“Not a great day”: NASCAR insider extremely clear about not being a fan of historic Talladega race

NASCAR's visit to Talladega Superspeedway was not short on providing a complete stock car racing experience. The race produced several controversial events, completely restructuring the playoff picture. However, A NASCAR insider has recently shared that he is not very fond of the races at Talladega.

Talladega is one of two Superspeedways on the NASCAR schedule, joined by the prestigious Daytona International Speedway. The Yellawood 500 did not disappoint the NASCAR fraternity as it raised quite a few points of discussion. Besides creating history in the Cup Series with a 28-car multi-car wreck in the final stage, the DVP rule controversy continued from last weekend at Kansas Speedway.

Moreover, Denny Hamlin's luck following the multi-car wreck despite running a damaged car came as a by-product of an on-track incident that led to reigning champion Ryan Blaney retiring from the race or Ricky Stenhouse Jr.'s victory, mirroring the spoiler role played by Ross Chastain at Kansas.

The Athletic's Jeff Gluck wrote a piece on the Yellawood 500, giving a descriptive overview of the crucial moments in the race. Sharing the article on X(formerly Twitter), Gluck wrote:

"Some of you might find this hard to believe, but I actually hate having to be negative. Unfortunately, Sunday was not a great day."

Moreover, in a section of the article titled 'What if?', Jeff Gluck highlighted JGR driver Denny Hamlin's fortune in the race, who despite his troubles, secured a P10 finish.

"Denny Hamlin was running outside the top 30 and was 19 seconds behind the leaders[...]But then it happened: Hamlin actually caught a break, for once. The Big One — a wreck that occurred over a mile ahead of him, as Hamlin noted — took out a record 28 cars all at once and flipped Hamlin’s track position,"Gluck wrote

Following the end of the race, the four playoff drivers that will be fighting for a place in the Round of 8 are Joey Logano, Daniel Suarez, Austin Cindric, and Chase Briscoe. As NASCAR heads to Charlotte Motor Speedway for the Round of 12 finale, in addition to putting in good performances, these drivers would also be hoping for a stroke of luck to continue their journey in the 2024 playoffs.

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NASCAR insider unable to find stable ground amid DVP ‘change’ for Chase Elliott and Briscoe

The multi-car wreck at Talladega caught playoff drivers, Chase Elliot and Chase Briscoe, leaving their cars damaged and having to be towed. However, as the controversy around the DVP(Damaged Vehicle Policy) increases, the #9 and #14 cars were towed back to pit road and allowed to continue racing.

Recalling NASCAR VP Elton Sawyers's comments on the subject, Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi discuss the events at Talladega and the DVP policy on the Dirty Mo Media podcast(via X)

"According to Elton Sawyer (VP of Competition at NASCAR), who we've just met a few minutes ago, he said that it was never intended to take good racecars out of the race and so they've looked at this and they've said, 'Hey, you know, we want to try to, if there's a possible way to keep them in the race, let's keep that going." Gluck said [00:29]

"I don't really get it but they decided to pull his (Briscoe) car back to the pit road and let him work on it and Chase Elliott, even though they were involved in the wreck." he added

A similar incident at Kansas Speedway involving Josh Berry's #4 Ford, which had four flat tires and no significant damage to the car, was towed to the campgrounds instead of pit road. This incident, in comparison with Elliot and Briscoe's incident, is fueling the DVP controversy even further.