Keep your eye on Ryan Blaney this week. Photo via: Wiki Commons.
It’s that time of the year again, the NASCAR Cup Series heads to Talladega for the Yellawood 500. Over the course of the season, with this new car, tracks like Talladega or Daytona have been frighteningly unpredictable. I expect this week to be no different. There aren’t many times when I worry about the drivers, but this week is one of those races. Let’s hope everyone has a safe race come Sunday and no one gets hurt.
Last week, at Texas Motor Speedway, Tyler Reddick was able to survive the carnage and capture his third win of 2022. As we have seen all season, this was a race that featured many cautions and took a lot of drivers out of contention for a win. It’s clear that this car is becoming more of a problem each week as we continue to see much smaller fields that finish these races. We are beginning to see more drivers get hurt driving them. Kurt Busch has been out of the car since July, and now Alex Bowman will miss Talladega next week as he has also suffered a concussion. Ever since last year, there has been a lot of fear surrounding this car. When I went to Charlotte, I spoke to someone who worked at Jr Motorsports and he spoke about the new car. He mentioned Noah Gragson and his crash at Talladega and how it would worry him if that was today’s car. The sanctioning body has got to find a way to lessen these impacts and make the cars, or else they will continue to lose credibility with their drivers.
Another issue that has arisen has been their spec parts. We have gone from hardly seeing engines fail with the Gen6 car to an engine blowing almost every week. Both Martin Truex Jr and Kevin Harvick have been extremely critical of the exhaust system that has been the cause of numerous fires this season, including at Texas with Chase Elliott. A possible solution to this would be to allow the teams to go back to manufacturing their own parts. While some teams may find an advantage, and it might make things less equal, it’s a much safer model than what they have now. Besides, a lot of the teams that are underfunded are still having a difficult time keeping up with the big teams, so it’s not like much has changed.
More controversy emerged later on in the race as Denny Hamlin and William Byron made contact on the backstretch. After a caution came out for the spin of Christopher Bell, Byron would get his revenge on Hamlin after spinning him into the infield grass. NASCAR completely missed this and Hamlin was moved to the tail end of the longest line for “not maintaining pace car speed.” It was absurdly obvious that Byron spun the 11 under caution and should have been penalized further during the race, but there was much more to worry about considering 3/4ths of the field had crashed. Matters weren’t made any better by NASCAR posting the video on their Twitter account of Byron’s onboard camera when he did it. A couple of days later, Byron would be penalized $50,000 and docked 25 points, which knocked him out of the top 8 in points.
Another fine was doled out to Ty Gibbs after he made one of the stupidest decisions behind the wheel of a race car I have ever seen anyone make. During a pit stop, the 19-year-old driver felt he was being crowded by Ty Dillon, so he decided to swerve into the side of the #42 car, narrowly avoiding a NASCAR official and the Roush-Fenway pit crew. Usually, a suspension would make sense when you blatantly jeopardize the life of a race official and pit crew members, but according to NASCAR, a 25-point penalty and a fine of $75,000 was sufficient. This isn’t the first time they have dropped the ball on this, last season Kyle Busch went speeding through the garage area at Darlington and was only fined $50,000. Aside from NASCAR’s complete disregard for safety, it’s also clear that Ty Gibbs is not mature enough to carry himself in the Cup Series. He needs to be kept at Xfinity for at least another season.
Despite all the negativity, there is still a race this week that needs to be run and someone will punch their ticket to the round of eight with a victory. As we all know, Talladega is a track where anyone can win, but avoiding the big one is the most essential. The driver who has been in the best position so far has been Ryan Blaney. In the past two races here at Talladega, Blaney has been in the picture when the checkered flag falls, not to mention how fast the Fords have been on superspeedways. Blaney’s scored two victories here at this track and also has the third highest average finish among all drivers who have run 15 races or more on superspeedways. If Blaney can stay ahead of the pack and out of trouble, he will be a threat for victory.
Most Popular
SportsMap Emails
Are Awesome
Listen Live
Kyle Tucker addresses contract possibilities after trade from Astros
Dec 18, 2024, 11:50 am
Texas' Quinn Ewers and Clemson's Cade Klubnik already have a championship history between them.
