Elliott Sadler Battles to 10th-Place Finish in Wild Race at Talladega
Elliott Sadler and the No. 2 OneMain Financial team scored a hard-fought 10th-place finish at Talladega Superspeedway on Saturday afternoon. After rain forced NASCAR officials to cancel qualifying on Friday, the OneMain Financial team lined up in the the pole position as the field was set based on owner point standings. The green flag dropped, and Sadler immediately teamed up with the No. 18 car to tandem draft around the 2.66-mile superspeedway. The duo remained hooked up for much of the race, with Sadler leading eight laps. As the temperature at the track rose to 90 degrees, the No. 2 Chevrolet ran hot as well, requiring the team to continually manage the car's water and oil temperatures. On lap 91, while maintaining his position in the top-10, Sadler told crew chief Luke Lambert the OneMain Financial Chevrolet was getting too hot as he moved out of the draft to get clean air to the car and fell back to the 24th position. The field slowed for a caution on lap 109, and Sadler sustained minor damage to the front bumper of the Chevrolet. With four laps remaining, Sadler narrowly missed a spinning car as the race was brought to caution, setting up the first attempt at a green-white-checkered finish. The field resumed the green-flag conditions, and another multi-car accident forced Sadler to go low to move out of the way, and he made contact with another car. The red flag came out as the safety crews cleaned up the incident, and the Lambert-led team developed a plan to repair the damage on the front of car. The OneMain Financial crew worked diligently to repair the Chevrolet when the yellow flag was displayed, and on the final green-white-checkered laps, Sadler moved from 20th to the 10th position, posting his seventh top-10 finish of the 2012 season.
ELLIOTT SADLER QUOTE:
"A tough day for the OneMain Financial team, but at Talladega Superspeedway, you never know what is going to happen. We worked hard for that 10th-place finish. I had a great drafting partner for much of the day with Joey Logano, but we just got hot there at the end of the race and couldn't cool down. I'm proud of everyone on our team. We are a bunch of racers, and we will come back at Darlington Raceway next week even more hungry for a win."
