagallo and the NASCAR series moves on to Kansas.

It’s an important round of the World Endurance Championship as well – the Six Hours of Spa is the last race before the Le Mans 24 Hours.

What’s on your must-watch list next weekend? Let us know in the comments.

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Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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13 comments on “21-car wreck in NASCAR’s traditional Talladega crash-fest”

  1. The highlights of the NASCAR race are just insane. They really need to come up with a better package on the restrictor plate races to stop all this ridiculous and dangerous pack racing. Someone is going to get killed (driver and/or multiple spectators) unless they do something soon.

    1. Better than a boring F1 race with a jumping gazelle winning again.

      I know they are two different type of races, but we need more emotion, more thrilling, and F1 is not bringing nothing of that for its fans.

    2. RogerAyles
      2nd May 2016, 13:10

      agree with that.

      when you have 30-40 cars running in a big pack with nowhere to go & somebody makes a mistake towards the front & takes out half the field who because there all bunched together can do nothing to avoid getting involved then its not racing its just utterly idiotic.

      i also find it utterly ridiculous that when they go to the plate races ‘the big one’ is just looked at as something that happens….. in what other category is it considered perfectly fine that you go into a race at a circuit where its expected that there is going to be a big wreck? That sort of attitude is going to get somebody hurt or worse & given how they have got cars into the fence a few times the past few years it may not be a driver.

  2. I love NASCAR racing, but yesterday is really pushing the limit of what can be considered racing. Along with the 21 car wreck in the video above, they had three other wrecks “big ones” involving 7, 7 and 12 cars. That’s a total of 47 cars in a field that started 40. Add on the smaller wrecks and the number of cars that involved in a wreck is 56. That’s not racing, that’s a demolition derby.

    On top of that, it practically requires a Concorde Agreement from 3 or 4 different drivers for anybody to mount a challenge for the lead. They racing is deemed close, but when you are running 3 wide, 8 rows deep, it really doesn’t give that impression as nobody can do anything.

    Good thing Kansas is coming up where we can get back to real racing.

    1. Agreed.

  3. Poor Dale. Imagine your steering wheel coming off mid-race!

    1. Yeah. But luckily for him, it was during a caution.

  4. What do you mean with “no-longer-V8 Supercar”??

    1. They’re changing the name of the series to the Supercars Championship, dropping the “V8” from the title as a reflection of a future move away from an all-V8 formula.

      Which, looking back in the Group A era with the not-V8-engined Nissan Skylines, BMW M3s, and Ford RS500s dominating the landscape, isn’t exactly new.

  5. @fer-no65 @rjoconnell “They’re changing the name of the series to the Supercars Championship”

    Due to a recently signed 5 year title sponsor agreement from July 1st the series official title will be ‘Virgin Australia Supercars Championship’.

    From next season 4-cylinder & V6 turbo engines will be allowed into the series to race alongside the existing V8’s.

    1. @gt-racer I find it so lame. Like, those cars are stock/touring cars, silhouette cars of something that’s just your ‘average’ performance car. Definitely not ‘supercars.’ Yeah, it’s been in the name for long now, but it didn’t have the focus. V8 did. Now it will get it and it just sounds lame.

      (I like the series, btw.)

  6. @keithcollantine Just some minor corrections. (It’s so ‘un-F1 Fanatic-like’ to have these inaccuracies, I’m a bit taken aback.)

    In NASCAR, there’s 40 cars, not 41. (See official results.) It went from 43 to 40 this year.

    And it was not Menard turning Jimmie, it was Danica Patrick.

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