WallsRoofing71
10-14-2009, 07:09 AM
:Whip:Purse Guaranteed by OLE Time Barbecue 401 South for the Wake County Speedway race October 31,2009 Go to www.ucarclash.com (http://www.ucarclash.com) for more info on this race
$500.00:check_flag:
$300.00
$200.00
$100.00
$85.00
$55.00
$35.00
8th-30th place - $25.00 courtesy of Ultra Power Sports of Garner, NC
---------- Post added at 07:07 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:56 AM ----------
:check_flag:The Walls Roofing UCAR Clash has partnered with Burning Rubber Radio and NASCAR championship pit road Coach Wayne Deloriea to hold a fundraiser event at the final points race of the year. This event is scheduled for October 31st at Wake County Speedway. Donations will be taken and all proceeds will go to the Shriners Hospitals for Children. Come on out and make this a memorable event and help those in need at the same time.
---------- Post added at 07:09 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:07 AM ----------
:check_flag:In the Flag stand on Oct 31
In the Flag stand on Oct 31 will be the NASCAR legendary Flag man and Vice President of the new Carteret County Speedway Marion Johnson. Marion was in the flag stand with Harold Kinder when Bobby Allison flipped at Alabama International Speedway now known as Talladega and almost took both man out of the flag stand. See story below.
The Walls Roofing UCAR Clash will have one of the first dates at the new Carteret County Speedway track in May 2010. www.carteretcountyspeedway.com
Last-lap crash: Like 1987 all over again
It seemed Sunday as if an imaginary time machine and NASCAR driver Carl Edwards were transporting me - and perhaps millions of other stock car racing followers - 22 years into the past.
The date was May 3, 1987, and the Winston 500 at the ultra-fast track then known as Alabama International Speedway was off to a sizzling start before a crowd estimated at 135,000 and a national television audience.
The lead cars in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series event were being timed at almost 207 mph, not much off Bill Elliott’s record qualifying lap of 212.809 mph. Then, trouble struck on the 21st lap at the high-banked 2.66-mile speedway near the town of Talladega.
A small puff of white smoke flew from the left rear of a Buick driven by popular veteran Bobby Allison. A tire had been cut. In an instant his car spun, whipped backwards and soared smoothly into the air. Watching from the press box at the track now named Talladega Superspeedway, I thought to myself, “It looks like an airplane taking off!”
Then the smoothness was shattered.
Allison smashed into the fence fronting the packed grandstand near the start/finish line, ripping away support posts, strong cables and other parts of the barrier. His shrapnel-spewing ride continued for hundreds of feet. Shards of metal flew into the grandstand. It was a horrifying sight.
I feared for the lives of fans in the front rows and for that of Allison. I felt that my friend and neighbor back in North Carolina, the late NASCAR flag man Harold Kinder, was a goner. The moment the spectacular accident began, he started waving the yellow flag. And he courageously continued to do so while Allison’s car flew right at him. The car slammed back onto the track just yards from Kinder’s perch.
In the weeks before the ’87 Winston 500 Talladega track officials had strengthened the fencing with two giant cables. These were credited with eventually flipping Allison’s car back onto the track.
As crews worked feverishly to get the protective barrier back in place, the speedway’s public relations director at the time, Jim Freeman, observed, “Right now I’d say those cables were well worth the cost.”
The similarity of the Allison crash and that of Edwards at the conclusion of Sunday’s Aaron’s 499 are incredibly eerie. They sailed into the fence at almost the same point, spun around shattering the metal, and fell back onto the track with the cars on their wheels.
A major difference: Edwards wrecked while in the lead roaring toward the checkered flag, losing control of his Ford after a slight tap from a Chevrolet driven by rookie Brad Kesolowski, who won the race, the first victory of his Sprint Cup Series career. Also, Edwards didn’t sustain a scratch.
Allison suffered painful but relatively minor facial injuries and bruised hands.
Several fans were hurt during the Allison crash, three with rather significant injuries. Only one person was harmed badly by Edwards’ accident, suffering a broken jaw.
Another irony: A rookie also won the 1987 race - Davey Allison, Bobby’s son. Davey, just 26 at the time, was able to shake off the sight of his father’s awful accident and drive to his first major triumph.
Davey generally stayed by his dad’s side while the Winston 500 was red-flagged for 2 ½ hours for repairs to the fence. “I’m not sure how I kept control of my emotions,” Davey said after the race. “I saw the accident happening in my mirror and my heart sank. It’s the scaredest I’ve ever been in my life.
