Sunday’s GEICO 500 at Talladega came down to the final lap, as is often the case on superspeedways. Michael McDowell, who had led 36 laps of the race, was leading the field out of Turn 4. Brad Keselowski, running second at the time, shot up the racetrack and then back down, looking to get past McDowell.
McDowell responded with a double block, but it didn’t pay off. He failed to clear Keselowski on the bottom and spun back towards the wall, collecting the bulk of the field with him. Tyler Reddick took advantage of McDowell’s spin, accelerating past Keselowski to pick up the win.
Denny Hamlin, speaking on his “Actions Detrimental” podcast, questioned McDowell’s strategy of attempting to swerve across lanes to block Keselowski. “I mean, it always comes down to a bad block,” Hamlin said. “It’s just what we talk about every superspeedway, and it usually starts with whoever’s leading the race. I just never have been successful being able to swerve eight lanes across the track, especially on the last lap. No one’s going to lift. So, I’m watching and I’m seeing Michael swerve, you know, from the top to the bottom. It’s like, you know what’s going to happen here because even if you are clear of the 6 [Keselowski], he’s not going to check up.
“So, he has a run coming and when you swerve across the lanes, he’s just going to end up spinning you out from behind. He seemed like he was barely clear and it just kind of swiped across the back, so it wasn’t an abrupt hit. But I just don’t see how the success rate of that is going to work out. Even if you are clear, that person is not going to lift. And they’re coming at a rate of speed that is going to spin you out. … What happened was like a 100% chance of happening.”
McDowell apologized to the drivers involved in the last lap wreck, saying that he “hated that we didn’t make it to the finish line.”
