Others to be reckoned with at the Alabama venue include Ryan Newman, Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton. Penske Racing South took the first superspeedway event of the season with Newman winning at Daytona. At Talladega Burton he has 10-top 10s but has yet to make it to Victory Lane. A teammate of Burton’s, Harvick also runs well at Talladega with a pole, three top-fives and seven top-10s in 15 Cup starts. Watch for Harvick and Burton to look for opportunities to work together as will teammates from other organizations as deciding this race could very well come down to a matter of teamwork.

My darkhorse is David Ragan, who is not in the Chase but is coming off an impressive eighth-place finish at Kansas last weekend. He’s been running well of late.

Keys to success at Talladega
It's no secret how unpredictable racing can be at this superspeedway so there's a lot to be said for finding someone to draft with especially late in the race. With the new car, which debuted at Talladega last fall, if a driver gets out front he has a pretty good shot at staying there. Also, the new car drafts a bit better than its predecessor.

Talladega's was repaved not too long ago so we'll see more than three-wide racing. You'll see drivers who'll be willing to run four-wide and make more gutsy moves than we've seen in the past. With the added grip on the track, look for some drivers to race differently meaning more aggressively than what we've come to expect.

Getting caught up in the "Big One" is the fear of all drivers, and the best way for a driver to lessen the odds of being involved in such a multi-car pileup is to try and run up front all day. While trying their best to keep their cars from getting damaged, the drivers are also trying to figure out when it's best to make their moves, so it's like a game of mental chess. But luck plays a big role at this track, more so than at any other track on the Sprint Cup circuit. And when big wreck occurs at Talladega, drivers are pretty much at the mercy of other drivers.

Talladega is big, wide and fast -- a track that places a premium on a quality car. Cars run in large packs, and that makes it mentally draining on the drivers, who need to focus on all that is going on around them so they can try and stay out of big wrecks.

Special feature 2008 winners Take a look at every Sprint Cup Series trip to victory lane this season.

Drivers must be careful not to speed on pit row after coming in from running at about 190 mph on the track. In 2004 NASCAR ended its policy of checking pit-row speeds with stop watches, and began using electronic devices to do so.

On the pit stops we'll probably see mostly two-tire changes because the grip should be good after the resurfacing and drivers aren't going to want to wait on four tires since they'll be using smaller fuel cells (13 gallons instead of 22).

The racing will intensify over the final 20 laps or so and that's when some of the more desperate moves are made -- moves that often result in wrecks. Getting through clean in the late stages of the race is one of the biggest challenges of winning at Talladega.

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