Featured Article Summary #274

The 2006 UAW-Ford 500 was a stock car race held on October 8, 2006 at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama, with about 160,000 spectators. It was the 38th running of the event, and it featured a 188-lap race in the 2006 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series, during the season-ending Chase for the Nextel Cup. Brian Vickers won his first career Cup series race, with Kasey Kahne finishing second and Kurt Busch third. David Gilliland won the pole but was quickly passed by teammate Dale Jarrett, and the lead changed 63 times, with Dale Earnhardt Jr. leading the most laps. On the final lap, Earnhardt Jr. and Jimmie Johnson crashed after Vickers made contact with Johnson, and the race ended under caution; NASCAR declared Vickers the winner, though he was later criticized for how the crash affected Johnson’s points. Afterward, Jeff Burton still led the Drivers’ Championship but his lead shrank due to a flat tire late in the race, while Chevrolet stayed on top of the Manufacturers’ standings. Talladega Superspeedway is a NASCAR track with four turns and a length of 2.66 miles, with steep banking in the turns and less banking on the straightaways. Before the 2006 UAW-Ford 500, Jeff Burton led the Drivers’ Championship, Chevrolet was leading the Manufacturers’ Championship, and Dale Jarrett was the defending race champion. After the previous Talladega race, the track was starting to crack and cause car handling problems, so it was resurfaced, including the pit road and skid pad, shortly before this race. Two 60-minute practice sessions were held before the race, with Jeff Gordon fastest in the first and Robby Gordon fastest in the second. Forty-nine cars entered qualifying, but only forty-three could race; David Gilliland won his first pole, followed by teammates Jarrett, and several others failed to qualify. Speeds neared 200 mph, but NASCAR reduced restrictor-plate hole size before qualifying, which some drivers said unfairly changed performance, and no extra practice was added after the rule change. NBC began live coverage of the race on Sunday at 1:00 p.m. Eastern, with the invocation and national anthem before the drivers started engines at 2:41. Jarrett took the early lead, but it changed often through drafting, green-flag pit stops, cautions, and many lead exchanges, including major crashes on laps 72, 137, and 173 that reshuffled the running order. After multiple cautions and pit cycles, Vickers ultimately won the race thanks to the final restart on lap 178 and a late incident where Johnson and Earnhardt Jr. were clipped and sent off the track. The race ended under yellow with positions set when the caution began, giving Vickers his first career win, though he was booed by the crowd. Vickers celebrated his first career win in Victory Lane, and while Earnhardt quickly forgave him for the last-lap incident, Johnson and Johnson’s crew chief were more upset, saying Vickers caused a crash and lacked the talent to understand his impact. Vickers defended his actions as helping a teammate and denied he drove more aggressively because he was leaving Hendrick Motorsports, while Kurt Busch said Vickers was put in a “Catch-22” by not expecting the blocking to last as long as it did. The race result kept Burton ahead in the Drivers’ Championship, while Gordon felt the lap-137 accident “pretty much” ended his title chances. In the Manufacturers’ standings, Chevrolet moved to 231 points, Dodge to 180, and Ford to 179, and since the race finished under caution, no official margin of victory was recorded.