TALLADEGA, Ala. — The late Barney Hall once said, “They don’t race ’em anywhere in the world like they do at Talladega,” and there’s truth to that statement.
Restrictor plate racing, while polarizing to some, is beloved by many in the NASCAR nation for its unpredictability and intensity. A byproduct of the use of restrictor plates, the racing consists of cars packed together racing inches apart three, four and sometimes five-wide, at 200 mph.
Brad Keselowski summed up plate racing as a “balance of daredevils and chess players” and said that Talladega is a “daredevil style of track.”
“…racing has always been that balance of daredevils and chess players. Some weekends we’re chess players, some weekends we’re daredevils,” Keselowski said. “(Talladega) has always been the more daredevil style of track, which probably offsets some of the tracks that we go to where we’re the chess player.”
This type of racing is done exclusively at Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway, both of which were built to serve as cathedrals of speed.
Talladega is essentially an enlarged version of Daytona, being 2.66 miles in length to Daytona’s 2.5. It’s also wider, allowing for four to five-wide racing, whereas the narrow confines of Daytona restrict pack racing to three-wide racing.
Beyond the size, you’d almost think there was no difference in racing at either track. That’s unless you ask NASCAR XFINITY Series driver Elliott Sadler.
“To me, it’s a big difference,” Sadler said. “It is restrictor plate racing and we have the bumpers all lined up. But Daytona, there are some handling characteristics involved. The turns are a lot tighter. The course is a lot more narrow. The tri-oval is more of a sharp corner. You have some handling characteristics where two-wide is good, but three-wide is not real good at Daytona. We can run three and four-wide around here (at Talladega) all day long. The corners are a lot longer. It’s a little bit more banked. The tri-oval is not as sharp of a turn. So handling is not a characteristic. So what that means is more people are in play.”
