Talladega Diary, Day 3

(8:25 am) The Winston Cup cars have been
on the track now for about 10 minutes. It didn’t take them long to start running
three wide.  I’ve been here at the track since about 7:30. I was the first
one in the press box, and even at that someone had my parking spot.  Posted
my "good morning" message to the Motorsports
Forum after firing up the computer, then dialed up the internet.

I still haven’t heard any real news on
Tony Roper this morning. NASCAR Online is still down. All the other reports I’ve
seen still have him listed as in critical condition. That’s not good.

(8:35 am) Jeff Gordon just took out about
15 cones they had set up at the end of pit road.  He pulled out from behind
Earnhardt and Wallace as Wallace was going inside Earnhardt, making it three
wide as they were going into turn one. He got on the binders after that and got
down on the apron. NASCAR stopped the practice to replace the cones. They’re
pulling Gordon’s car to the hauler to do some work on the front end. I’m hearing
that it did some pretty extensive damage to the front end.

(8:50 am) I just took a look at the
scoring monitor. Bobby Labonte is currenly the fastest with a speed of over 198
mph. Simply incredible.

(10:30 am) Practice ended an hour ago. If
the race is anything like practice was, it’s going to be interesting. After
practice, I went down to the pits to check out the damage to Gordon’s car first
hand. They’ve had to replace most of the front bumper and the
radiator.  

(10:50 am) Second round qualifying has
just started.  The fog and smoke from the campfires has finally burned off
and I can see turns two and three now. You can only get a glimpse of the roofs
of the cars as they go down the backstretch. 

(11:20 am) Second round is finished. Just
two cars made it in on time, Ricky Craven and Darrell Waltrip. The 97 Roush car
takes another provisional.

(11:35 am) Just finished uploading second
round results to the Motorsports
Forum. The track’s pretty quiet now. Winston Cup happy hour is supposed to
start in a few minutes. I’ve heard that they’ve extended it by 30 minutes, but
that’s not official. If it’s like it was this morning, then we’ll be seeing them
run four and five wide. not sure if I can hold my breath that long.

(12:15 pm) For some reason, they delayed
the start of happy hour until 12:15, so it’s just now starting. It’ll go until
1:15 and then the ARCA pre-race ceremonies start.

(12:30 pm) Mike Helton is holding a press
conference down in the infield where he’s just announced that Tony Roper has succumbed
from the injuries he sustained last night. My condolences  to the Roper
family.

Helton also announced that they’ve reduced
the restrictor plate size from 1" to 15/16" inch. He doesn’t ever
remember a time they made a rule change from one practice session to another.
That’s the reason for the delay of the start of happy hour. They were apparently
meeting with the teams to inform them of the new plate rule.

(1:15 pm) Happy hour’s over. Jeff Gordon
had a problem with his left front and they had to go to a backup car. 
Other than that there were no major incidents. The smaller plate definitely
reduced the speeds. Rusty Wallace was fastest with a speed of 192.703 mph. After
watching happy hour, I’m not so sure that we’ll see all the predicted slingshot
moves. They did run three wide at times and ran mostly two by two, but the draft
is still going to play a big part. If you lose that, you’re hurting.  Got
to get ready now for the ARCA race.

(6:10 pm) Even though the ARCA race has
been over since about 4:30, I’m just now finished with my story and results. All
that’s been posted to the Motorsports
Forum. Time now to pack up the laptop and head back to the hotel.

(9:00 pm) Got back to the hotel around
7:00 after a side trip to Wal-Mart for some ibuprofen and a phone jack. Had
planned on doing some work on a project I’ve got to have done by Tuesday, but
was too wiped out.  Watched TV for a while and then realized I needed to
upload today’s diary.  I was sent email on the condition of the drivers
that were injured today at the ARCA race, so I need to post that as well.

Tomorrow’s going to be a long day. I’ll
probably get to the track around 7:00 am and leave (if I’m lucky) at 7:00 pm. At
least by staying Sunday night (to attend the Dodge test on Monday) I won’t have
to fight the traffic…even though I take the "short cut" through
Chattanooga instead of Birmingham. 

Here’s hoping for a safe race tomorrow.