That appears to have been a smart move because just about nine minutes into the weekend's final practice session Friday, a Goodyear tire off of Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s car decided to hit the fan:
As you can see, Earnhardt Jr. was leading a pack of about 10 cars into turn three of the 2.5-mile high-banked circuit when his right-rear tire decided to imitate a hot dog kept in the microwave a little too long.
Thursday afternoon, word came out that two-time Indianapolis 500 champion Helio Castroneves was facing an indictment of tax fraud charges in Florida for allegedly hiding $5 million in income.
Helio, along with his sister and his attorney Alan Miller, was called in to a courtroom Friday morning in the Sunshine State and he pleaded not guilty to a lot of charges that could put him in the slammer for a long time.
The folks in the courtroom must have seen Helio's fence-climbing techniques after winning races and had the guy in handcuffs, as well as chains around his ankles. I mean, come on, I know the guy is fast on a race track and a decent dancer, but I'm highly doubting he's much of a flight risk.
Anywho, Helio was released on bail of $10 million, but was ordered not to leave the country and could only travel for work -- meaning he will miss the upcoming non-points IndyCar event in Australia.
This situation, though, doesn't stop with the winged open-wheel cars because it turns out that Castroneves' attorney -- Alan Miller -- is the same guy who represents many, many NASCAR drivers including Jimmie Johnson and Casey Mears.
UPDATE: Team owner Chip Ganassi said that Franchitti is currently undergoing X-rays on his ankle. Larry Gunselman was also later transported to the hospital. Original: Sprint Cup Series driver and 2007 Indianapolis 500 winner Dario Franchitti was helped to a waiting ambulance after being involved in a drivers-side impact Saturday at Talladega Superspeedway during the Aaron's 312 Nationwide Race.
The impact occurred after Franchitti cut down a rear tire on his No. 40 Chip Ganassi Dodge entering turn 3 on lap 10. Franchitti's Dodge snapped sideways and brushed the nose into the side of Nationwide point leader Clint Bowyer.
The No. 40 then slid down the track -- nearly to a stop -- when Larry Gunselman plowed into his left side.
From video replays, I can't understand how Gunselman didn't slow down any more than he did. There was no tire smoke and no last second attempt to swerve out of the way.
Had Gunselman missed Franchitti, Dario's car likely could have continued in the race. Instead, he hobbled to the ambulance in obvious pain.
His career line is fairly pedestrian so far, but when your team's getting championship talk and you play in the SEC, your fans inevitably end up doing oddball things.
There's a lot of drivers at Talladega that doing a whole lot more than shaking in their little space boots over this weekend's UAW-Ford 500. Limited sight lines, inexperienced drivers, and an always-there lack of patience are just a few of the reasons why those drivers -- most of them Chasers -- are straight up worried about Sunday.
Denny Hamlin didn't seem to be one of them Friday at Talladega. NASCAR parked the last-place Chaser with 15 minutes left in the first practice Friday after he reportedly was bump-drafting a little excessively.
It didn't affect Hamlin's team (or they didn't admit it) as the No. 11 car decided to not practice in happy hour, either.
Regardless, Hamlin had some questions for NASCAR over their ruling, until he answered them himself.
Hamlin felt the Joe Gibbs Racing team was singled out, as he was drafting well with Stewart and J.J. Yeley when he was caught. But he said many other cars also were bumping.
"They said Gibbs cars in specific, they had an eye out on," Hamlin said. "I wonder what makes us different than anyone else, other than we were the first three cars in line. We were working well together, and when I say working well together, we were pushing each other well.
"But they said they didn't want any contact, and we broke that rule. So we're going sit have to sit out for a while."
Now Denny, was that so tough?
Chaser Jeff Gordon also decided to not to participate in the day's second session. Tony Stewart led both practices with the fastest speed of 194.959 mph in the draft.
Qualifying for Sunday's race starts at 1:00pm ET Saturday.
David Reutimann went into turn 3 Sunday at Talladega with four laps to go in third position. The next time by at that same point in the track, Reutimann's day would have went up in smoke -- figuratively and literally.
Driving a Michael Waltrip Racing Toyota, Reutimann was by and far having the best day of the year for any team out of that stable. He had driven a smart race and pit strategy had gotten him in position to stay at the front of the pack. Reutimann wasn't planning on any aggressive moves to the lead. Instead, he just wanted grab a solid day and plenty of momentum for his struggling team.
Instead, his engine had other ideas.
"I'm so bummed out. I had a chance to run pretty good today, I thought. That stuff happens and I'm just disappointed for the whole team," said Reutimann.
Reutimann's engine exploded off of turn 4, bringing out the day's second to last yellow, and the hopes of the new guys in the Toyota camp. Reutimann wound up 32nd.
"Today was just a situation where stuff breaks no matter how hard you work on it. We'll regroup and we still have a good speedway car for Daytona so we'll go from there."
I'd imagine most of the components in Reutimann's Toyota were not especially designed to run 500 miles at Talladega because of his go or go home status in qualifying. The impound procedure at Talladega causes teams that need to make the race to qualify with faster, but less enduring parts -- and that could have led to Reutimann's demise Sunday.
