Changes needed at 'Dega before tragedy strikes

TALLADEGA, Ala. -- Guilty as charged.

For years, the debate has raged about whether racing is safe at Talladega Superspeedway. Heck, the debate raged before NASCAR held its very first race at the 2.66-mile track in 1969 -- when a group of marquee drivers led by none other than Richard Petty boycotted the place because they didn't think the tires they were running on would hold up under the strain of the high speeds the unique configuration produced.

Eight fans injured

Carl Edwards walked away from his horrific crash but one lady in the stands was air-lifted to the hospital with injuries from flying debris.

• Complete story
• Final Laps: Edwards gets air
• Dr. Lewis reports on spectators
• Edwards on his dramatic wreck
• Newman criticizes car safety
• Junior wants yellow line to stay

It raged furiously in 1987 when Bobby Allison's car fish-tailed and went tail-first into the safety fence on the frontstretch -- eerily close to the same place and in the same manner that Carl Edwards' car soared during a final-lap wreck at the Aaron's 499 race on Sunday. Allison's wreck led to NASCAR mandating restrictor plates for the races at Daytona and Talladega, which was supposed to slow down the drivers and keep their cars from flying through the air.

That was 22 years ago.

But always -- before and since Allison, before and after restrictor plates were added to the mix -- the racing at Talladega was highly entertaining for the stout hearted.

Others swore it off, but for many of us -- this writer included -- we just couldn't get enough of the mayhem that is a race at Talladega. But now, even our eyes have been opened wide.

The drivers are still pushing 200 miles an hour down the straightaways at 'Dega, which isn't far off what they were doing when Allison's wreck occurred nearly two decades ago. And after watching in horror as Edwards' car flew with reckless, uncontrollable abandon toward a packed grandstand on Sunday, spewing fence pieces and car parts through the air unimpeded, isn't it time for something to be done?

Edwards certainly thought so after the race.

"Hopefully they can do something somehow to change this style of racing," Edwards said. "I guess we'll do this until somebody gets killed and then we'll change it, but that's the way it is." (Continued)