NASCAR at Talladega

Unreal. It was pretty much summed up in ESPN's headline of the race. It was along the lines of, "If you weren't thrilled by the finish at Talladega on Sunday, then NASCAR really is not for you." They even went so far as to state, "If you weren't thrilled by Talladega on Sunday, wake up." Truer words have never been spoken. This is as exciting as it gets, folks.

The intensity of that last lap can't be described. It was an eventful race throughout with a couple crashes taking out some people like Daytona 500 winner Trevor Bayne, Matt Kenseth, and Kyle Busch. Jimmie Johnson and Dale Jr were almost caught as well, but they were able to avoid anything disastrous by merely side swiping each other and still able to say in the race.

On Saturday, Dale Jr stating he thought that the whole tandem thing was silly, saying he preferred old school racing better when it was just straight up. Well, perhaps his perspective has changed after what he did on Sunday. With less than a lap to go, he got behind teammate Jimmie Johnson and they both rolled to the inside of the track by getting under teammate Jeff Gordon, the leader at the time. Next thing you know, the 6th and 5th place Earnhardt and Johnson, ended in 4th and 1st, respectively.

With the unbelievable 88/48 tandem, Jimmie was able to steal the victory by .002 seconds, tying the closest finish in NASCAR history. It that stat isn't shocking in itself, what about Mark Martin, finishing in 8th place, finishing .145 seconds behind winner Jimmie Johnson. That's how close the race was between the top 8 drivers. Absolutely absurd. Dale pushing JJ, Mark Martin pushing Jeff, Kevin Harvick pushing Clint Bowyer.

Phenomenal weekend for Hendrick Motorsports. They became only the 3rd team in history to claim the top 4 starting positions, with Jeff Gordon leading the way by winning the pole. During the actual race, though, they still performed. Jimmie Johnson in 1st, Jeff Gordon in 3rd, Dale Jr in 4th, Mark Martin in 8th. Again, all 4 separated by .145 seconds.

I can't restate enough how sick that pass down low was by the 88/48 combo. Dale knew having Jimmie in front was the faster duo and he put himself in a position where he couldn't win the race, but he made it happen for his teammate. Marvelous selflessness from Dale. This is definitely going down as one of the best races in the history folks. I don't think we've ever seen such a close finish within the top 8 like that, and I'm not sure it's ever going to happen again.