Dale Earnhardt Jr: There’s no fixing NASCAR Talladega crashfests

Gentlemen, start your pontificating and your wringing of hands.

Here is the postscript from last weekend’s NASCAR race at Talladega Superspeedway and Demolition Derby Proving Ground in rural Alabama:

• 40 cars on the starting grid.

• 35 cars involved in at least one wreck.

• $10 million worth of wadded up sheet metal.

• Multiple forecasts of impending thundershowers.

• One steering wheel that came right off.*

• Two dead.**

* (Might have gone unreported, if it wasn’t Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s steering wheel.)

** (They weren’t drivers. Two guys were found deceased in a camper at Talladega, which is terribly sad, but which also has been known to happen down there.)

In the aftermath of the Crash Test Dummy 500, or whatever they called it, a lot of folks on and off the track expressed concerns about hell-bent racing in 200 mph packs with bad weather on the way, as if this was the first time that had ever happened, or the first time guys wound up on their lids in these restrictor-plate races.

When Kyle Busch, winner of a bazillion races and the reigning series champion, says he would rather stay home and work on his stamp collection than watch his knuckles turn white in a 2oo mph pack, it’s worth noting.

But — and not to sound too callous here — if auto racing wasn’t dangerous (to a reasonable extent), even fewer people would watch on TV than are watching now. Most people like the crashes. There. I said it.

“I think everybody just needs to chill,” Earnhardt Jr. said on Sirius XM Radio after the smoke had cleared, and after Smoke — Tony Stewart — had turned his car over to a relief driver. “There’s really no reason to make a knee-jerk reaction to what we saw Sunday … there’s no fix. The cars are going to draft, and they’re going to stay close together.”

As for his steering wheel falling off, Junior said that was his fault for not connecting it the right way. He said there is a fix for that — connect it the right way next time.

CYCLING THROUGH

There will be a lot of whoop-de-do — and don’t forget the spectacular, high-flying jumps — when the AMA Supercross and Arenacross motorcycle riders do it in the dirt this weekend in Las Vegas.

Three AMSOIL Arenacross riders (Gavin Faith, Chris Blose and Jacob Hayes) will battle for the championship at 8 p.m. today at The Orleans. Arenacross moves to The Orleans from the South Point this year, because there’s more room for whoop-de-doos and high-flying jumps at The Orleans.

Then on Saturday, the three Monster Energy Supercross tours will convene for their traditional season-enders at Sam Boyd Stadium.

Ryan Dungey already has clinched his third career title in the featured 450SX division, while East meets West in the 250SX East-West Shootout on the undercard. Three riders from the East Coast tour and three from the West will decide those championships. Racing over the whoop-de-doos and jumps starts at 6:30 p.m.

GREEN-WHITE-CHECKERED

• Like that old CB radio song said, they had a little ol’ convoy, rockin’ through the Las Vegas Motor Speedway Bullring night on Saturday. Then it rained. After waiting out multiple weather delays, Cory McMeakin of Calgary, Alberta, held off last year’s winner, Isaac Harder, to win a 40-lap North American Big Rig Racing feature. Other class winners on a rain-slick track were Don Sargent in twin Super Stock main events; 14-year-old Zack St. Onge in the Southwest Tour Truck Series; R.J. Smotherman in Bandits; Kayla Eshleman in Outlaws; Robert Smotherman in Skid Plate; Cameron Morga in Legends; and Chris Bosley in Thunder Cars. Sam Jacks and Michael Greve split feature races in the Bombers division. Next up at the Bullring: Gaming Industry Night (free admission for hotel and casino workers) on May 14.

• Astute observers of the local auto racing scene may have noticed that Jim Freudenberg, CEO of the Grand Prix of Boston IndyCar race that recently was canceled, had a similar position with the Vegas Grand Prix, which was mothballed after one year in 2007. Will Power, who has gone on to a wildly successful IndyCar career, won the only race staged on a temporary downtown street circuit in Las Vegas. Despite being held on Easter weekend, the Vegas Grand Prix drew a nice crowd (estimated at 40,000) to downtown rooftops. But people who were trying to check out of the Golden Nugget complained when the taxis that would take them to the airport got lapped in traffic by Paul Tracy and Simon Pagenaud.

• Brendan Gaughan drove the South Point Chevrolet to a fifth-place finish in Saturday’s Xfinity Series race at Talladega Superspeedway and Demolition Derby Proving Ground in rural Alabama. It was the local driver’s first top 5 finish of the season. Plus, he did not wind up on his lid like so many of the other drivers. On his Twitter feed, Gaughan posted a photo of his flight on the way home showing an almost empty airplane and said he damn near won the lottery.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. His motor sports notebook runs on Friday. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski