TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY

One of the biggest, fastest and most competitive motor sports facility in the world is the Talladega Superspeedway. To register all the speed and competitions, records have been established at Talladega. In 1969, the track opened as Alabama International Motor Speedway was built at a cost of more than $4 million. Talladega has just expanded permanent seating in nine of the last 11 years, including 5,200 tower seats for April of 2001. The 2.66-mile tri-oval has seating arrangements for more than 143,000 fans with room enough for thousands more in the vast infield. There is also a facility for the visitors to tour daily during working hours except on weeks around events in track offered van.



HISTORY OF TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY

Previously, Talladega Superspeedway was a soybean field, next to some of the World War II airport runways. The site was found by NASCAR and International Speedway Corporation founder William H.B. (Bill) France and Anniston (AL) insurance executive Bill Ward. In September, 1969, the track was opened with the hosting two NASCAR Winston Cup Series events every year. Known as the most competitive track on the NASCAR Winston Cup Series, Talladega Superspeedway organized six of the Top 10 most competitive Winston Cup events. With Bill Elliott's 212.809 mph in April of 1987, the course also holds the fastest qualifying mark in NASCAR history and the fastest 500 mile race in Winston Cup history, the DieHard 500 won by Mark Martin in 2 hours, 39 minutes, 18 seconds in May of 1997.



Since 1969, the drive at the Talladega Superspeedway is going on. The Talladega 500 easily draws more fans than any other state sports event in spite of football fever in Alabama.

TRACK INFORMATION

A 2.66-mile high-banked tri- oval, Talladega Superspeedway is four lanes wide and tilted 33 degrees on each end, with 18-degree banking in the tri-oval. Producing speeds in excess of 200 mph in competition, the backstretch is nearly 4,000 feet long.

Features
Opened
1969

Track Length
2.66 mile tri-oval

Banking in Corners
33°

Banking on Front Straight
18°

Banking on Back Straight
2°

Length of Front stretch
4,300 feet

Length of Backstretch
4,000 feet

Grandstand Seating
138,000

Qualifying Record
Bill Elliott, 212.809 mph (44.998 sec.) - 4/30/87

Race Record
Mark Martin, 188.354 mph - 5/10/97

Laps
188 laps=500 miles

Radius
1,100ft

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Ryan Newman, Daytona 500 Champion!!
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NASCAR team notes: Chase drivers brace for round four at Talladega
Updated 10/4/2006 8:36 PM ET
NASCAR team notes as the Nextel Cup tour heads to the fourth round of its season-ending title Chase in Sunday's UAW-Ford 500 at Talladega Superspeedway:

Jeff Burton
No. 31 Chevrolet, Richard Childress Racing

This week: Burton has a healthy 69-point lead in the Nextel Cup standings bur realizes that could disappear in one big wreck at the repaved Talladega Superspeedway. "You kind of feel like you're playing Russian Roulette a little bit," he said. Burton has a 17.56 average finish at Talladega, which ranks sixth among the 10 Chase drivers. He has 17 top-10 finishes in 51 restrictor-plate races, but his only restrictor-plate victory came at Daytona in July 2000. Ten of those top-10 finishes came at Talladega in 25 starts there; his best finish (third) was in 2001.

Last week: Burton finished fifth at Kansas and remained first in the point standings.

Etc: Burton will race chassis No. 135 from the Richard Childress Racing stable. Burton sat on the pole for the 2006 Daytona 500 with this car but finished 32nd after getting caught up in a late race incident. Burton raced this car to a fourth-place finish in May at Talladega and a 15th-place finish at Daytona in July.

Denny Hamlin
No. 11 Chevrolet, Joe Gibbs Racing

This week: Hamlin, who has two top-10 finishes in the first three races in the Chase, has finished in the top 20 in the last 20 races and has 15 top-10 finishes in 2006, the most among all rookie contenders. Hamlin has been the highest-finishing rookie in 14 of the 29 races this season and has been running at the finish in the last 23 races. He was 22nd in his only Cup race at Talladega, in May.

Last week: Hamlin finished 18th at Kansas and is second in the standings, 69 points behind leader Jeff Burton. Hamlin leads third-place Mark Martin by one point and fourth-place Matt Kenseth by 15. Hamlin had an up-and-down race — he had a loose wheel and spun out in the fourth turn — but managed to gain positions in the standings.

Etc.: Hamlin has not finished in the top 10 in any of his three career restrictor-plate races.

Mark Martin
No. 6 Ford, Roush Racing

This week: Martin is up to third, one position higher than he was at this point last year. He has been running at the finish in the last 36 races, the longest current streak. He has scored two victories (the last time in May 1997) and 21 top-10 finishes in 41 races at Talladega. Martin finished 41st in this race one year ago and 35th there in May. Martin has a 15.658 average finish at Talladega, which ranks fourth among the 10 Chase drivers. He has led in 21 of his 41 Talladega races. Martin is the only Chase driver who has not won a race in 2006.

Last week: Martin finished third at Kansas and moved up to the third in the standings.

Etc.: Martin joins Ken Schrader and Michael Waltrip as the only three drivers who have competed in all 75 restrictor-plate races since 1988. In those 75 races, Martin has two victories and 34 top-10 finishes.

Matt Kenseth
No. 17 Ford, Roush Racing

This week: Kenseth has 18 top-10 finishes in 2006, tying Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Burton for the most among all drivers. Kenseth has been running at the finish in the last 23 races, since Texas in April. Kenseth has five top-10 finishes in 13 races at Talladega. His best finish, third, came in this race one year ago. He finished sixth at Talladega in May. Kenseth has led in 10 of his 13 races at Talladega and has a 16.384 finishing average there, which ranks fifth among the 10 Chase drivers. Kenseth has 10 top-10 finishes (but no victories) in 27 career restrictor-plate races.

Last week: Kenseth's 23rd-place finish at Kansas, which ended a streak of six top-10 finishes, sent him back-pedaling in the points from third to fourth, 84 points behind first-place Jeff Burton.

Etc.: Kenseth has led 1,108 laps (13.2%) in 2006, the most among all series drivers.

Kevin Harvick
No. 29 Chevrolet, Richard Childress Racing

This week: Harvick has three top-five and five top-10 finishes in 11 starts at Talladega but has led in seven of the 11 for a total of 54 laps. He started 42nd and finished 10th in this race last year and was 23rd at Talladega in May. He said of Talladega's first repaving job in 26 years, "The only thing I have heard about Talladega is that it is really, really smooth. (During testing), the speeds were the same, and tire wear was minimal. From the driver's standpoint, it is probably going to be easier to drive around and not worry about the bumps."

Last week: Harvick finished 15th at Kansas and remained fifth in the points.

Etc.: Only 96 points separate fifth-place Harvick from series leader and Richard Childress Racing teammate Jeff Burton, the closest such margin through three Chase races since the inception of the format three years ago.

Jeff Gordon
No. 24 Chevrolet, Hendrick Motorsports

This week: Six years after his final victory, Dale Earnhardt's record of 11 restrictor-plate victories can be tied if Gordon wins this weekend at Talladega. Gordon has tied Earnhardt's career total of 76 wins in the Cup Series and has passed the $80 million mark in career winnings. Gordon has four wins, 11 top-fives and 14 top-10s in 27 starts at Talladega. Although he has captured 55 pole positions during his 14-year career, Talladega is one of only five tracks where he has yet to post the fastest time during the qualifying session. "It's nice to start up front at Talladega, but it's not that important," Gordon said.

Last week: A broken fuel pump knocked Gordon out of the Banquet 400 at Kansas, dropping him to a 39th-place finish. It was his fifth DNF of the season.

Etc.: Gordon has an average starting position of 4.7 for the first three Chase events, the best of all Chase drivers.

