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Aaron's 499 - Talladega Superspeedway
Gordon Wins Second Straight Aaron's 499 at Talladega
Talladega + Restrictor Plates = The Big One. How do you miss “the big one?” Get out in the lead, where all the wrecks happen behind you. That is just what Jeff Gordon did in dominating the Aaron’s 499 at Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday afternoon, winning this event for the second consecutive year. Gordon, who started from the outside pole, ruled this event, leading 12 times for a total of 139 of the race’s 192 laps and seemed to go where he wanted to go at will. The day’s “big one” was in fact a really big one and it happened on lap 132, involving over half of the field for a total of 25 cars, the second most cars ever involved in a wreck in the series. The massive accident brought out a red flag that lasted for 43 minutes and 21 seconds in order to clear the debris and repair the wall. Then with two laps to go we had a “mini-big one” at the front of the pack that involved six cars, sending the event into overtime for a green-white-checkered finish. Gordon would hold off the tag team of Tony Stewart and Michael Waltrip to win by 0.193 seconds, scoring his third win of the season and the 72nd of his career. This was Gordon’s 10th career restrictor-plate victory in 50 career restrictor-plate races, he has scored 28 top-10 finishes in those 50 races. Gordon scored the sixth victory for car owner Rick Hendrick at Talladega, this was Hendrick’s 134th victory as a car owner and fourth in nine races this season. Stewart finished in the second position, posting his eighth top-10 finish in 13 races at Talladega Superspeedway, it was his fourth runner-up finish at Talladega. Waltrip scored a third-place finish, followed by Jeremy Mayfield in fourth and Jamie McMurray in fifth. In the end, only 13 cars remained on the lead lap and only two cars were one lap down.
Harvick Happy After Winning Talladega Pole Position
Kevin Harvick won the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series Bud Pole for the Aaron’s 499 at the 2.66-mile Talladega Superspeedway, turning in a qualifying effort of 50.452 seconds, at an average aped of 189.804 mph. Harvick posted his third career pole position and his first since Indianapolis 2003, 60 races ago. It is his third top-10 start in 2005, all in the past four races. Harvick has just three top-10 starts in nine Talladega races, his previous best start here was second in April 2003. Jeff Gordon posted the second-quickest qualifying lap of 50.670 seconds, at 188.988 mph – and will join Harvick on the front row for the Aaron’s 499. Gordon tied his best Talladega start (July 1996) in posting his 13th top-10 start in 25 races here. He scored his fourth top-10 start in 2005, all in the past five races. Elliott Sadler will start from the third spot, while Scott Riggs and Ryan Newman rounded out the top five on the starting grid. Nine of the last 12 races at Talladega have been won from a starting position of 11th or worse. The furthest back a winner has started at Talladega was when Jeff Gordon won the DieHard 500 in April of 2000 from the 36th-place starting position.
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