King Of The Superspeedways

In the sport's Dead Lane Era, it is the oasis. With almost no other racing anywhere worthy of the adulation the sport has earned over the decades, Talladega is almost the one track that rescues the sport from permanent decline in popularity. It is the biggest superspeedway in the US and the most competititve in the world.

Talladega has averaged over 40 official lead changes per race in this decade, and broke that barrier eight times in that span. Now it prepares for its fifteenth Winston Cup race and eighth Busch Grand National race of this decade, and should serve as most competitive racing venue for both classes this season.

Chevrolet has all but monopolized restrictor plate racing, so barring a huge upset a Chevy will win this Alabama 500. Hendrick Motorsports has dominated the season so far, but curiously they didn't look that good at Daytona. RCR, Joe Gibbs, and Robert Ginn were the strongest cars at Daytona, and Tony Stewart will likely be fighting harder than normal for the win, since he hasn't won this year and is clearly torked off by that fact.

Of course one shouldn't count out the Hendrick cars after they won three of four plate races in 2006 and have won five of this season's first eight races.

David Gilliland and Ricky Rudd have been MIA pretty much everywhere this year, but Robert Yates has dominated Talladega qualifying the last few years, so the pole is a good bet for the Yates Fords. That the pole is not relevent to anything of course shows in Gilliland's poles that have gone nowhere. The Roush Fords are basically the only Ford team and thus have by far the best shot at a Ford win.

Penske Racing was the only Dodge organization with any muscle at Daytona and have been the strongest Dodge effort at Talladega lately, but Kurt Busch has a teammate in Ryan Newman who can no longer be counted on to run strong but instead will find new and creative ways to blow good runs, such as at Phoenix last week.

Ray Evernham's Dodges have been awful almost everywhere but Daytona was a rare strong finish and one can expect Kasey Kahne and Elliott Sadler to do something here.

Given the nature of Talladega, one can write a scouting report on why any driver who makes the field can win the race. This is why Talladega makes the sport so much better.