2009 Aaron's 499

2009 Aaron's 499

Race details
Race 9 of 36 in the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season
Date	April 26, 2009 (2009-April-26)
Location	Talladega Superspeedway, Talladega, Alabama
Course	Permanent racing facility 2.66 mi (4.28 km)
Distance	188 laps, 500.08 mi (804.8 km)
Pole position
Driver	Juan Pablo Montoya	Earnhardt Ganassi Racing
Time	50.890
Most laps led
Driver	Kyle Busch	Joe Gibbs Racing
Laps	42
Winner
09	Brad Keselowski	Phoenix Racing
Television
Network	Fox Broadcasting Company
Announcers	Mike Joy, Darrell Waltrip and Larry McReynolds

The 2009 Aaron's 499 was the ninth race of the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup season. The 500.8 miles (806.0 km) race was run at the 2.66 miles (4.28 km) Talladega Superspeedway in Talladega, Alabama on April 26. Fox Sports broadcast the race starting at 1 PM US EDT, with MRN and Sirius XM Radio carrying the radio broadcast over the air and on satellite respectively.

Recap

In one of the most spectacular (and horrfying) finishes in recent memory, Brad Keselowski won his first Sprint Cup race for team owner James Finch, who dedicated the win to the late Neil Bonnett. The finish featured a terrible flip that sent Carl Edwards into the catch fence after bouncing off and destroying the hood of Ryan Newman's car. Edwards finished 24th, and the crash caused eight injuries. After his car came to a rest on the track, Edwards climbed out of his car, and jogged to the finish line to a standing ovation from the crowd, in an absurd homage to Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (NASCAR on Fox play-by-play commentator Mike Joy even commented on it as such^[1]). When Edwards was asked about this on Larry King Live, he responded, "I'm kind of a Will Ferrell fan. He did that at the end of Talladega Nights."^[2]

On Lap 111, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Burton got such a run they were about five seconds ahead of the other pack. Newman and Denny Hamlin got a push with eight laps to go, putting Newman in the lead until two laps to go. Finally, Edwards and Keselowski made up ten seconds and took the lead on the final lap, leading up to the finish.

The race lead changed hands 57 times among 25 drivers, the most lead changes of the season.

Aftermath

One person in the crowd was seriously injured, sustaining a broken jaw. The fence was raised by ten feet and was strengthened for the fall race in order from preventing that happening again. In addition, NASCAR implented a rule for the fall race at Talladega in which drivers were not allowed to bump draft in the corners as an attempt to reduce multicar crashes that often took place at that part of the track. The incident to Edwards was similar to Bobby Allison's crash at Talladega in 1987 when he blew a tire and then he went flying into the catchfence near the start/finish line causing a lot of damage to the fence in that race and some pieces of the fence were on the track during that race. There was a lot of damage to Allison's car and the part of the track that he hit, respectively. This is why NASCAR requires restrictor plates at Daytona and Talladega to slow down the cars from these extremely high speeds. Almost a year later, in the 2010 Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Edwards turned around Keselowski and resulted him up in the air and went upside down, until crashing on the sidedoor of his car, in a manner reminiscent of what happened to Edwards. Edwards was ejected from the race shortly afterwards after television replays showed Edwards intentionally crashed into Keselowski, and in a Nationwide Series race later that year, Edwards ignited a multiple-car crash on the final lap by turning Keselowski for the win at Gateway International Raceway, resulting in a large fine and points penalty.

References