DieHard 500 Live Report by J. Seravalli

Talladega was everything I heard it was and more. I felt like I was in some sort of Holy Land. I had been dreaming of this place ever since I first got into Stock Car racing and it didn't disappoint at all. It is huge. There is literally not a bad seat. That is of course when all the infield campers (and there's a lot of 'em) comply with the No Flags Flying Rule. If not, it's difficult to see the backstretch from the Tri-Oval where we sat.

Talladega is a study in beat the crowd. We stayed in Birmingham, AL which is about 40 miles from the track. WC Qualifying (Fri.) and the Busch Race (Sat.) traffic wasn't bad at all, in or out. The DieHard was a whole other story. We had to be in our lobby at 6:00am for the shuttle ride to the track. Now 40 miles on a Interstate Highway with a posted speed limit of 70 mph means about 35 minutes, tops. Wrong! I have never seen that many cars or people for that matter in my life under any circumstance. It was not to be believed.

Since neither one of us had ever been to Alabama before, we did do some sightseeing. Birmingham is a college town and so many of the sites in the area we stayed were very college oriented. We did however go for some nice walks around the South end night spots. We had some good meals and some not so good ones. But these weekend retreats wear you out.

In closing, I enjoyed myself so much, that I am planning a trip with my Dover / Richmond buddies to Talladega via a Winnebago or something. It looks like a wild time at the camp site for a weekend.

As far as the race was concerned, Derrike qualified very well and ran great. I thought mabe this was his time. He had great pit stops and stayed mainly in the top 10 until Ward Burton, self-admittedly, got too low in the bottom groove, touched the apron and shot up the Tri-Oval banking into Earnhardt who in turn, turned Elliott (another favorite of mine) sideways. Well at 200 mph that freight train didn't take long to jump the tracks. The whole thing, as luck would have it, happened directly under where we were standing. There was so much smoke, I never saw Derrike's car get collected up in it. In fact, the only recollection I do have is of Elliott losing the hood to his car and bursting into flames. Not good.