“As I drove around the track I asked The Lord to let my dad stay on earth a little longer - hopefully, for a long time. When I came back around the track and saw him get out of his car, it lifted my heart.
“During the red flag he told me I had the savvy and the car to win the race. He told me to get back out there and keep the 500 in the family.” Bobby Allison, leader of the storied “Alabama Gang,” had won the race in 1986.
Memorably, the Allisons were to score the greatest father-son finish in NASCAR history in 1988, Bobby taking the Daytona 500 with Davey right behind.
A hard crash at Pocono, Pa., ended the great driving career of Bobby Allison later in ’88.
Tragically, Davey lost his life due to the crash of a helicopter he was attempting to land at the Talladega track in July of 1993.
Bobby Allison’s flight that almost carried into the grandstand at Talladega understandably caused considerable concern among competitors and for officials of both NASCAR and the International Speedway Corp., which owns the Talladega track. Both organizations are controlled by the heirs of NASCAR founder Big Bill France.
“If Bobby had gotten into the seats, the death toll would have been of earthquake proportions,” one shaken veteran driver told me. “There would have been nothing to stop his car for hundreds of feet but human bodies. “It probably would have been the end of NASCAR.”
NASCAR’s response was to place restrictor plates on the carburetors of the cars, reducing horsepower. However, the plates, generally hated by the drivers and their crews, tend to keep the cars in tight packs, leading to big multi-car crashes. There were two of these Sunday.
So what to do now, following the Aaron’s 499 melees and Edwards’ terrifying crash, in which he bounced off the windshield of Ryan Newman’s Chevy?
The late, highly-respected driving champion Benny Parsons once offered this solution for the Talladega track, where he was involved in a 23-car crash in 1973: “Knock down those high banks and turn it into a two-mile speedway…But I know they won’t do it.”
For my part, I’d always been frightened to watch races at Talladega, especially after the colorful driver Tiny Lund lost his life there in 1975. After the Bobby Allison incident, I couldn’t bring myself to look at the “live” action. I covered the races by watching closed-circuit TV in the infield media center.
Call me chicken, crazy, or whatever, but somehow this seemed to somewhat remove me from seeing someone get seriously hurt, or worse, in person.
Following what could have been a monstrous tragedy at Talladega in 1987, Darrell Waltrip, a three-time champion and now an analyst for Fox television’s racing shows, dramatically warned, “We’re sitting on a time bomb here.”
Carl Edwards’ wreck shows they still are.
$500.00:check_flag:
$300.00
$200.00
$100.00
$85.00
$55.00
$35.00
8th-30th place - $25.00 courtesy of Ultra Power Sports of Garner, NC
---------- Post added at 07:07 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:56 AM ----------
:check_flag:The Walls Roofing UCAR Clash has partnered with Burning Rubber Radio and NASCAR championship pit road Coach Wayne Deloriea to hold a fundraiser event at the final points race of the year. This event is scheduled for October 31st at Wake County Speedway. Donations will be taken and all proceeds will go to the Shriners Hospitals for Children. Come on out and make this a memorable event and help those in need at the same time.
---------- Post added at 07:09 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:07 AM ----------
:check_flag:In the Flag stand on Oct 31
In the Flag stand on Oct 31 will be the NASCAR legendary Flag man and Vice President of the new Carteret County Speedway Marion Johnson. Marion was in the flag stand with Harold Kinder when Bobby Allison flipped at Alabama International Speedway now known as Talladega and almost took both man out of the flag stand. See story below.
The Walls Roofing UCAR Clash will have one of the first dates at the new Carteret County Speedway track in May 2010. www.carteretcountyspeedway.com
Last-lap crash: Like 1987 all over again
It seemed Sunday as if an imaginary time machine and NASCAR driver Carl Edwards were transporting me - and perhaps millions of other stock car racing followers - 22 years into the past.
The date was May 3, 1987, and the Winston 500 at the ultra-fast track then known as Alabama International Speedway was off to a sizzling start before a crowd estimated at 135,000 and a national television audience.
The lead cars in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series event were being timed at almost 207 mph, not much off Bill Elliott’s record qualifying lap of 212.809 mph. Then, trouble struck on the 21st lap at the high-banked 2.66-mile speedway near the town of Talladega.
A small puff of white smoke flew from the left rear of a Buick driven by popular veteran Bobby Allison. A tire had been cut. In an instant his car spun, whipped backwards and soared smoothly into the air. Watching from the press box at the track now named Talladega Superspeedway, I thought to myself, “It looks like an airplane taking off!”
Then the smoothness was shattered.
