NASCAR -- Exciting 'Dega Finish -- Or Boring MOR

What an exciting finish to the Talladega CUP race this afternoon. The 09 hooked up and pushed the 99 from the middle of the pack past the 88 and 39 to gain the lead in the last 3 laps. Coming off the 4th turn on the final lap, you just knew there was no way Brad Kezelowski was gonna let Carl Edward's 99 Ford stay out front and beat his 09 Chevy to the finish line without a battle.

The only question was, what move would Brad make and how would Carl react. Brad moved outside to pass. Carl countered by moving outside to block. As soon as Carl committed outside, Brad dove back to the inside and got a fender under Carl.

Brad went as low as he could without crossing the yellow out-of-bounds line and Carl responded by coming down to try to block the 09, neither let off the throttle. BLAMMO. Carl's left-rear clipped Brad's right front sending Carl's car into an out of control spin with the force of the air on the side of the car at 180+ MPH lifting Carl's car high off the track.

Carl's 99 came back down on to the hood of the 39 which pushed the 99 even higher and outside into the catch fence above the outside wall, ripping portions of the 99's body off with pieces coming thru the fence and into the crowd of excited fans.

Brad's 09 Chevy cleared the accident and went on to the finish line in 1st place giving him the victory after 500 miles. Carl's 99 Ford flipped and stopped short of the finish line. Dale Earnhardt's 88 came across in 2nd followed by Ryan Newman's torn up 39 in 3rd. Carl finished one lap down in 24th.

Everyone will be talking about the exciting finish all week, with video replays on all the TV sports reports Monday. Once again Talladega WOWs the world with its exciting crashes.

What won't get reported on news reports this week were the interminable single-line, middle of race (MOR) freight train laps that are extremely BORING!!! RP (Restrictor Plate) racing at Talladega and Daytona is the cause of both of these extremes; exciting crashes and extremely boring freight train multi-lap runs in the MOR...

But that's the nature of NASCAR CUP racing at large 2.5+ mile, high-banked oval tracks in the 2000s. Basically, it's all a show for TV anyway, it's not really racing, now is it. At least that's my opinion of this made for TV show. Kind of fits in with today's Reality TV during the current sweeps period.

Real on-track action with beatin' and bangin' and rubbin' is racin' returns Saturday night under the lights on the short track at Richmond, VA. Don't miss it if you're a real NASCAR CUP racing fan and not just looking for a TV show!!!

JD