What to Watch: Talladega, where opportunity and a variety of victors abound

Yahoo

26-04-2025

Track: Talladega Superspeedway
Location: Talladega, Alabama
Track length: 2.66 miles
When: Sunday, 3 p.m. ET
Where to tune in: FOX, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Race purse: $11,055,250
Race distance: 188 laps | 500.08 miles
Stages: 60 | 120 | 188
Defending winner: Tyler Reddick, April 2024
Starting lineup: Zane Smith claims Busch Light Pole
Ten races, ten faces?
At a track where the unexpected regularly takes place, the one thing to count on in recent years at Talladega Superspeedway is new faces in Victory Lane.
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The last nine races at the Alabama speed palace have produced nine different winners, and the specter of another no-repeat outcome looms large in Sunday's Jack Link's 500 (3 p.m. ET FOX, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). That nine-race Talladega span precedes the advent of the Next Gen car in 2022.
MORE: Cup Series standings | Full 2025 schedule
Denny Hamlin began that string in October 2020, and since then (in chronological order) the winners' list has welcomed Brad Keselowski, Bubba Wallace, Ross Chastain, Chase Elliott, Kyle Busch, Ryan Blaney, Tyler Reddick and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Can someone new add their name to the record books Sunday? The prospects for the Cup Series going 10 for 10 with another different winner are high.
'The field is so close, right, that it just opens up a lot of opportunities,' said Josh Berry, driver of the Wood Brothers' No. 21 Ford. 'A lot of these races just kind of come down to circumstance, and you find the same players up front a lot, but ultimately, it kind of is left up to fate a little bit on how obviously missing the wrecks and executing and it just opens the door for opportunity. So it's definitely a bit of a wild card, I think, from a driver's standpoint.'
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There's some historical relevance for Talladega's good fortune smiling on an array of winners. The track's 'fall' race was traditionally called the Talladega 500, and the first 13 runnings were won by 13 different drivers. That variety and the track's growing reputation as a place where anything can happen fed into the speedway's promotions, where marketers touted '13 races, 13 faces' as a selling point.
RELATED: Most wins all-time at Talladega | 'Dega surprise winners
Hall of Famer Darrell Waltrip was one of those 13 faces, etching his name in Victory Lane in 1979. He nearly broke the streak in 1981, but Ron Bouchard slipped by him for an upset win within sight of the checkered flag. The next year, Waltrip sealed the deal as a Talladega 500 repeater, then showed up for a promotional event for the 1983 race wearing a shirt that read: '14 races, 13 faces. Sorry about that.'
The other common thread to the unpredictable nature: the driver leading the most laps has failed to win each of the last nine Talladega races. In both races here last year, that hard-luck leader was Michael McDowell, who crashed out in multi-car tangles — another Talladega trademark — each time.
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That included a melee in this race last spring when McDowell was knocked out while leading on the final lap through the trioval. Last fall brought another massive stack-up, one that thinned 20-plus cars from the herd of contenders.
MORE: Full Saturday recap
The Cup Series field fans out through the trioval at Talladega Superspeedway
From atop the pit box …
What do crew chiefs have in focus to win Sunday's race?
Superspeedway strategy is as much driven by how drivers work the aerodynamic draft as how teams work in tandem across manufacturer lines. Automakers typically hold pre-race meetings to formulate a game plan for attacking Talladega, developing the best course for how to stick together, pit together and move forward — also together.
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That spirit of teamwork — among organizations and the OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) — should permeate Sunday's 500-miler, the first of two stops this season at the massive 2.66-mile circuit.
'It's not really set in stone what the plan or path is for how we approach the race set by the OEM, but we do communicate with the other Chevrolet guys during the race, and more than anything else, we just try to be mindful of each other's situation,' says Luke Lambert, crew chief for the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevy driven by Carson Hocevar. 'Chevrolet has so many cars that they kind of split it up into two different groups of cars that work more closely together, but as you know, the way these races are, cars get eliminated, those numbers can dwindle down and then the plans kind of change in the middle of the race.
'Primarily, we'll be working close with the Spire guys, that's our intentions, and then try to work and cooperate with the Chevrolets. When we have the opportunity to do things that benefit each other, as far as working together in lines, and then also how we pit, we try to do that as much as possible.'
Chevrolet's contingent makes up 18 cars in the field of 39 starters, the most of any manufacturer; Ford has 12, Toyota nine. Managing that number is tricky, but to Lambert's point, the ability to call audibles and have some amount of flex or give in the strategy is critical.
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'The bigger the group, the harder it becomes to execute this stuff, because everybody's running their own race and has different things that pop up as the race goes on, based on how much fuel they're using, or how the car is handling, or possibly having a short fill at one point in time, they get out of sync with the other cars,' Lambert said. 'So you can't really be too locked in. You have to kind of be fluid in how we approach the race. But primarily for us, our approach is to run our race really mindful of what's going on around us and how we can work with other guys and what we can expect for them to do as far as working with us when the opportunity arises.'
MORE: Power Rankings for Talladega
Toyota teams may not have the strength in numbers, but the size of their group — four cars from Joe Gibbs Racing, three from 23XI Racing and two from Legacy Motor Club — may be more manageable. Charles Denike, first-year crew chief of the No. 23 Toyota for 23XI's Bubba Wallace, said that their strategy wasn't necessarily manufacturer-mandated, but that collaboration stemmed mostly from a team level — save for trying to stack their numbers when executing green-flag pit stops together.
Chevrolet has prevailed in four of the last six races here, but Toyota's ability to shift up strategy in winning this race last year was key.
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'Very much, you have to remain flexible,' Denike told NASCAR.com. 'So there's kind of two things: You always stay ready for if a caution comes out, and then when you can pit under green varies based off of how fast the pace is going and how much fuel you're burning. So it's a bit of a moving target there on what you want to be prepared for if you need to put under green, and then you always stay ready with your answer of, 'if the caution comes out, now, what would I do?\"'
RELATED: See where drivers will pit for Sunday's race
Bubba Wallace loads into the No. 23 Toyota for qualifying at Talladega Superspeedway
History tells us …
Expect Penske fingerprints at the front. Just two drafting-style tracks have hosted races this year (Daytona and Atlanta in February), but Team Penske and its affiliated Wood Brothers Racing team have zoned in on the front of the pack. The Penske/Wood Brothers power combo has run 175 laps in first and second place this season. The next closest on that list is Trackhouse Racing, a distant second with 14 laps running 1-2.
He may not be the favorite to win, but watch out for …
RICKY STENHOUSE JR. The Hyak Motorsports veteran has just one top-five result this season, but that total could grow after Sunday's showdown. Stenhouse won here to play playoff spoiler last fall, and two of his four career Cup Series victories have come at Talladega. The 37-year-old has eight top-five finishes here — the most of any track in his Cup career.
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MORE: Get lineup advice in Fantasy Fastlane
Speed reads
Our biggest pieces of the week — get covered for race day from all angles.
• NASCAR at Talladega: Key information, links, results through the weekend | Read more
• Keselowski 'clawing': RFK driver/owner aims to maximize No. 6 team's potential | Read more
• Crew chief change-up: Spire, Rodney Childers go separate ways | Read more
• Racing Insights: Full finishing order projections for Sunday's Jack Link's 500 | Read more
• Turning Point to Talladega: Forecasting a Championship 4 … already? | Read more
• At-track images: Best photos, scenes from a full weekend at Talladega | View gallery
• NASCAR Classics: Rewind with full-race replays from the 'Dega video vault | Watch races
• Paint Scheme Preview: Fresh designs ready to tackle Talladega | View gallery