Cup stars disagree on Talladega issue

Two of NASCAR’s biggest stars offered differing opinions Tuesday on how the sport can control the racing at Talladega Superspeedway.

Three-time defending Cup champion Jimmie Johnson called for a radical transformation of the racetrack, while Hendrick Motorsports teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. said alterations are not feasible.

The racing at the 2.66-mile Alabama superspeedway is again under scrutiny after Carl Edwards’ airborne crash into the safety fence on the last lap of Sunday’s race. It was the most frightening of three accidents, including a 10-car pileup that knocked Johnson out of the race with nine laps to go.

Because the track is so big and wide that drivers never have to lift off the gas, Johnson said Tuesday that NASCAR cannot remove the horsepower-sapping restrictor plates that are used to combat the high speeds at Daytona and Talladega. That leaves a track alteration as his only suggestion.

“I don’t know how we fix it unless we take a bunch of tractors out there and knock down the walls, knock down the banking and make the track where you have to let off (the gas),” Johnson said. “Outside of that, I don’t think there is a rule that NASCAR can come up with. As long as we’re running (restrictor) plates, we’re going to have this issue.”

Earnhardt, NASCAR’s most popular driver, said track alterations aren’t possible.

“There’s no way you can justify it under the current economic state of the sport, of the track itself, of the company that owns the track,” he said. “Nothing from that wreck really stands out to me as, ‘Wow, we got to make a change here or something needs to be done,’ other than the car getting off the ground and people getting hurt. As far as the wreck itself, trying to avoid it from happening, I don’t see how you can.”

NASCAR officials have already dismissed altering the racetrack.

• OBITS — David Poole, who spent 13 years covering NASCAR for The Charlotte Observer, died of a heart attack. He was 50.

Poole was stricken at his Stanfield, N.C., home and his daughter called 911, the paper said. He was transported to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Poole, who also hosted “The Morning Drive” weekday show on Sirius NASCAR Radio, was a four-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association’s writer of the year award.

Also, Danny Kladis, the oldest former Indianapolis 500 driver, died Sunday at age 92 in Joliet, Ill., Indianapolis Motor Speedway said.

Kladis made his only start at Indy in 1946 and finished 21st in a car entered by Andy Granatelli and his brothers.

• MCCLURE SENTENCED — A federal judge in Abingdon, Va., handed an 18-month prison sentence to a co-founder of Morgan-McClure Motorsports who the government said accepted bags of cash to avoid taxes.

Larry Allen McClure also was ordered to pay more than $125,000 in restitution, fines and investigative costs, the government said.