It’s hard to know what to make of the kind of racing that goes on at Talladega Superspeedway.
It’s all but impossible to take your eyes off of a pack of 35 or 40 cars running inches apart at about 190 m.p.h. A driver can be leading one lap, then be 28th and holding on for dear life the next time by.
It’s insanity, actually.
Is it the kind of insanity NASCAR needs now? Or does it set the bar at a place no other track can hope to match?
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The biggest problem with the Sprint Cup Series is it’s becoming predictable. You don’t know the name of the driver who’s going to win most races, but most of the time you know it’s going to be the guy who comes off pit road first with four tires on the final stop.
Nothing is predictable about Sunday’s Aaron’s 499 at this 2.66-mile track.
The lineup will be set during qualifying on Saturday, but that won’t mean beans when it comes to how the race will go. Pit stops will matter Sunday only if you mess up badly enough to go a lap down, which is nearly impossible, or if everybody makes one right before a short run to the checkered flag.
Last fall, Juan Pablo Montoya was leading as he ran ahead of the inside lane down the backstretch and into Turn 3. But an outside line formed and as it roared toward the lead somebody made a mistake — in this instance, it was Carl Edwards. Instantly it was a big wreck, a big mess and a big change in how things played out.
If you want unpredictability, Talladega is NASCAR’s central distribution warehouse.
Only at Talladega can you ask a driver if he’d rather not have the lead going into the final lap and not have it considered to be an absurd question.
“The bigger the pack the more danger there is being in the front,” Jeff Burton said. “If something happens with three laps to go and the first four break away, then being in the front is not as dangerous. Being in the front is dangerous when the guys in front can get momentum and come get you.”
That, of course, is what makes this place so compelling to watch.
“My friends, whether they are race fans or not race fans, they want to come to Talladega and I think it’s because they hear me talk about it or they’ve seen it on TV,” Jeff Gordon said. “They know it’s a spectacular event and all I can say is that you have to come experience it for yourself to really fully understand it.”