HOW TO WIN AT DEGA

·  For the second race at Talladega in 2003, NASCAR opened up the space in the restrictor plate by 1/32 of an inch. You wouldn't think that small of a change would make a difference, but it is worth about 25 horsepower. To keep the speeds from going up too much with the larger holes, an adjustment was made to the rear spoiler, which increased the drag. The plan was to give the cars more power, to help the drivers get more acceleration and to fix their biggest complaint: that they couldn't pull out and pass. The bigger plate picked up the speeds, but I didn't see a big difference in the race. Some drivers complained they couldn't keep from running over each other, so I don't think a lot was accomplished.

·  NASCAR regulates the rear springs at Talladega and hands the teams two rear shocks, so that limits adjustments that normally are made at other tracks. The front area is adjustable with springs, shocks and sway bars, and that's important because in Turn 4, there are some really bad humps.

·  One thing I have always said about Talladega is that if you are fast when you unload off the truck, you probably will stay fast. If you are slow on Friday, you probably won't improve much over the weekend.

Plotting strategy

·  Tires are not all that important. Because the cars have smaller fuel cells (13 gallons instead of 22), a lot of guys will get two tires on pit stops. When you pit, you want to do so with a drafting partner. You don't want to go in alone. If you get back on the track and have to run by yourself, you may be running one or two seconds slower than the biggest pack of cars. Then again, you don't want to be on pit road with 25 cars because you could get into some scrapes and end up damaging your car. If you bend a nose or bend a fender, your day could be done because aerodynamics are so important.

·  Avoid the "Big One." It's always an underlying question throughout the day -- will it happen or not? When Bobby Hamilton won here in the spring of 2001, the race was caution-free, so it's possible not to have the Big One. But it seems that most of the time we have it. That kind of wreck has a life of its own. If you are anywhere near the eye of the storm, you'll get caught up in it.

·  Running at Talladega is all about low drag and how slippery the car is through the air. It's not about downforce. You want to do all you can to get the car's front valence down on the track to reduce the drag.

Where the action is

·  You'll see a lot of action on the back stretch, where sometimes cars will go four- and five-wide. Coming off the very sharp Turn 2, there is great potential for catastrophe. If cars clip each other off, you'll generally see a big mess.

·  Passing happens all around the racetrack, sometimes four or five times per lap for the lead. The preferred line is where the line of cars is moving. In Saturday's practice you need to move your car all over the track because during Sunday's race, there's no telling what line you'll have to take to stay in the pack.

·  Unlike most tracks, where the start-finish line is in the middle of the front stretch, you take the checkered flag farther down the front stretch, coming out of the trioval, at Talladega. You can get kicked out of line near the end of the race if you don't have a partner, and you'll get hung out to dry.

Track History

On an unassuming stretch of land suited for soybean farming located next to a couple of abandoned airport runways, crews constructed the biggest superspeedway in NASCAR, Talladega Superspeedway.

Since Alabama International Motor Speedway (as it was called until 1989) opened its gates in September 1969, the track has surpassed every initial expectation.

Talladega, Ala., emerged as the top choice among several possible sites in the Southeast, with the main criteria for selection being availability of land, access to the interstate system and a population base of at least 20 million people within 300 miles.

Anniston insurance executive Bill Ward, a race driver and fan himself, helped NASCAR and International Speedway Corporation founder William H.G. (Bill) France find the land in Alabama, following a casual conversation with France in Daytona in the mid-1960s. Ward found what he thought was the perfect site in north Talladega County near an airport that the U.S. Government had sold to the City of Talladega after World War II. He set up a meeting with then-Talladega mayor James Hardwick and other city officials, and in a restaurant in Anniston in 1966, France got the group to consider the idea of putting a major track on the site. After a trip to the Firecracker 400 in Daytona to observe first-hand the potential economic impact, the group was sold.

Several obstacles had to be overcome, including financing. With France as the guiding force, however, construction began on the 2,000-acre site on May 23, 1968, with the first race being the 'Bama 400 Grand Touring race on Saturday, Sept. 13, 1969. Ken Rush drove his Camaro to Victory Lane in that event. The next day, Richard Brickhouse won the first Grand National (now Nextel Cup) race, the Talladega 500, edging Jim Vandiver and Ramo Stott.

The practice and qualifying speeds were so high (Charlie Glotzbach won the pole at 199.466 mph) that the tire companies could not come up with a compound that held together for many laps. The Professional Drivers Association (PDA), led by Richard Petty, declared the situation unsafe, and left the track Saturday afternoon.

France decided the race would go on, using the drivers that decided not to participate in the boycott, plus some of those who had raced the day before. The full 500 miles were run without a major incident.

His action broke the back of the PDA, which dissolved a couple of years later.

In 1987, Bill Elliott established a world stock car record when he posted a speed of 212.809 mph in qualifying. Mark Martin established a 500-mile stock car record in 1997 when he won the caution-free spring race with an average speed of 188.354 mph.

But the track's true dominator was Dale Earnhardt, who posted 10 Cup wins at Talladega.

The grandstands seating capacity is 143,231 including the most recent expansion of the O.V. Hill South Tower. The 212-acre all-reserved infield holds many thousands more.

Perhaps the greatest 1-2-3 finish in motorsports occurred a 1981 race, when rookie Ron Bouchard passed both Darrell Waltrip and Terry Labonte in the final 500 yards to win by less than a foot over Waltrip and two feet over Labonte.

Nuff Sed