Frequent readers of this blog know that I am an avid fan of almost every kind of motor sports.  This weekend I was lucky enough to see three races: the Spanish Grand Prix at Barcelona, NASCAR’s Talladega, and the Indy Car race at Kansas.  While they were all entertaining, the race I enjoyed most was Talladega.

I wasn’t surprised by the winner.  Kyle Busch is the hottest driver racing in the world today.  I disagree with many Formula One fan’s elitist opinion that no American is fast enough to win in Formula One.  Given an equally matched Ferrari, I would bet good money that Kyle Busch could take a half second off Formula One’s champ Kimi Raikkonen’s best lap on any circuit.

I digress.  I wasn’t surprised by Kyle Busch winning at Talladega but I was surprised by how he won.  Let me provide a little background for my argument.  Talladega is billed as the “World’s Fastest Race Course” and probably for good reason.

The restrictor plate cars Sunday maintained 195 mile-per-hour speeds all day long.  There are many teams at the highest level of NASCAR and some of the top teams have four drivers.  Every car has different sponsors, but they all drive the same car make.  At Talladega there is little if any speed advantage from car to car – except when drafting comes into play.

When two cars “hook up” they gain a distinct aerodynamic advantage that can propel the two cars five to ten miles per hour faster than the cars around them.  Let me explain.  Talladega has also been called the “Worlds Fastest Traffic Jam” because there is often only a matter of a few seconds separating the entire field of forty two.  They are close but they aren’t “hooked up” because they are all constantly moving around, jockeying for position.  One of the drivers showed the field a better way.

Not long after the race began, Denny Hamlin hooked the front of his Toyota to the back of another vehicle and proceeded to quickly push it to the lead.  Unfortunately for Hamlin, the twosome’s speed and their lead quickly vanished when they abandoned their “hook up.”

The preferred racing tactic at Talladega is finding a suitable drafting partner and then assisting one another in moving toward the front of the pack.  Usually, it’s team members that help each other whenever possible.  A few weeks ago at Daytona, the other restrictor plate Mecca, it was a group of Dodge’s that worked together to earn a win for Ryan Newman.  Sunday at Talladega the two drafting partners seemed totally unrelated.  Well, maybe not.

At first glance, twenty-three year old Busch, driving a Toyota, seems as far removed from former open-wheel Formula One ace Juan Pablo Montoya, driving a Dodge, as proverbial night and day.  I heard something on National Public Radio today that caused me to change my mind.

NPR reported that the Mars Corporation had made a twenty three billion dollar bid for Wrigley’s.  Mars is the world’s biggest seller of chocolate and the maker of M & M’s.  Wrigley’s is the world’s biggest seller of chewing gum and the maker of Juicy Fruit.  Kyle Busch was driving the M & M Toyota and Montoya was behind the wheel of the Juicy Fruit Dodge.  Unlike the earlier display of “hooking up” by Hamlin and others, Montoya and Busch “hooked up” for the better part of three laps, an almost impossible feat.

Those of you that watch Formula One races are familiar with the phrase “team orders.”  This term has little meaning in NASCAR where team members are racing for altogether different sponsors.  This is why you will see teammates and close friends Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon pulling no punches when it comes to which one will cross the finish line first.  They race for different sponsors that both want a win for their brand.

Are we talking conspiracy here?  Well let’s just say that J.P. Montoya is one of the most talented drivers to ever sit behind a wheel but he is still learning when it comes to racing stock cars.  Sunday, he pulled something previously unseen out of his heart, and maybe his a--, to push Kyle Busch to victory.

This isn’t taking anything away from the driving skills of Busch as he and Montoya are perhaps the only two drivers on the face of the earth, in my opinion, that could have accomplished the task of “hooking up” for so many laps.

For the last three laps at Talladega Sunday, I witnessed perhaps the finest display of driving I have ever seen, as performed by two of the best drivers the world has ever seen.

But did Montoya have team orders from Wrigley to help Busch’s Mars-sponsored car win at any cost?  Nah!

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