Holding a Pretty Wheel: Talladega’s Place on the Schedule Brought Out the Worst in The Chase

Oh, Talladega Superspeedway. When the NASCAR Cup Series rolled into Talladega for the fall race, there were seven drivers in close enough contention for the championship that point leader Kyle Larson probably didn’t sleep too well on Saturday night (Oct. 24).

Sunday night? Larson probably slept like a baby.

And somewhere in between the green flag and Larson beating William Byron to the checkers by four one-hundredths of a second, fans got a glimpse of everything that’s wrong with this track and this race: the fuel-saving parade that only three drivers tried to change, the multi-car crashes, the questionable judgment calls. Oh, and that fantastic championship battle that was brewing? 

Gone.

The thing is, a lot of this was avoidable and easily so. There are some things (crashes) that are going to be a part of superspeedway racing until NASCAR makes enough meaningful changes to the cars that the 40-car pack is no longer a thing for most of the day. But a lot of things could be avoided simply by shifting the track’s position on the schedule.

Under the playoff system, which was already so saturated with gimmicks that another one didn’t seem outrageous, moving Talladega — the lone superspeedway in the postseason — to the final round of eliminations was just part of the show. If a title contender was no longer one when the dust cleared, well, it was a one-race title anyway, and it came cheaply enough for fans that the crapshoot of the superspeedway was just another part of it.

With the eliminations stripped away and The Chase drivers searching for every point they can scrounge out of a race, it’s simply too late on the schedule. NASCAR should move the superspeedway race to no later than the third race in The Chase.

Some will argue that today’s brand of superspeedway racing doesn’t belong in the championship run at all, and they have a fair point because of the mayhem. But superspeedway racing is a specific skill set, even if the drivers who possess it still often get taken out in other drivers’ mistakes. On the flip side, it’s a test for the drivers who have struggled on that type of track — as Larson had until Sunday — that they have to overcome. Both things are true, and so a speedway should stay (though I’d argue it should be Daytona International Speedway, which relies more on handling than Talladega and requires more technical work from both crews and drivers).

Having the race much earlier in The Chase might shake things up early for drivers who struggle on speedways and the ones who get wrecked … but they’d have time on their sides. A driver can climb out of a points hole — Denny Hamlin did it earlier this summer — but he needs more than a week or two to do it.

It’s a shame that this year’s edition turned The Chase from a fight to the finish to Larson simply needing to have a couple of decent days at tracks he’s decent at. If he has a great day at Martinsville Speedway on Sunday, he could easily put a bow on back-to-back titles a week early. If it rains on Saturday, he’ll have a huge advantage on the grid before the race even starts.

With the title on the line, superspeedway racing leads to something fans saw a lot of last weekend. The NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race was a particular example. Drivers simply didn’t do a lot of racing. Even late in the game on Saturday, The Chase drivers chose to be conservative and settle for a top five or a top 10, because triggering something and risking losing 30 or more points wasn’t worth making a move for a spot or two.

Sunday’s race had a bit more late action because of the multi-car crash that set up an overtime restart. Had it run under green to the finish, it might have been tamer. Maybe not to the degree of Saturday, but not the wild scramble with the winner passing 10 cars in the final corners.

NASCAR tried to ensure a better finish by making the last stage a sprint to the finish, but that set up a first half of the race during which only RFK Racing tried anything other than riding around and saving fuel. Its breakaway run before pit stops changed up the stage and made the rest of the field run a little harder, but it spiced up one stage. Eliminating the stage cautions would mitigate, but not eliminate, the riding around at three-quarters throttle.

Drivers will still do it for the first three-quarters of a race because racing like it’s the last lap is too big of a risk. If you crash trying to lead laps 50 laps in, that’s a lot of points down the drain. Teams are always going to play the long game and try to win, and it’s hard to blame them for that, even though it comes at the expense of the fans.

Moving the race earlier would give some teams the opportunity to take a little more risk. The Chase drivers might jockey more to make runs like the RFK trio did on Sunday if they had seven or eight weeks to make up for a bad finish. The non-Chasers might not worry quite as much about protecting a teammate or making a mistake that cost a championship hopeful. They still aren’t going to go wild in the first half, but they might not walk on eggshells all day either.

An early Talladega Chase race might mean a driver positions himself for a surprise title run with a win. Drivers in 10th and back in points could stand to make up a lot of that gap and get into a better spot. It’s probably not going to make 16th place an instant contender, but it could make for a Cinderella story for fans to pull for. And because there’s time to offset the consequences, he could put it all on the table to make it happen. It’s also a track where a non-Chase driver can easily steal the thunder from the whole lot of them.

Winning a NASCAR championship should involve some risk, and it should be a true test that leads through all kinds of tracks. They say it’s sometimes better to be lucky than good, and that’s not wrong. A little luck by a driver or three isn’t a bad thing. 

But losing a title shouldn’t happen because of one race. And for six drivers who entered the race with real title hopes, that’s exactly what happened on Sunday. Yes, they could have scored more points over the previous seven weeks, but several had made big gains to make a real race out of it. For a couple of those drivers, the finish was their fault. Christopher Bell spun on his own. Ryan Blaney triggered a multi-car crash. But others? They were just along for the ride.

Superspeedway racing has a place in The Chase. But its place should be at the beginning, where anything is still possible, instead of the end, where too many chapters ended too early.