Sunday Talladega Notebook
Orchestrated exit nets Denny Hamlin 10 extra points
May, 5, 2013
By Reid Spencer
NASCAR Wire Service
TALLADEGA, Ala.--The driver change planned and practiced by Denny Hamlin and Brian Vickers worked to perfection.
An
opportune caution flag flew on Lap 23 of Sunday's Aaron's 499 at
Talladega Speedway when fluid gushed out of Trevor Bayne's Ford
and oiled the track. Hamlin, Vickers and the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing
crew were ready.
Recovering
from a compression fracture of his first lumbar vertebra sustained
during a last-lap crash at Fontana, Calif., in late March,
Hamlin received medical clearance to race at Talladega but planned to
exit the car during the first caution.
On
Lap 25 he brought the car to pit road where Vickers waited. Hamlin
unbuckled his belts, disconnected the radio and popped out of
a roof hatch in No. 11 Toyota Camry as Vickers began to climb in the
driver's-side window.
The
crew buckled Vickers in and connected the radio. Vickers exited the pit
stall less than a minute after Hamlin got there and had
no difficulty staying on the lead lap.
"The exchange went great," Hamlin said. "Really, that was about as smooth as it's went for us. Obviously,
we've had a few repetitions at it. That was about the quickest that I was able to get out so everything went well.
"I had a checklist in the car with things that I needed to do before I got out to switch over for
the next driver. Everything really went seamless and painless."
Unfortunately
for Hamlin and Vickers, the afternoon didn't continue that smoothly. On
Lap 43, Vickers
was an innocent victim of a 16-car wreck ignited by Kyle Busch's tap of
Kasey Kahne's Chevrolet. The Hamlin/Vickers collaboration finished 34th, but by virtue of starting the race, Hamlin scored 10 championship points he otherwise wouldn't have
had.
ARTFUL DODGER
The Lap 43 wreck at Talladega may have damaged 16 cars, but Danica Patrick's No. 10 Chevrolet wasn't
one of them. As cars began spinning wildly in Turn 1, Patrick turned left down onto the apron and narrowly evaded harm.
Crew chief Tony Gibson was watching the action and was amazed by his driver's ability to dodge the
wreck.
"We
were watching and we were like, ‘Holy cow!'" Gibson said during the
long rain delay that interrupted
the race after Lap 125. "The next thing you know, she came on the radio
and she just aimed for the empty hole. I don't know how she missed the
No. 18 (Kyle Busch) there at the end.
"The
No. 18 came back down across (the track) and she said she got loose
when she got on the first
apron; then when she got on the flat, she got real loose. How she
survived, I have no idea. But I'll take it, because usually we're right
in the middle of those things. The GoDaddy.com Chevy did good, and our
spotter did an awesome job. We've got a fast car
today. We've just got to get up there and show it."
After the race resumed, however, Patrick was the victim of a 12-car pile-up on Lap 183 and finished
33rd.
TITANIC EFFORT
NASCAR's new Air Titan track-drying system got its first major test of the season and had a substantial
impact on the racing schedule at Talladega.
Thanks
to faster drying through the use of compressed air--and augmented by
traditional jet dryers--Air
Titan lengthened a hole between rain and darkness that allowed 110 of
117 scheduled laps to be completed in the Aaron's 312 Nationwide Series
race on Saturday.
When Sunday's Sprint Cup race was interrupted by rain, Air Titan went to work after two separate showers
and dramatically cut the time need to dry the 2.66-mile superspeedway, NASCAR's longest closed course.
About the only person who might have a bone to pick with Air Titan is Carl Edwards, who likely would
have won a rain-shortened race had Air Titan not been there to expedite the drying process.
Edwards instead finished third when the race went the distance.
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