NASCAR Extreme bumping has drivers alert

Their Talladega experience was a touchy day at the track.
WINSTON-SALEM JOURNAL
KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- When last seen driving a stock car, Scott Riggs was doing an amazing pirouette down the frontstretch at Talladega Superspeedway, his car shedding parts as if it were caught in a tornado.
Any bruises today?
"I feel fine," Riggs said. "It usually takes me two days to get sore after things like that, so I expected a little tenderness on Tuesday. But when I woke up, I was fine."
Not everyone is in such a good post-Talladega mood, however.
Carl Edwards, one of the 10 drivers in the Chase for the Championship, was stunned by some of the action.
"There were some wrecks that were completely insane," Edwards said. "I bumped Ryan Newman one time in a manner which I thought was completely OK [bump drafting]. I tried to line everything up and just barely touch him, and I did it right in the trioval thinking that, 'Well, it won't be that big of a deal.'
"And Ryan almost wrecked in front of the whole field. I thought to myself, 'Wow, this is really touchy stuff.' "
Wallace affected
Costly too, particularly for Rusty Wallace, who got caught up in a crash that teammate Newman triggered and then struggled home 25th.
"I couldn't believe the bump drafting I was seeing," Wallace said. "Guys were causing wrecks by extreme bump drafting. That's one thing NASCAR is going to have to crack down on, with some severe penalties.
"It could have killed some people."
Wallace suggested that NASCAR use the black flag: " 'If we catch you bump drafting, we're going to black flag you.' It's pretty obvious that bump-drafting has caused all the major accidents. This has got ridiculous."
Wallace said that bump drafting is no longer about gentle nudges.
"Bump drafting has gone from touching a little bit to such a ferocious, violent hit from behind that these guys are bending the frames," Wallace said. "They're knocking the whole rear bumpers off."
History lesson
But for Wallace that's history. This is his last season, and Sunday's race was his last at a restrictor-plate track.
"We've got to get back up there," Wallace said. "Losing 70 points was a blow.
"I was concerned about Talladega because anything can happen, and sure enough I was cruising right along there and a guy spins out in front of me, at the most unbelievable spot, and that was it. And it was amazing to see that basically almost every one of the Rick Hendrick cars were wiped out, and almost every DEI car, and half the Roush cars."
Sunday's race will be a milestone for Wallace, his 700th career start.
But he said it has been hard to enjoy this final season on the tour "because I'm running so well. We're in the Chase, and I'm just focused. I'm testing everywhere in the world.
"Homestead [the finale] is going to be over, and I'm still going to be wound up running wide-open and somebody is going to come up to me and say 'It's all over. You're not racing anymore. You're done.'
"It's going to be a shock."