In the driver’s meeting prior to today’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Amp Energy 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, NASCAR informed the drivers that bump drafting in the turns would be prohibited during the race.

Obviously this was NASCAR’s attempt to minimize the number of wrecks and possibly “the big one” that plagues restrictor plate tracks, especially considering Carl Edward’s wild ride at the end of the spring race here.

For a while it worked. The drivers seemed to be unusually docile at the beginning of the race but once there were less than twenty laps remaining, the rules went right out the window.

The normal, exciting, Dega slicing and dicing returned to the track for the last handful of laps but the track felt the need to remind the drivers that she is in charge, twice.

First with four laps to go, Marcos Ambrose got into the back of Ryan Newman and as Newman spun, the back end of his No. 39 Chevrolet lifted off the ground and did a very long series of end-over-end flips including one that ended with his car on Kevin Harvick’s hood. A couple drivers, including Newman’s teammate and car owner Tony Stewart, suffered damage during the incident.

After righting the No. 39, extricating Newman from it and cleaning the track, the field got set for a green-white-checkered dash, but Lady Luck was not done with these drivers at Dega.

As the pack headed for the stripe and the white flag, Brad Keselowski tagged Kurt Busch and sent him hurtling across the track. Mark Martin got collected and did a barrel role before landing back on the tires and continued to slide across the track. Numerous drivers got caught up in the melee including Jeff Gordon and Stewart.

In the end, Jamie McMurray got the win, his third in the Cup Series.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve won,” McMurray said in Victory Lane, after a very smoky burnout. “I just can’t believe its here again.”

Kasey Kahne finished 2nd to McMurray after struggling badly early on and Joey Logano finished 3rd.

Jimmie Johnson now has a 187 point lead over Martin after finishing 6th.

“We made it,” he simply said after the race.

Johnson stayed in the back of the pack most of the day in an attempt to avoid wrecks, luckily he managed to avoid them all and earned a top-10 finish after wrecking in seven of the last 11 races at Talladega.

Martin was clearly disgruntled after being released from the infield care center.

“Congratulations to Jamie McMurray and that’s about all I know about the whole race,” he said.

The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series now heads to Texas for the third to last race of the 2009 season.

AMP Energy 500 Results

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