The “biggest ever” accident in the Cup Series
Perhaps no circuit, not even Daytona, best captures the purest and most extreme philosophy of American stock car racing as much as the superspeedway in Talladega. 500 miles to go at more than 300 km/h, more three hours of racing with 40 cars gathered in the space of a couple of secondsto push each other to obtain the maximum possible speed. The room for errors is reduced to almost zero and when you happen to make a mistake – which can be a bump poorly calculated or an imperfect trajectory movement – the accident comes. In America they call them ‘big one’ and they are major accidents involving at least ten cars. They are an integral part of the NASCAR spectacle and in order to win on this type of track, you must first of all be able to stay out of these clashes. Every year, at Talladega, at least one ‘big one’ always appears and tonight’s race, valid for the Round of 12 of the 2024 Cup Series playoffs, was no exception, on the contrary.
On lap 184 of the 188 scheduled a bump of Brad Keselowski on Austin Cindric’s car – accentuated in turn by Joey Logano’s push from behind and not perfectly absorbed by team Penske’s #2 car – gave rise to a maxi carambola which involved 28 of the 38 cars that remained in the race in various capacities until then, after two other cars had previously retired. On a purely statistical level, by number of cars involved in a single crash, this was the absolute record in the history of the Cup Seriesthe ‘queen class’ of the NASCAR panorama. Seven drivers were unable to restart after the crashwhile the other 21 somehow completed the race, which then ended atovertime (extra laps added after the checkered flag to avoid ending the race under the yellow flag) with the Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s sprint success., who beat Brad Keselowski by 6 thousandths.
No rollovers: this is how it was possible
Due to its size, the accident – which led to 8 laps covered under caution and a nine-minute red flag to finish clearing the track of debris and stuck cars – has already been nicknamed ‘the huge one’ (literally ‘the huge one’). Despite the incredible amount of fighting though no cars overturned. This is a small victory for NASCAR given that for this race they had been introduced on the cars special ‘anti-tipping’ safety measures after dangerous rollovers had occurred in other superspeedway races this season.
To ensure greater safety for drivers and reduce the chances of having cars overturned, they were in fact specific aerodynamic measures implemented on all cars: on the right side of the roof, polycarbonate bars have been extended to a height of 2 inches; on the right anti-rollover wing (already existing) was added a triangular piece of fabric like a little ‘parachute’; in front of the right rear wheel was mounted a sort of ‘miniskirt’ which increases the ground effect on that side. All these devices together had the intention of glue cars to the ground more. A mission that was achieved perfectly in what will remain for a long time in the collective memory of enthusiasts as ‘the greatest accident in history’.
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