Aaron’s Dream Weekend, May 3-5, at Talladega Superspeedway is sponsored by Aaron’s, Inc.  Aaron’s Inc., is a leader in the sales and lease ownership and specialty retailing of residential furniture, consumer electronics, home appliances and accessories.

Aaron’s dream weekend at Talladega features Aaron’s 312 Nationwide Series race on May 4 and the Aaron’s 499 Sprint Cup Series race on May 5.  This year marks Aaron’s 14^th year as a sponsor in NASCAR, as well as the return of the No. 55 Aaron’s Dream Machine and drivers Mark Martin and Michael Waltrip.

Aaron’s Nobody Goes Hungry Campaign is underway this weekend in Talladega.  This campaign is a partnership between Aaron’s and the Community Food Bank of Central Alabama with the goal of making a positive difference in the community by collecting non-perishable food items.  Aaron’s Vice President of Marketing, Andrea Freeman released this statistic:  “In the state of Alabama, poverty and hunger are a growing concern with more than 750,000 residents struggling to survive.” She said, “Hosting an event of this magnitude gives us access to hundreds of thousands of NASCAR fans and the opportunity to make an immediate impact on the community.  We are proud to partner on this project with the Community Food Bank of Central Alabama and continue Aaron’s tradition of giving back.”

Fans can take a part in this fight against hunger and make a non-perishable donation at the Aaron’s Corporate Display anytime, May 3-5, at Talladega Superspeedway.

With two full-time cars in the Sprint Cup Series and duties for NASCAR on Fox, Michael Waltrip has distanced himself from being a racecar driver.

This weekend at Talladega Superspeedway Waltrip wants everyone to know however, that he still knows what he’s doing. Waltrip will pilot his own No. 55 Aaron’s Alabama National Championship Toyota. With qualifying having been rained out Saturday morning he’ll start 14th based on his practice speed.

“I just always look forward to my chances to race at these tracks,” Waltrip said on Saturday morning. “I retired from racing full time a few years ago, but I’ve raced every plate race since then, so I feel like I still am up to speed on what it takes to be able to win and to run up front.

“We were fortunate enough to have a chance to win here last fall and I was able to lead the Daytona 500 this year in my first race of the season, so optimistic that we’ll figure out a way to get the No. 55 Aaron’s Alabama Toyota to the front when they throw the green flag tomorrow.”

Of his four NSCS career wins, Waltrip’s last came at Talladega in 2003, after which he popped out of the roof hatch. He’s also a two-time winner of the Daytona 500 and has always been considered a factor at the big tracks.

His plan on Sunday is to make sure he’s around at the end, take his time and be aggressive when it’s the right time, mostly because he has to readjust himself to being back behind the wheel of a racecar. Not having sat in one since February, while other drivers are used to the repetition, Waltrip will be familiarizing himself with the tiniest of details.

“Well, [Friday] was big – usually important for me because when you take off from Daytona until May, there’s so many things you need to orientate yourself with,” Waltrip noted.

“Something as simple as just being able to see the water temperature and the water pressure gauges in your peripheral without having to pay attention to them, understanding how the cars move when other cars come around you.

“I have to do a whole lot of visualization – like after practice yesterday, this morning, before I race tomorrow – I visualize what I saw in practice and what I think I’ll see during the race.”

In the season opening race, Waltrip drove for Swan Racing in the fan favorite No. 26 Toyota in honor of the Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, CT. He finished 22nd and led four laps. Sunday he’ll be in another favorite car as the colors of Alabama’s National Championship winning football team will be flying around the speedway.

Waltrip wants to keep with the winning tradition, something that on the last lap here in the fall looked like he might do before the ‘Big One’ broke out. Sunday will mark the 54th time he’s taken the green flag at NASCAR’s biggest, baddest and most unpredictable speedway.

“My last victory in NASCAR in the Cup Series came here at Talladega in 2003 and so I know how to win here,” said Waltrip.

“I think I was in a pretty good chance to win last fall, so the confidence helps a lot. It’s like when I play golf I know I suck and so the ball doesn’t go very good. But when I come to Talladega, I know what I’m doing and so therefore after all my focus and visualization on what I think I’ll see and how I’m going to do – then some laps the first 100 miles or so getting into the game – I feel like I’m perfectly prepared to go win the race.”

