Well, that was fun!
After two days and a rain delay about a third of the way through, 188 laps were finally completed at Talladega Superspeedway.
It was a finish straight out of a Will Ferrell movie. The pack was stacked four wide, one car smacked the outside wall while another spun around and finished third by a rear bumper (Aric Almirola didn't need reverse like Ricky Bobby).
If every Ryan Blaney victory at Talladega is going to be by .007 seconds, where do I sign to make that happen a third straight time?
Blaney edged Ryan Newman by that margin last October and did the same Monday side by side with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. as crashing race cars followed across the finish line.
For the NASCAR newbies, that ending is fairly typical for the largest track on the circuit.
No matter how you found your way to watching Monday's race, welcome to auto racing and be sure to stay awhile.
It's a good time to get started as a NASCAR fan since a lot of the races have been competitive with eight different drivers visiting victory lane in 13 events.
But be aware the style of racing at Talladega won't come up again until the regular season ends in August at Daytona.
Between now and then, the playoff field will be determined at a variety of tracks. Everything from the speedy and winding road course at Watkins Glen to the 2.5-mile Brickyard at Indianapolis.
What needs to be noted for anyone unfamiliar with auto racing is not all races will have cars three- and four-wide, there won't always be a driver bumping someone out of the way for the win and the middle finger isn't flashed on a weekly basis.
Just like there are boring baseball and football games, there are boring NASCAR races. Don't let that deter you.
Jeff Gluck, who writes for The Athletic, posts a simple Twitter poll after each race asking if it was good. This week, 94.3 percent answered yes. The remaining 5.7 percent are impossible to please.
Monday afternoon's Talladega race is about as good as it gets.
This weekend's Cup Series doubleheader at Pocono will have quite a different feel.
The cars will be a lot more spread out on the three-turn, 2.5-mile triangle. And similar to the road course races, there will likely be several fuel strategies to keep up with. Avoid that mid-race nap.
The interest in the "Tricky Triangle" is watching the drivers maneuvering around the three types of turns and the crew chiefs coming up with a winning game plan.
Plus this weekend there's the added bonus of the teams having to do it twice in two days, which no one knows the best way to approach that.
Eventually the restrictions on fan attendance will be lifted and that's when the hook will be set for the newest additions to the NASCAR community. That first race keeps them around for a lifetime.
III
This was a tough week for some in the Riley Racing Challenge.
Setting a fantasy lineup for Talladega can be very hit and miss. The highest local score was 675 for Jefferson City's Amber Austin, who had five drivers finish in the top 10.
Since there was no "Big One" this time around, it was a little bit easier to avoid bad results for typically high-finishing drivers. My worst was Chase Elliott, who wrecked and ended up 38th. The rest of my drivers placed 20th or better, including six in the top 14 spots to score 742 points. It was difficult for the rest of the News Tribune sports staff to believe that I correctly picked John Hunter Nemechek to finish eighth, which added 25 bonus points. Those are the types of picks that need to be made during Talladega week. Although, taking a chance on Tyler Reddick (20th) didn't pan out.
For this week, a lineup only needs to be set for Sunday's Cup race. Treat Saturday as a practice day.