Entry List

• (R) denotes rookie driver

The Big One

Tony Stewart won the race off of pit road and he led the field to the restart with 51 laps to go. With 47 to go, the big one struck in turn 1 in one of the most unusual ways and in one of the dumbest moves in NASCAR history. Kevin Lepage had recently made a pit stop and had just gotten off of pit road. Lepage came off as soon as the pack was at full speed through the tri-oval. Instead of staying below the yellow line until he was at a good enough speed to merge onto the track like on the backstretch, Lepage thought it would be a good idea to merge right onto the track heading into turn 1, right in front of the whole pack of over 20 cars that were going at speeds of nearly 190 miles per hour. Lepage's spotter warned him constantly about the oncoming pack but Lepage never listened and it was unfortunately too late. Cars began to swerve to miss Lepage but almost no one missed Lepage. Mike Wallace swerved up at almost the last second to avoid Lepage and ended up turning David Reutimann while the car that was behind Wallace with that being Carl Edwards ran into the rear of Lepage's car head on causing the front of Edwards' car to bounce off the ground and destroying the whole rear of Lepage's car and ultimately triggered the big one. The wreck took out many good cars who were running in the top 5 or 10 and ended their days. The wreck collected a total of 16 cars. The wreck even baffled commentators Jerry Punch, Andy Petree, and Dale Jarrett. The wreck collected Mike Wallace, Patrick Carpentier, Jason Keller, Kyle Busch, Stephen Leicht, Reed Sorenson, Kenny Wallace, Cale Gale, Kyle Krisiloff, Kelly Bires, Marcos Ambrose, Carl Edwards, Kevin Lepage, Steve Wallace, Brad Keselowski, and David Reutimann. The red flag was displayed that lasted for about 25 minutes. Instead of admitting to his mistake, Lepage instead blamed the spotters on the cars involved saying they should've seen him coming onto the race track and said "if they couldn't see me coming out of the pits with this red and yellow race car, then maybe they need to get new spotters." Eventually, two days after the incident, Lepage apologized and took full responsibility for causing the big one.^[8]

Final laps

Tony Stewart won the race off of pit road and he led the field to the restart with 43 laps to go. With 29 to go, the 6th caution flew for a three car crash in turn 1. It started when D. J. Kennington got loose and spun and collected Brett Rowe and Brad Coleman. Stewart led the field to the restart with 24 to go. With 19 to go, the 7th caution flew for debris. The race restarted with 15 laps to go. With 13 to go, Mike Wallace attempted to take the lead from Stewart but was unable to make it stick. Stewart held off the pack but the 8th and final caution would fly with just 5 laps to go for debris. The wreck would set up a two lap shootout. On the final lap, Stewart got far ahead of the pack but the pack would quickly catch him and Dale Earnhardt Jr. would get to Stewart's outside on the backstretch. But Junior couldn't make it stick and Tony Stewart would hold off the pack and win the race. The win would be Stewart's first at Talladega in his career. David Stremme, Bobby Hamilton Jr., Jason Leffler, and Mark Green would round out the top 5 while Dale Earnhardt Jr., Mike Bliss, Patrick Carpentier, Scott Wimmer, and Mike Wallace rounded out the top 10.^[9]