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Home > Track Information / Schedules > Old Tracks and Race Schedules > Talladega Superspeedway

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Observations | It felt a lot like Bristol

DAVID POOLE

The Charlotte Observer

Sunday, Oct. 07, 2007

Some observations on Sunday's Talladega race from David Poole of The Charlotte Observer and ThatsRacin.com:

With all the hype about how wild this race was going to be, several of us in the press box Sunday morning starting talking about how it had started to feel like Bristol. Everybody expected so much that night, and the race didn’t live up to the build-up. That’s how it turned out this time, too, although the finish was certainly memorable.

So many cars that ran so well in the first two-thirds of the race wound up wrecked or in the garage with mechanical issues. It was almost like the more you ran up front, the more you were tempting fate. Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, meanwhile, made the rope-a-dope pay off.

Gordon has now won 12 restrictor-plate races, more than any other driver. Sunday’s win broke a tie with the Dale Earnhardt for first on that list.

Put yourself in Tony Stewart’s shoes. He’s leading on Lap 175, but there’s no way he can block freight trains coming up to either side of him. He gets shuffled back, but rallies in the final eight-lap run and is coming to the front when Gordon pulls out right in front of Stewart. Stewart can’t slow down, so he slams into the back of Gordon’s car and gives Gordon the push that effectively wins the race. Stewart loses a whisker’s worth of momentum and winds up eighth. It has to be maddening.

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TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY

TRACK FACTS
Date Opened: September, 1969
First NWCS Race: Talladega 500, September 14, 1969
Qualifying Record: Bill Elliott, 212.809 mph (44.998 sec.), 4/30/87
Race Record: Mark Martin, 188.354 mph, 5/10/97
Owner: ISC
President: Grant Lynch
Phone: (256) 362-2261
Tickets: (256) 362-7223
Shipping Address:
3366 Speedway Blvd.
Talladega, AL 35160
Mailing Address:
PO Box 777
Talladega, AL 35161

TRACK CONFIGURATION
Distance: 2.66 Mile Tri-oval
Banking in Turns 1-4: 33º
Banking on Tri-oval: 18º
Banking on Backstretch: 2º
Length of Frontstretch: 4,300 ft.
Length of Backstretch: 4,000 ft.
Grandstand Seating: 138,000
Miles/Laps: 500 mi. = 188 laps