For the first time since his wreck at Auto Club Speedway earlier this year, Denny Hamlin is back behind the seat of the racecar and says it’s feels really good to get back in and run some laps.

“I’m thankful for everything Brian (Vickers) has done over these last four weeks and what he’s going to do this weekend,” he added. “We appreciate that and FedEx for sticking through it with us and obviously showing us a lot of support.  So, it’s definitely good to be back in a car and really just starting with hopefully what will be a good run in these next 17 weeks.”

Hamlin added that despite not liking superspeedway practice and racing, he couldn’t sleep last night knowing he’d be back in the car.

“This is an exciting time and obviously if it wasn’t for my crew chief (Darian Grubb), I would’ve stayed out there until I ran out of gas,” Hamlin comented. “It still — it’s exciting for me.  The excitement will really be big when we get to Darlington next week.”

Hamlin added that he couldn’t sleep due that thirst to feel the speed again.

“We have alligator blood,” he continued. “I don’t know what to say.  It’s just we’re a different breed that are willing to throw caution to the wind just to get back to what we love doing.”

Hamlin was sidelined after suffering an L1 Compression Fracture to his back following his crash on the last lap at Auto Club Speedway after contact with Joey Logano. The compression fracture is located in his lower back and occurs when a vertebrae in the spine collapses. It is an injury that can occur in people who are healthy when they suffer a vertical shock to the area.

Hamlin made hard direct head on contact with an inside wall at the track located in Fontana, California following contact with Joey Logano while racing for the win.

Hamlin says he feels no discomfort while he is in the car. The only thing that’s uncomfortable is climbing out through the driver’s window, so that’s the team opted to put in the roof hatch. The roof hatch was developed a couple seasons ago by NASCAR and is optional for teams to run every week.

“It’s much easier on me, and really any kind of twisting we can keep out of myself will be good,” he said. “Really, inside the race car I feel just like I did six, seven weeks ago.  Excited about this weekend and finally getting back going again.”

Hamlin will not run the full distance on Sunday, opting to start the race to get the points and then get out under the first caution, allowing Brian Vickers to get in. They have timed the driver change and Hamlin says it took them one minute and six second twice in a row.

“There’s going to be a caution at some point and I’d like to get out to just insure myself of one more week of healing versus trying to come back in the middle of round six,” he commented.

To get this point to where he is now, Hamlin has been working on his back and spine area in rehab.

“It’s working on your core strength,” he said of the activities during rehab. “Just working on your hamstring.  Everything that supports the back is what we’ve been working on, so really my rehab has been basically workout sessions.  Not anything unordinary you wouldn’t see at a normal gym.  Been working a little bit on — they have this traction machine that kind of works on your spine.  I’ve been on that.  I’ve been on a bone stimulator every day, so there’s a lot of little gadgets and whatnot that I’ve been on, but it’s been pretty easy.”

Hamlin added that he does plan to run the full distance next weekend at Darlington Raceway.

“We had an amazing group of doctors that looked my scans over, saw me in person and obviously it wasn’t a full consensus for Richmond, so we decided to err on the safe side,” Hamlin commented on the process. “And, knowing basically what we were going to do this weekend was going to be the equivalent of a quarterback basically hiking the ball and taking a knee we were going to very much minimize our risks this weekend of reinjuring ourselves, which gives us one more week to then heal.  We’re going to rescan next week and obviously just make sure everything is still intact and everything is where it needs to be.”

Hamlin says that he has dealt with the emotions of being out of the car and now is excited about the challenge that lies ahead of him. In the next 17 weeks, Hamlin wants to get himself qualified into the Chase. The plan is to get into the top 20 of the points standings with two victories by the 26th race of the schedule to qualify. Hamlin currently sits 28th in points, 71 points out of 20th. The maximum points you can get for a race – by leading the most laps and winning – is 48.

“I think that our Chase has got to start right now,” Hamlin said. “We’ve got to perform each week like it is a Chase race and do everything that we can to get wins, because if we don’t win it really doesn’t matter.  We’ve got some great tracks ahead of us.  That part of it is exciting.”