Preview of the Good Sam Club 500 at Talladega Superspeedway
This Sundays race is the Good Sam Club 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. Its Talladega Baby!
NASCAR Camping World Truck Series driver Ron Hornaday (33) flips during the Mountain Dew 250 at the Talladega Superspeedway. MarkJ. Rebilas-US PRESSWIRE
The Talladega Superspeedway is the biggest and fastest track on the NASCAR Sprint Cup schedule. The track is a 2 and 5/8 mile tri-oval with 33 degrees of banking in the turns, 6.5 degrees in the front stretch. Unlike all the other tracks the start and finish line is actually at the end of the front stretch instead of the middle. This makes for some really exciting finishes.
Talladega is known as one of the restrictor plate tracks where drafting and pack racing is the norm except since the debut of the new cars, two car tandems have been prevalent. This style of drafting is where two cars following each other are 2 to 4 MPH faster than a group of cars doing the same. Although exciting to watch this style of drafting leaves a lot of cars out of contention at the end of the race. NASCAR has made some changes in hopes of eliminating or reducing this style of drafting. To read more about this read my article from earlier this week. http://www.rantsports.com/nascar/2011/10/18/will-the-2-car-tandem-be-gone-at-talladega
To the casual fan of both NASCAR and Indy Car racing, the pictures above of a Stock Car going airborne may not appear to be much different than that of an Indy Car doing the same. In that context, comments by people in NASCAR about the circumstances around the 15 car accident in the Indy Car race last Sunday, were not warranted and were not good for either sport, whether they were accurate or not. There is an irony that the very next weekend NASCAR is going to a track where cars can and do sometimes go airborne. If you are watching on TV this weekend expect much of the commentary explaining the difference between when IRL cars are airborne and NASCAR car (or trucks) are airborne. Especially if we see cars or trucks in both races airborne like last October.
I expect the racing this weekend to be a combination of pack racing and 2-car tandem racing. Some teams will chance the tandem while others will ride along in a pack in the back. At the end of the race there may be some drivers willing to risk all by doing the 2-car tandem to win the race, as such there might be a lot of overheated cars and engine failures. Especially if some have committed to it, toasted their engines, only to see the race continued by a Green White Checker finish.
I wouldn’t even begin to pick a winner, nor try to figure where the Chase contenders will finish in this race. Put their numbers in a hat and draw.
If you cannot get to the track, the race will be on ESPN at 2 PM ET. Follow me on Twitter
@brian_jr1 during the race. Who do you think will win? Please let me know by Ranting below:
PS It wouldn’t surprise me to see Kurt Busch and Brad Keselowski risk all to take the checkered flag.
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I am eager to see the first practice today to see how long the tandems can stay together. Also, with the 7-10 hp gained by the extra 1/64″ make it less worth while to hook up until the last lap?
We will know tonight but some teams might not show their hands till race day. Supposedly some teams were using new pop off valves yesterday while testing fuel injection. Have not heard about any results though.