All in all though, it's a step forward for MWR and Toyota.
The black helicopters are sweeping in, folks. Somewhere in the heart of central Alabama, the conspiracy is alive and well. NASCAR hates Denny Hamlin. And Tony Raines. And Reed Sorenson. And fill-in-driver-here who had to pit under the last caution because of the extended yellow.
What happened, NASCAR? Did the red flag that your flagman uses fly out of the flagstand? Was it lost in transit from Phoenix? Did the helmet capers get a hold it?
The reason for the second-to-last caution was David Reutimann, who had been having a stellar day, either lost a motor or a rear end gear. Reutimann had to make the show on time, so he was likely running a qualifying package due to the impound race -- causing the failure.
Anyways, Reutimann's problem happened while the field was going into turn 1 of lap 185, meaning the field would take the yellow at the line for lap 186. Reutimann put down quite a bit of oil across the tri-oval, leaving a nice mess to clean up. A red flag would have stopped the cars on the backstretch during lap 186. With the red flag removed, pit road would have been open that time by and the one lap to green could have been given on lap 187. With a green-white-checkered finish starting on lap 188, the race would have finished at lap 190 or sooner.
Jeff Gordon won his 77th career victory today at Talladega Superspeedway, moving him ahead of the late Dale Earnhardt in career wins. Obviously, both have had outstanding careers, and the numbers back it up. Here's a quick comparison, by the numbers, of their two careers on this historic day for NASCAR.
Dale Earnhardt won 76 races in 670 starts, leaving a winning percentage of 11.3%. Gordon has now won 77 races in 482 starts, with a win coming in 16% of all races run.
Gordon won his 77th race in his 15th full season. Earnhardt won 76 in 22 full seasons.
Gordon's 77th came at the age of 35. Earnhardt's 76th came at the age of 49. Earnhardt (24) was four years older than Gordon (20) when he got his first NASCAR Nextel Cup Start.
Dale Earnhardt led more than 7,000 more laps than Gordon has in his career.
Both drivers have led 10.4% of the laps they raced in.
Earnhardt won 22% percent of the time he went to Talladega and Gordon has done it 17% of the time.
Earnhardt has 10 wins at Talladega in 44 starts while Gordon has 5 wins there in 29 starts.
Gordon has finished 46% of his races in the top 5. Earnhardt finished 42% of his in the top 5.
Pretty similar, wouldn't ya say? Two of the best, for sure.
Hyder hasn't been at the track since Daytona when a suspicious substance was found on the intake manifold of Waltrip's #55 during qualifying. Waltrip was fined $100,000 and docked 100 points in addition to suspensions of both Hyder and competition director Bobby Kennedy for what mounted to be one of the biggest cheating scandals in recent memory.
Waltrip has yet to make a race since Daytona and his two other teams have not fared much better.
Waltrip reportedly had a long discussion with NASCAR again at Texas Motor Speedway a few weeks back to determine when his employees could return from their indefinite suspensions. At that meeting, Waltrip must have found some information implicating Hyder in the scandal.
After all, why else would Hyder be parting ways with the team? A paycheck for hanging around the shop couldn't have been too bad -- and he still won't be cleared by NASCAR to work at the track with another team due to the indefinite suspension.
As both the Busch Series and the Nextel Cup Series head to central Alabama for this weekend's races at Talladega, it's quite often a necessity to reminisce on some incredible crashes from the track.
This gem comes from the 2002 Aaron's 312 Busch Series race. 13 cars were left on track after this wreck to duel it out for another 100 laps. The wreck was started by Shane Hmiel (who interestingly enough was banned from NASCAR forever a while back for substance abuse) after he got a run on Scott Riggs in the yellow Nesquick car. The impact spun around Riggs in front of the entire pack, and carnage ensued.
You've gotta love some of the commentary from the FOX booth on this one. First, just as the wreck is happening, Darrell Waltrip is saying "Rut-roh!" and then later (with credit to a poster on Youtube) Larry McReynolds says "people cars driving under cars" at about the :32 mark in one of the better crash analysis quotes of all time.
Thursday afternoon, word came out that two-time 
UPDATE: Team owner Chip Ganassi said that Franchitti is currently undergoing X-rays on his ankle. Larry Gunselman was also later transported to the hospital.
His career line is 
There's a lot of drivers at Talladega that doing a whole lot more than shaking in their little space boots over this weekend's UAW-Ford 500. Limited sight lines, inexperienced drivers, and an always-there lack of patience are just a few of the reasons why those drivers -- most of them Chasers -- are straight up worried about Sunday.
David Reutimann went into turn 3 Sunday at Talladega with four laps to go in third position. The next time by at that same point in the track, Reutimann's day would have went up in smoke -- figuratively and literally.
The black helicopters are sweeping in, folks. Somewhere in the heart of central Alabama, the conspiracy is alive and well. NASCAR hates Denny Hamlin. And Tony Raines. And Reed Sorenson. And fill-in-driver-here who had to pit under the last caution because of the extended yellow..jpg)
Yesterday at Talladega, 