Both quarterbacks hail from Texas, and in January 2021 they were two of the highest-rated junior recruits in the nation when they met on the biggest stage of high school football in the the country: the Texas Class 6A state championship.
Klubnik got the best of Ewers that day, leading Austin Westlake to a 52-34 win over Southlake Carroll. They meet again Saturday when No. 12 seed Clemson (10-3) and No. 5 seed Texas (11-2) clash in the first round of the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff.
For Klubnik, the first step toward leading Clemson back to a national title begins in his hometown just a few miles from where he grew up and played at a high school that produced NFL quarterbacks Drew Brees, Nick Foles and Sam Ehlinger.
And it promises to be an emotional return. When the Tigers and Longhorns were announced as first-round opponents, a camera quickly found Klubnik with a stunned look on his face as Tigers coach Dabo Swinney hugged him.
Then it was talk of the rematch with Ewers, with even bigger goals at stake this time.
“You know, Quinn and I go way back. We played each other in seventh or eighth grade and so on. My junior year in the state championship game was definitely a very high profile game," Klubnik said.
It was more than “high profile.”
Because of the two star quarterbacks and the pedigrees of their programs, their championship game against each other holds legendary status in a state that has produced too many great college players and games to count.
Klubnik and Westlake had won the state championship the previous year. The 2020 season was delayed by the pandemic, pushing the championship game into 2021. Ewers was the top-rated junior QB in the country, had already committed to Ohio State. Klubnik was ranked the No. 2 QB in Texas right behind him, but was still uncommitted.
Ewers passed for 351 yards and three touchdowns. Klubnik was just as good, with 18-of-20 passing for 220 yards and a touchdown, and another 97 yards rushing.
“That ain't fun when the fastest guy on the field is touching the ball 100% of the time,” Southlake Carroll coach Riley Dodge said that day.
Klubnik's Westlake teammates included Michael Taaffe, who is now a Texas safety, and Ethan Burke and Colton Vasek, who are now Longhorns defensive linemen.
Taaffe this week described Klubnik as his “best friend” that season at Westlake. He noted the school and social disruptions of the COVID season before the championship game.
“There was nothing we could do but throw the football around," Taaffe said. “We had nothing to do but become best friends. We were trying to win a state championship.”
Taaffe did his part in the state championship game, intercepting a pass from Ewers in the second half. He'd love to do the same to Klubnik. And Taaffe and won't pull any punches if he gets a chance for a sack or big hit on his old friend.
“My job is my to take my opponent's soul," Taaffe said. “It doesn't matter if it's my best friend or the guy I hate the most on this planet.
"Cade does everything it takes to try to win. He's going to do whatever it takes. I don't assume there's going to be a lot of sliding out of Cade come Saturday. I don't think there's going to be a lot of stepping out of bounds. Especially if he sees (me). He's definitely going to try to lower his shoulder on me and tell me about it, too," Taaffe said.
After that 2021 state title game, Klubnik and Westlake followed it up with another state championship the next season. Some recruiting outlets rated Klubnik the No. 1 quarterback in the country in 2022.
He became Clemson's regular starter last season. His 33 touchdown passes this season helped revive Clemson after an ugly 34-3 season-opening loss to Georgia. Klubnik had four TD pass as the Tigers won the ACC championship to earn their playoff berth, the program's first since 2020.
Ewers left high school early after that state championship game loss. He declared for college that spring and enrolled at Ohio State. His freshman season of 2021 was spent deep on the Buckeyes bench before transferring to Texas, where he led a Longhorns rejuvenation.
Texas won the Big 12 title last season and made the four-team playoff for the first time. The Longhorns reached No. 1 this season for the first time since 2008 and narrowly lost the SEC championship to Georgia in Texas' first year in the league.
As for facing Klubnik again, Ewers called it “cool.” Back in high school, Ewers had a swashbuckling mullet haircut that flowed from under his helmet. Now the most radical thing about him might be a slightly scraggly beard.
“Me and Cade have a good relationship,” Ewers said. “It's definitely cool to get to play each other again, come full circle.”