Bowyer Wins Talladega NASCAR Race After Instant Replay

Clint Bowyer won NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Amp Energy Juice 500 on Sunday, but he had to wait 10 minutes to find out for sure.

Behind the start/finish line when the white flag waved for the final lap, Bowyer inched ahead of teammate Kevin Harvick coming down the front straight and into Turn 1, when AJ Allmendinger got pushed into Michael Waltrip, sending the former flying and flipping down the front stretch.

The resulting yellow flag froze the field, and computer records indicated that Bowyer was about six inches ahead of his teammate at the exact instant the caution flag came out—but only after 10 tense minutes while race officials examined the data.

Bowyer went ahead and did his victory burnout regardless of the delay—he was sure he had won.

“I remember him being in front of me right there in the corner but I thought once we got on the front straightaway I was ahead. … I know I was [ahead] when the time was right,” Bowyer told SPEED TV.

“Superspeedway racing is very intense but it’s a lot of fun. I really do enjoy these tracks, and to be able to finally win at one in the Cup series means a lot to me.”

Kevin Harvick finished second, giving Richard Childress racing a 1–2 finish, with Juan Montoya, who started from the pole, in third.

“I thought I beat him to the line but I didn’t know when the caution had come out so it was just one of those deals,” Harvick said. “This is one of those places where we know we run well but you can get caught up in something so quick—I even got caught up in a couple things there today.”

Jimmie Johnson ended up sixth. He spent the entire day back in the pack, trying to avoid any possible drama. Fifteen laps from the end, he hooked up with Jeff Gordon and stormed into the lead, only to have Gordon’s engine fail.

With no teammate to push him, Johnson fell back. He was lucky not to get shuffled all the way to the back.

“I am glad I didn’t lose anything this weekend to those guys,” Johnson said. “I know that in the next three weeks we need to be as good as we can possibly be to be the champions again. To me that’s exciting.

“I’ve won four championships and to really race for this fifth is going to be a lot of fun and I ‘m looking forward to it.”

Denny Hamlin, Johnson’s nearest points competitor, came home ninth, a credible finish after having got shuffled out and dropping a lap down early in the race.

The Chase is a three-way shootout now, with Jimmie Johnson 14 points ahead of Denny Hamlin and 38 ahead of Kevin Harvick. Jeff Gordon in a distant fourth is 207 points down.

This is the closest Chase in history. There are three races left, at tracks Jimmie Johnson says he considers “all good ones for the No. 48 team and I know they are for [Hamlin] and [Harvick],” he told NASCAR.com.

"I think the fans are going to have something exciting to watch and it's a very, very small points margin right now. I've just got to go out and lead laps and win races."

Allmendinger Gets Airborne

There had been only five cautions up until the final lap at Talladega this year—and one was for debris. The rest were for single-car or two-car collisions, where one driver got nudged into a spin and maybe—as Marcos Ambrose did with Kevin Harvick and Bill Elliot—collected one other car or two.

The race came within two-and-a-half miles of finishing with no spectacular crash when AJ Allmendinger, part of the four-wide pack entering Turn One, got nudged from behind and bounced off Michael Waltrip, launching his car into a series of end-over-end flips and rolls.

Amazingly, no other car was damaged and Allmendiger walked away unhurt.

“It's not the most fun run I've ever had, but it's Talladega. It's one of those things. I hate this place. I always have and always will,” he told Sbnation.com.

“I wish I could give you a description of what happened. I was just in the middle four-wide, I was getting shoved and I got in the right-rear of Michael (Waltrip), but I was on the brakes as hard as I could be getting pushed as hard as I was. It was just one of those things.

“I've never flipped in anything like that. I guess there's a first for everything, but that's the first I never wanted to have.”

Lots of Pack Racing, No ‘Big One’

It was a usual and an unusual day at Talladega Superspeedway. As is the norm in restrictor-plate races, there were dozens of lead changes as different duos of drivers teamed up to make runs, only to slow down when the pushing car needed airflow to keep temperatures down, when the next tandem would take the lead.

As is also the norm in plate racing, three-wide packs ten cars deep circled the track at 200 mph—despite the restrictor plates cutting horsepower by a third, the cars were faster than ever at Talladega.

Also normal were the single-file high-speed trains while drivers plotted strategy and looked for teammates to bump-draft to the front.

What was unusual was the lack of a major accident—no “Big One.” No race-stopping, field-thinning chain-collision of the sort which makes restrictor-plate races a matter of chance more than skill or speed.

AJ Allmendinger did cause multiple spins with his final flying wreck, but it was really a one-car wreck.

It was a matter of luck. Allmendinger’s flying wreck could have happened at any time, and it could have wiped out half the field. Plate racing is no safer now than it was before this race. But this time, this one race, was a race, not a roll of the dice, and the fastest drivers earned their finishing positions.

NASCAR heads to the Texas Motor Speedway for the AAA Texas 500 on November 7. Tickets are available at the Texas Motor Speedway website ticket page, and travel packages are available at Sportstravel.com.