Allison smashed into the fence fronting the packed grandstand near the start/finish line, ripping away support posts, strong cables and other parts of the barrier. His shrapnel-spewing ride continued for hundreds of feet. Shards of metal flew into the grandstand. It was a horrifying sight.
I feared for the lives of fans in the front rows and for that of Allison. I felt that my friend and neighbor back in North Carolina, the late NASCAR flag man Harold Kinder, was a goner. The moment the spectacular accident began, he started waving the yellow flag. And he courageously continued to do so while Allison’s car flew right at him. The car slammed back onto the track just yards from Kinder’s perch.
In the weeks before the ’87 Winston 500 Talladega track officials had strengthened the fencing with two giant cables. These were credited with eventually flipping Allison’s car back onto the track.
As crews worked feverishly to get the protective barrier back in place, the speedway’s public relations director at the time, Jim Freeman, observed, “Right now I’d say those cables were well worth the cost.”
The similarity of the Allison crash and that of Edwards at the conclusion of Sunday’s Aaron’s 499 are incredibly eerie. They sailed into the fence at almost the same point, spun around shattering the metal, and fell back onto the track with the cars on their wheels.
A major difference: Edwards wrecked while in the lead roaring toward the checkered flag, losing control of his Ford after a slight tap from a Chevrolet driven by rookie Brad Kesolowski, who won the race, the first victory of his Sprint Cup Series career. Also, Edwards didn’t sustain a scratch.
Allison suffered painful but relatively minor facial injuries and bruised hands.
Several fans were hurt during the Allison crash, three with rather significant injuries. Only one person was harmed badly by Edwards’ accident, suffering a broken jaw.
Another irony: A rookie also won the 1987 race - Davey Allison, Bobby’s son. Davey, just 26 at the time, was able to shake off the sight of his father’s awful accident and drive to his first major triumph.
Davey generally stayed by his dad’s side while the Winston 500 was red-flagged for 2 ½ hours for repairs to the fence. “I’m not sure how I kept control of my emotions,” Davey said after the race. “I saw the accident happening in my mirror and my heart sank. It’s the scaredest I’ve ever been in my life.
“As I drove around the track I asked The Lord to let my dad stay on earth a little longer - hopefully, for a long time. When I came back around the track and saw him get out of his car, it lifted my heart.
“During the red flag he told me I had the savvy and the car to win the race. He told me to get back out there and keep the 500 in the family.” Bobby Allison, leader of the storied “Alabama Gang,” had won the race in 1986.
Memorably, the Allisons were to score the greatest father-son finish in NASCAR history in 1988, Bobby taking the Daytona 500 with Davey right behind.
A hard crash at Pocono, Pa., ended the great driving career of Bobby Allison later in ’88.
Tragically, Davey lost his life due to the crash of a helicopter he was attempting to land at the Talladega track in July of 1993.
Bobby Allison’s flight that almost carried into the grandstand at Talladega understandably caused considerable concern among competitors and for officials of both NASCAR and the International Speedway Corp., which owns the Talladega track. Both organizations are controlled by the heirs of NASCAR founder Big Bill France.
“If Bobby had gotten into the seats, the death toll would have been of earthquake proportions,” one shaken veteran driver told me. “There would have been nothing to stop his car for hundreds of feet but human bodies. “It probably would have been the end of NASCAR.”
NASCAR’s response was to place restrictor plates on the carburetors of the cars, reducing horsepower. However, the plates, generally hated by the drivers and their crews, tend to keep the cars in tight packs, leading to big multi-car crashes. There were two of these Sunday.
So what to do now, following the Aaron’s 499 melees and Edwards’ terrifying crash, in which he bounced off the windshield of Ryan Newman’s Chevy?
The late, highly-respected driving champion Benny Parsons once offered this solution for the Talladega track, where he was involved in a 23-car crash in 1973: “Knock down those high banks and turn it into a two-mile speedway…But I know they won’t do it.”
For my part, I’d always been frightened to watch races at Talladega, especially after the colorful driver Tiny Lund lost his life there in 1975. After the Bobby Allison incident, I couldn’t bring myself to look at the “live” action. I covered the races by watching closed-circuit TV in the infield media center.
Call me chicken, crazy, or whatever, but somehow this seemed to somewhat remove me from seeing someone get seriously hurt, or worse, in person.
Following what could have been a monstrous tragedy at Talladega in 1987, Darrell Waltrip, a three-time champion and now an analyst for Fox television’s racing shows, dramatically warned, “We’re sitting on a time bomb here.”
Carl Edwards’ wreck shows they still are.