NASCAR Cup Series

The 1998 Diehard 500 at Talladega Superspeedway was a memorable race for Bobby Labonte. With two laps to go he passed his brother Terry coming out of Turn 2 going down the backstretch and held off a hard-charging Jimmy Spencer to win from the pole.

Paul Menard will pilot Chassis No. 388 from the Richard Childress Racing NASCAR Sprint Cup Series stable. This No. 27 Chevrolet was last seen on track at Daytona International Speedway in February, where Menard earned a sixth-place finish in the Daytona 500.

Kevin Harvick will pilot Chassis No. 238 from the Richard Childress Racing NASCAR Sprint Cup Series stable. This chassis was most recently driven by Elliott Sadler at Daytona International Speedway in February as the No. 33 RCR Chevrolet, and was utilized in 2011 by the No. 31 team.

In an attempt to help streamline its presence on Twitter, Martinsville Speedway has adopted a new handle for the social media platform. Beginning immediately Martinsville Speedway’s Twitter handle is @MartinsvilleSwy, moving away from @ms1947.

Two-time Daytona 500 champion Michael Waltrip gets help this weekend from nine-year-old Emery Beavis of Dyerbury, Tenn., who designed the No.55 Toyota’s paint scheme. Beavis won the grand-prize in the Aaron’s “2012 Color Your Way to Talladega” contest.

With a total of 19 starts at Talladega, McMurray has one victory (2009), accumulating five top-five and six top-10 finishes at the 2.66-mile tri-oval. McMurray has an average starting position of 20.4 and an average finishing position of 19.8.

With temperatures expected to approach 90 degrees at Talladega Superspeedway this weekend, overheating may be an issue. But in a perfect world, Jeff Gordon wants the engine in his No. 24 DuPont "20 Years" Chevrolet to "blow up."

In 2,192 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series starts dating back to 1969, Richard Childress Racing has amassed 100 wins, 430 top-five finishes, 891 top-10 finishes and 42 pole awards, with an average starting position of 17.9 and an average finishing position of 15.8 among all races contested.

"“I think this is the most I have ever looked forward to going to Talladega. Our Speedweeks in Daytona was really good with Carl and Greg starting on the front row, and our 17 team being able to win our qualifying race and the 500. I feel like as a group we had, throughout all of Speedweeks, really fast race cars."

“I’m really looking forward to Talladega; we had such a good run at Daytona. We feel like the Roush-Yates engines will be the talk of the weekend again about how fast our cars will be in Talladega. I’m hoping for good side-by-side racing, big-pack racing, sort of like it was at Daytona."