The Talladega dilemma

By DAVID GREEN

In the aftermath of Carl Edwards' flip that wasn't done in celebration of a victory, the debate rages over Talladega, and what -- if anything -- to do about it.

A TR.com poll suggests that approximately half of respondents think the track is just fine as it is (the percentages displayed by the results don't add up to 100...). But there's little doubt that Edwards and his colleagues are in unusually jeopardy when they race at NASCAR's two biggest tracks. And pundits are out in force, calling for something, anything, to be done.

First, let me admit that I have no clue what should be done. And let me also admit a compulsion to watch races at the two restrictor plate tracks, despite the unease that I began to develop in 1992 when, after a Talladega race, I saw a look on Davey Allison's face that reminded me of the "thousand-yard stare" common in soldiers after being involved in combat.

And, just as I am compelled to watch the races, I am compelled to agree that something needs to be done.

Cutting down the high-banked turns is one of the most prominent "solutions" offered. Permit me to offer an alternative. Veteran team owner Bud Moore suggested 12 or 15 years ago that the restrictor plates could be eliminated if NASCAR would incorporate the chicane at the end of the backstretch into the Daytona layout.

The gearing and suspension changes the relatively slow left-right-left combination would require and the loss of momentum would do the trick, Moore said. It would be kind of like Pocono, in that the driver would be on maximum RPM most of the lap but could not carry the momentum all the way around the track.

Of course, the sports cars that use the chicane also turn off the trioval into the infield road course section of the Daytona track, so a second chicane might be needed at the entry to Turn 1.

A good many fans would likely balk at the idea, because it would dramatically change the nature of racing at these two iconic racetracks. But then, so would lowering the degree of banking in the turns.

Indianapolis has survived almost a century in spite of quantum leaps in technology to make racecars go fast with a combination of engine formula changes that somewhat negate the increases in power potential and aggressive safety innovations in both racecar design and development of the SAFER Barrier.

Because of the low-banked turns, the essence of the Indy 500 remains intact, even though the cars and their speeds have changed radically over some nine decades. I'm not sure if such a thing is possible for the two big NASCAR speedways. Indy cars faced a problem similar to NASCAR's present dilemma when they attempted to race at the new Daytona track in 1959. Except for a speed-record run at Talladega by A.J. Foyt in the 1970s, they haven't been back to the big triovals.

A quick comment on another point: the catch fencing.

Yes, the Talladega fence took a licking from the 99 car and withstood it much better than its 1987 counterpart fared against Bobby Allison's Buick. But it didn't keep all the pieces of the car out of the grandstands. It's good fortune that no one was seriously hurt or killed.

It's also thanks to good fortune, not the attributes of the new Cup car, that Carl Edwards was not killed.

I think the next frontier in motor sport safety is developing a catch fence that does not shred the racecar the way present-day fences do. Geoff Bodine's Truck Series crash at Daytona and Indycar crashes by Kenny Brack (Texas), Tony Renna (Indianapolis) and Ryan Briscoe (Chicagoland) are only a few examples of terrible destruction caused when the fence snagged the vehicle, and no one who was at Charlotte in October 1996 will ever forget the horrifying death of Sportsman driver Russell Phillips when his car sailed roof-first into the Turn 4 catch fence.

It's a challenge -- developing a barrier that will restrain something as big as a racing car, but not cause it to disintegrate, and yet does not prevent spectators from being able to see through it. It may not be possible, at this stage of engineering and materiel development.

Perhaps the only solution is to move the grandstands farther back and higher up, and install a series of less-formidable catch fences to more gently arrest the out-of-control car.

The more I think about it, those chicanes seem more and more attractive and less and less expensive.