TALLADEGA, Ala.– “Sweet home Alabama, where the skies are so blue. Sweet home Alabama, Lord, NASCAR’s coming home to you.”
This week, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series makes its first of two trips to the Alabama roulette wheel in Lincoln, Alabama known as Talladega Superspeedway. The 188 lap race on the 2.66-mile (4.28 km) superspeedway will be the 10th race of the 2016 season.
In 1959, Daytona International Speedway opened its doors. Bill France Sr. built the speedway to be NASCAR’s cathedral of speed. Over the years, it’s grown into one of the great cathedrals of auto racing.
But only a year later, France wanted to build a speedway that would be bigger and faster than Daytona. He first attempted to do so with Occoneechee Speedway just outside Hillsborough, North Carolina but gave up after stiff resistance from the local religious authorities. After failing to find land in Raleigh, he then turned to the stretch of land along Interstate 20 between Atlanta and Birmingham, Alabama. He eventually acquired what used to be Anniston Air Force Base in Lincoln, Alabama and broke ground on May 23, 1968, on what would become the “Alabama International Motor Speedway.” In 1989, the name of the track was changed to the present-day Talladega Superspeedway.
On paper, Talladega is essentially a larger version of Daytona. It’s 6.4 percent bigger than the “World Center of Racing.” Talladega’s turns are banked at 33 degrees versus 31 degrees at Daytona. The tri-oval at Talladega, however, has a 16.5-degree bank, which is 1.5 degrees lower than the tri-oval at Daytona. The biggest difference is that, while the start/finish line is in the center of the tri-oval at Daytona, the start/finish line at Talladega is actually just past the exit of pit road toward turn 1. After the first Daytona 500, France noticed that while seats in the tri-oval were an easy sell, the seats down toward turn 1 at Daytona were a harder sell. To make selling the seats toward turn 1 at Talladega easier, he decided to put the start/finish line past pit road toward turn 1.
At the end of the day, though, Daytona and Talladega race largely the same. Mastering the draft is key to winning at both tracks.
Now let’s talk about drafting. Drafting is the act of two or more vehicles or moving objects lining up to reduce the effect of drag and to exploit a leading car’s slipstream. This also reduces the energy expenditure which translates into using up less fuel.
Handling, especially in the turns, is affected by cars drafting. The lead car has less rear downforce while the trailing car has less front downforce. A car(s) in between the lead and trailing cars will have less downforce on both ends.
The practice of drafting was first used in the 1960 Daytona 500 by Junior Johnson who discovered that drafting in the wake of others cars helped him overcome the lack of horsepower in his Chevrolet to win the race.
Over the years, more and more drivers began picking up the practice and began exploiting it to their advantage.
Drafting in its modern form took hold after the implementation of restrictor plates. At first, it was typically more single-file trains with drivers using slingshot moves to pass the car in front. Since Talladega in October of 2000, the norm started becoming more of the three, four and sometimes five-wide racing we love.
There are three drivers who I consider the masters of restrictor plate racing.
Nobody drove Talladega better than Dale Earnhardt who won 10 races at the Alabama Roulette Wheel (eight of them being during the restrictor plate era). Combined with his three wins at Daytona, he sits second on NASCAR’s all-time list of restrictor plate points-paying race winners. When you take non-points races into account, that number jumps well into the 40s.
Next is the son of the seven-time Sprint Cup Series champion Dale Earnhardt Jr. In his career, he’s amassed 10 restrictor plate wins with six at Talladega and four at Daytona. He once won four consecutive races at Talladega from 2001 to 2003. Ironically, in spite of his prowess on the plate tracks, he went 10 years without winning a plate race. In the last two years, he’s begun to reestablish his place as the pied-piper of Daytona and Talladega. Last year alone, he finished third, first, first and second in the plate races. Given that he’s the odds-on favorite at 6/1 this weekend (Vegas Insider), I’m not the only one who sees his ability in restrictor plate races.
The last driver I consider a master of restrictor-plate racing was Jeff Gordon. With six wins at Talladega and six at Daytona, Gordon retired as the winningest restrictor plate driver in the history of NASCAR. Ironically, with all his wins, Daytona and Talladega were among his bottom-four tracks in terms of average finish. In terms of laps led, it was also middle of the pack among the tracks he raced at. But in terms of running at the finish and lead lap finishes, the plate tracks were among his best.
These three drivers wrote the book on drafting and have raced through the evolution of the draft from slingshot moves to packs of cars running three, four and even five-wide. They’ve also experienced their share of being caught in “The Big One.”
A perfect example of The Big One is this wreck from the 2012 Good Sam Roadside Assistance 500.
As you saw in the video, these guys were getting bunched up in rows of four-wide lines of cars as they raced to the finish. One miscalculation as we saw with Tony Stewart sent him spinning and caused the huge wreck. If you should survive The Big One, you’re that much closer to winning at Talladega.
Talladega isn’t just known for wrecks. It’s also known for amazing finishes. Here’s one of my personal favorites from the 2001 Talladega 500.
The late Bobby Hamilton used the draft to move by race leader Tony Stewart coming to the white flag and drove on to score the victory. If you ever get the chance, look up the race on YouTube and watch it from start to finish. You won’t be disappointed.
Tune into the GEICO 500 Sunday at 1 p.m. Eastern on FOX or at noon on MRN Radio and SiriusXM (subscription required for the latter). I’m on assignment this weekend, so I’ll be bringing you all the happenings on location in the media center at the Alabama roulette wheel.
