(WOMR file photo)
Talladega Superspeedway on Friday afternoon can be a very lonely place!
Yesterday while I was hanging out in my seat, the O.V. Hill South Tower, high above the race track’s surface, I was keeping track of the race teams as they took to the track for he two different practice sessions. There were 43 race teams that participated in the early practice session. However, only 32 race teams drug their race car out for the afternoon practice session!
Of those 32 race teams that got out on the race track for the second practice session, 19 teams completed less than 10 laps on that expansive 2.66 mile long behemoth, know as Talladega Superspeedway.
As I sat in my seat I kept wondering why more teams were not out on the track tuning their race car for the impending 188 lap, 500 mile race Sunday? The second session of practice was more conducive, temperature-wise, and more in line with the time of day that the race will be conducted. So why were most of the race cars still housed in the garage area?
Kevin Harvick may have the reason why many of the race teams chose not to run the second practice session:
“You don’t want to go out and tear the bumpers off your car,” said Kevin Harvick, who turned just six laps all day on Friday. “You definitely won’t spend as much time most likely on your back-up car that you would on your primary car because there really is only four (restrictor-plate) races and there is only so much time and you have to prioritize things.
“You can help control that by not getting your back-up car out of the trailer by not practicing. There is really no reason to practice. We have all most done this a fair amount and you want to make sure you don’t have any problems and no vibrations and things like that. That is really all you need to do.”
So as Paul Harvey would say: “Now you know the rest of the story, Good Day”!
See you at the race track.
TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!