The race will be televised on ESPN starting at 3 p.m. Eastern.

NASCAR Sprint Cup Points after Talladega
	+/-	Driver	Points	Gap
1	—	Jimmie Johnson	6149	0
2	—	Denny Hamlin	6135	-14
3	—	Kevin Harvick	6111	-38
4	+1	Jeff Gordon	5942	-207
5	-1	Kyle Busch	5919	-230
6	—	Carl Edwards	5902	-247
7	—	Tony Stewart	5832	-317
8	+2	Matt Kenseth	5825	-324
9	—	Kurt Busch	5799	-350
10	-2	Jeff Burton	5797	-352
11	—	Greg Biffle	5788	-361
12	—	Clint Bowyer	5782	-367

NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Amp Energy Juice 500
	#	Driver	Make	Sponsor	Pts/bns	Laps	Status
1	33	Clint Bowyer	Chevrolet	BB&T	190/5	188	Running
2	29	Kevin Harvick	Chevrolet	Realtree / Shell – Pennzoil	175/5	188	Running
3	42	Juan Montoya	Chevrolet	Target	170/5	188	Running
4	00	David Reutimann	Toyota	Aaron's Dream Machine	165/5	188	Running
5	20	Joey Logano	Toyota	The Home Depot	160/5	188	Running
6	56	Martin Truex Jr.	Toyota	NAPA Auto Parts	155/5	188	Running
7	48	Jimmie Johnson	Chevrolet	Lowe's	151/5	188	Running
8	24	Jeff Gordon	Chevrolet	National Guard / DuPont	147/5	188	Running
9	11	Denny Hamlin	Toyota	FedEx Freight	143/5	188	Running
10	12	Brad Keselowski	Dodge	Penske Racing	139/5	188	Running
11	5	Mark Martin	Chevrolet	GoDaddy.com	135/5	188	Running
12	78	Regan Smith	Chevrolet	Furniture Row Companies	127/0	188	Running
13	98	Paul Menard	Ford	Serta / Menards	129/5	188	Running
14	19	Elliott Sadler	Ford	Hunt Brothers Pizza	126/5	188	Running
15	77	Sam Hornish Jr.	Dodge	Mobil 1	123/5	188	Running
16	17	Matt Kenseth	Ford	Crown Royal Black	120/5	188	Running
17	99	Carl Edwards	Ford	Subway	117/5	188	Running
18	7	Robby Gordon	Toyota	Speed Energy	109/0	188	Running
19	16	Greg Biffle	Ford	3M	106/0	188	Running
20	9	Aric Almirola	Ford	Budweiser	108/5	188	Running
21	6	David Ragan	Ford	UPS "We Love Logistics"	100/0	188	Running
22	71	Chad McCumbee	Chevrolet	ModSpace / TRG Motorsports	97/0	188	Running
23	39	Ryan Newman	Chevrolet	U.S. Army	94/0	188	Running
24	13	Casey Mears	Toyota	GEICO	91/0	188	Running
25	18	Kyle Busch	Toyota	M&M's	93/5	188	Running
26	83	Kasey Kahne	Toyota	Red Bull	90/5	188	Running
27	87	Joe Nemechek	Toyota	HostGator.com	87/5	188	Running
28	55	Michael Waltrip	Toyota	Aaron's 55th Anniversary	84/5	188	Running
29	82	Scott Speed	Toyota	Red Bull	76/0	188	Running
30	2	Kurt Busch	Dodge	Operation Home Front / Miller Lite	78/5	188	Running
31	14	Tony Stewart	Chevrolet	Office Depot / Old Spice	70/0	188	Running
32	43	A.J. Allmendinger	Ford	Valvoline	67/0	187	Accident
33	37	David Gilliland	Ford	Taco Bell	64/0	187	Running
34	47	Marcos Ambrose	Toyota	Kleenex / Clorox	66/5	187	Running
35	46	Michael McDowell	Chevrolet	Whitney's Collision Centers	58/0	186	Running
36	1	Jamie McMurray	Chevrolet	Bass Pro Shops Dale Earnhardt Tribute	60/5	183	Running
37	34	Robert Richardson Jr.	Ford	A&W All American Food	52/0	180	Running
38	09	Bobby Labonte	Chevrolet	Komatsu / Tractor & Equipment Company	49/0	172	Engine
39	88	Dale Earnhardt Jr.	Chevrolet	The Legend of Hallowdega Amp Energy Juice / National Guard	56/10	163	Running
40	26	Bill Elliott	Ford	Air National Guard	43/0	140	Accident
41	31	Jeff Burton	Chevrolet	Cat Financial	45/5	133	Accident
42	36	Dave Blaney	Chevrolet	Tommy Baldwin Racing	37/0	12	Trans
43	197	Jeff Fuller	Toyota	HeatRedefined.com	34/0	2	Rear Gear