To many, the name Talladega is just as important as Indianapolis or Daytona. A win here is as important to a driver as winning at either of those other two racetracks.
The 2.66-mile, high-banked oval is a throwback to stock car racing’s roots, to a time when the only way to make cars go faster was to race them on a big, wide racetrack. Built on the site of a former Indian burial ground a stone’s throw north of Talladega, Ala., it was designed to be a true test of both man and machine. Today it stands as an anomaly to stock car racers. It’s unlike anything or anywhere else where they race.
Carl Edwards has a clear opinion of racing at Talladega Superspeedway.
“Man, I have a love-hate relationship with that place,” said the Roush Fenway Racing driver who sits sixth in NASCAR Sprint Cup points.
Last weekend, NASCAR’s premier series raced on the tight half-mile, paperclip-shaped Martinsville Speedway. This weekend, the racing action moves to Talladega for race seven of 10 in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
The challenge of racing on the series’ shortest track then racing on its longest on successive weekends isn’t lost on the drivers who compete in the Sprint Cup Series.
“I’m always a little nervous about Talladega,” said Edwards, who watched his championship hopes fade in 2008 after being involved in a big wreck there.
It is that wreck, as much as anything, that has drivers concerned about racing this weekend.
“If you go up and down the garage and talk to any driver...there are four restrictor-plate races a year and each driver will be in one wreck per year, guaranteed,” said Biffle, Edwards' teammate who's seen more than his share of wrecks at Talladega, including one in his very first race. “I’d be willing to stand behind that stat. I haven’t looked it up, but I’d be willing to stand firmly behind it.”
There’s absolutely nothing in a driver’s resume that prepares him for Talladega Superspeedway, other than their first race. It’s a discipline of racing that can’t be taught beforehand. This place calls for on-the-job training.
It’s NASCAR racing nearly out of control, on the edge and it’s the sport’s most popular style of racing.
“That’s our sport, that’s what we do and people love it,” Biffle said. “That’s just the way it is.”
Talladega Superspeedway is where restrictor-plate racing was born out of a need for slowing the cars down at the track following a spectacular crash that sent NASCAR Hall of Famer Bobby Allison’s car literally flying into the frontstretch grandstands. Racing with a restrictor plate slows the car by choking off the air needed for the engine, robbing it of valuable horsepower. That translates into large packs of cars running three-, four- and five-wide, inches apart, at 200 mph. Then they add in bumping as a bump into or a bump by another car can actually help both you and the other driver – or cause a melee.
Talladega is synonymous for spectacular wrecks. While it offers some of the most exciting racing in all of motorsports it also is notorious for its multi-car wrecks.
They’ve even been given a name.
The Big One
As a driver, going in, you just accept that there is going to be a big wreck at Talladega. Or two. Or three.
A driver knows that in most instances, the Big One is the product of someone else’s actions. It has very little to do with a driver’s reactions.
“You can see it coming, kind of,” said Biffle. “It’s really hard ... you can’t avoid the accident. Normally you see cars spinning in front of you. And it happens so fast.”
A driver is limited to how he can react because of the speed and how close he’s running next to the other guy. And he’s racing on hard tires, designed to withstand the sustained high speeds and running in a straight line, not quick maneuvers. The combination of fast and close is a recipe for disaster.
So getting caught up in the big one is less about something you didn’t do, but more because of something you were unable to do. You can see it unfolding in front of you and you want to slow down, but you can’t slow down quick enough. You can anticipate it happening to the right or left of you. And you can’t just turn the wheel because of the hard tires, the speed and the proximity of the cars around you.
A hard-hitting experience
“If people really want to know really what it’s like,” Biffle began, “think about driving down the freeway at 55, 60, 65 miles per hour and then veer down into the medium and hit one of those large concrete uprights that holds the bridge up at 60 (mph). That’s the same thing for us hitting each other at 180 (mph). If anybody wants to get a feel for it, that would be pretty much be what it’s like.”
“So, everybody can experience it. I recommend putting a helmet on, first. Then, hold on tight because you’re going to get hit again.”
Four-time Sprint Cup champion and six-time Talladega winner Jeff Gordon describes the Big One as being in a gigantic pinball machine.
“The ones I've been in just seem like one big mass of cars bouncing off one another,” said Gordon. “You're running so close to one another that it just takes the slightest little bobble by one guy and 10, 12, or 15 cars are in it. And that's the part about Talladega that's not fun.”
Today’s stock cars are so aerodynamically sensitive and designed to travel quickly in just one direction, that any time one is turned sideways or backwards, the result is almost always disastrous.
“You’re sitting in your race car and you’re going 200 miles an hour and one person makes a terrible move and spins out or something happens and all of a sudden everybody’s eyes get wide and you’re stabbing the brakes, you’re looking in the mirror, you’re listening to your spotter, you’re trying to drive through this smoke and the worst is when you think you’ve made it through and then there’s some car that hit the wall and it catches you in the right rear, catches you in the left rear and then all hell breaks loose and your day is over,” said Edwards.
Drivers know they have to take on risk to win at Talladega. The risk is that you have to give a push or receive a push or position yourself in front of someone so that they can push you even though that may not have been their original objective.
However, drivers will also tell you that once they’re in the car, the desire to win takes over and you forget about the risk. All you care about is winning. And while there is risk associated with winning at every race, there’s more at Talladega because you cannot control your own destiny.
It is a four-hour, high-speed chess game.
No other track on the schedule evokes a more emotional response from a driver than Talladega.
“Points should not be awarded at Talladega,” said Edwards, with sincerity.
“In a fair competition they shouldn’t be (awarded) because it’s so random. It’s just a treacherous race. Now, since there are points awarded, it adds a whole other level of stress to the race. You drive around and if you’re doing really well in the points, every lap your heart is pounding and you’re just trying to predict any wrecks that might happen and the best way to avoid them.”
Strategy for winning
To win at Talladega you have to avoid the wrecks. How can you avoid being caught up in the Big One? Some teams use a strategy of racing at the back of the field for much of the race, as most big wrecks occur somewhere in the middle of the pack. But, when it’s “go time,” meaning the final 20 laps or so, you need to work your way through the middle of the field and up to the front in order to win. That’s usually not an easy task.
Then there’s the strategy of racing at the front of the field, in the top five to 10 spots. The consensus among drivers is that is where it’s safest, as long as you’ve got a car good enough to keep you there.
“We've tried both approaches and the last three years we've made it through there without any trouble,” said the current Sprint Cup champion Johnson. As a testament to the difficulty of winning at Talladega, he won only once in 17 attempts. “There is no safe place. We see a lot of teams trying to be conservative and smart and get to the end of the race. Then everybody decides with 20 (laps) to go, that it's time to race (and) you have to race. You try to get the best finish you can get and that's when the crashes are.
“I think we all feel better if we go 480 miles and then get crashed. It really sucks to crash at five miles into the race or something.”
Defending race winner Jamie McMurray has already won a restrictor-plate race this year, the season opening Daytona 500. He’s a favorite to take the checkered flag again this Sunday.
“This is a different type of racing than what we normally do, it’s even different than Daytona because handling is irrelevant here,” said McMurray. “It’s actually pretty exciting when you get the guy behind you shoving you through the corner at 200 mph because it’s a little bit hairy.”
Indeed it is.
