Predictability isn't really an issue at Talladega

THATSRACIN.COM OPINION

Friday, Apr. 24, 2009

TALLADEGA, Ala. - It's hard to know what to make of the kind of racing that goes on a Talladega Superspeedway.

It's all but impossible to take your eyes off of a pack of 35 or 40 cars running inches apart at around 190 mph. A driver can be leading one lap, then be 28th and holding on for dear life the next time by.

It's insanity, actually.

But is it precisely the kind of insanity NASCAR needs right now? Or does it set the bar at a place that no other track can hope to match?

The biggest problem with the Sprint Cup Series right now is that 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.

That's just as predictable as Formula One, where the first car to make it safely through the first turn is almost a cinch to win unless something odd happens.

Nothing is predictable about Sunday's Aaron's 499 at this 266-mile track.

The starting lineup will be set in qualifying Saturday, but that won't mean beans when it comes to how the race will actually go. Pit stops will matter Sunday only if you mess up badly enough to go a lap down, which is nigh on impossible, or if everybody makes one right before a short run to the checkered flag.

Last fall, Juan Pablo Montoya was leading here as he ran ahead of the inside lane down the backstretch and into Turn 3. But an outside line formed up 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 can get momentum and come get you."

That’s what happened to Montoya in the last race here. The wreck caught up to him. No place is safe. 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.

"I don't know a single fan that has been to Talladega who doesn’t want to go back, and when they do leave they are in awe of just how spectacular that race and that event is.

"I say they should have been where I was sitting."

Actually, it's scarier in the grandstands than it is in the seat of the car. It has to be. If it weren't, nobody in his right mind would be willing to do this.

"It looks like a lot of fun to me," Jason Leffler said Friday after he qualified fourth for Saturday's Nationwide race while watching Sprint Cup practice on TV. "Inside the race car it's not as crazy as it looks. Everybody pretty much knows what his car is going to do, except for when he doesn't - and that's when you have the big wreck."

If Sunday's race has a big wreck and a wild finish, maybe the television ratings won't be down and maybe fans won't spend next week talking about how bad the racing was. Maybe there will be controversy about who did this or who shouldn't have done that. Talladega usually provides at least a little bit of all of that.

But is it part of NASCAR's problem that fans expect that kind of action every weekend and swear that stock-car racing is on the road to hell when they don't get it?

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