Dale Earnhardt Jr.
No. 8 Chevrolet, Dale Earnhardt Inc

This week: If Earnhardt is going to cut into his 123-point deficit in the point standings, there isn't a better track for him to do so than Talladega. His five wins at Talladega are the most of any active driver. He has a 12.23 average finish, which is also tops among the 10 drivers in the Chase. He has led 11 of his 13 Talladega races for 500 laps and leads all active drivers with an 11.814 average finish in 27 career restrictor-plate races. He has seven victories on restrictor-plate tracks. "This is a big weekend for us," Earnhardt admitted. "Talladega is always a track that shakes things up in the Chase. We can make some serious gains in the points this week with a good run."

Last week: Earnhardt finished 10th at Kansas.

Etc: Earnhardt hit the outside wall and tore off a mirror earlier this week while giving members of the media a ride in a passenger car at Talladega.

Jimmie Johnson
No. 48 Chevrolet, Hendrick Motorsports

This week: After leading the standings for most of the 26-race "regular season," Johnson enters the fourth of 10 races in the Chase eighth in points, 165 behind leader Jeff Burton. He is hoping for a Talladega Sweep in Sunday's 500-mile race. After winning the Daytona 500 in February, Johnson started the rain-postponed race at Talladega on May 1 hoping to prove his new found restrictor-plate prowess was no fluke. He accomplished that mission when he slipped by teammate Brian Vickers with one lap remaining, then held off a charging Tony Stewart to take the checkered flag. Johnson has two other top-10 finishes in nine races at Talladega. He finished 31st in this race last year.

Last week: Johnson led 105 laps at Kansas but finished 14th after a late race pit stop and penalty.

Etc.: Despite being mired in eighth in the points, Johnson said team morale is high at Hendrick Motorsports. "All of Hendrick Motorsports is very happy to have three cars in the Chase," he said.

Kyle Busch
No. 5 Chevrolet, Hendrick Motorsports

This week: Busch is 233 points out of the lead and could be all but out of championship contention. He has never scored a top-10 finish in his three races at Talladega, which include a 33rd-place finish in this race last year and a 32nd there in May. Busch has just one top-10 finish, a second at Daytona in July, in seven career restrictor-plate races.

Last week: Busch's seventh-place finish at Kansas allowed him to move up from 10th to ninth in the standings. "We could have won this race," he said. Busch, one of the leading contenders for the victory after his Chevrolet Monte Carlo was in front twice for 64 laps, got a speeding ticket for speeding out of pit road on lap 196. That dropped him from second to 29th. But he was able to come back for a top-10 finish. "We just weren't the best when it mattered the most," he said.

Etc.: Busch will be driving a new car Sunday.

Kasey Kahne
No. 9 Dodge, Ray Evernham Motorsports

This week: Kahne has five victories in 2006, more than any other driver, 14 top-10 finishes and 16 top-15s. One year ago he ranked 21st in the point standings. He has just one top-15 finish in five races at Talladega. He finished 13th in this race one year ago and 39th there in May. Kahne has never led at Talladega and has a 26.6 average finish there, which ranks ninth among the 10 Chase drivers. Kahne has never scored a restrictor-plate top-10 finish in 11 tries.

Last week: Kahne's 33rd-place finish after winning the pole at Kansas dropped him out of the running for this year's Nextel Cup championship. "The car felt really good, but it just kind of gave up on long runs," he said. "It got real tight. I think the track changed a ton. We just weren't quite good enough."

Etc.: Kahne is second among all drivers in fastest laps run this season with 522.

LAST WEEKEND'S RACE WINNER

Tony Stewart
No. 20 Chevrolet, Joe Gibbs Racing

This week: Stewart, who is still looking for his first win at Talladega, has finished second six times in 15 starts at the track. That ties him with Bobby Allison (Martinsville) and Mark Martin (Pocono) for the most runner-up finishes without a victory at a track on the current Nextel Cup circuit.

Last week: Stewart had an 18-second lead over Casey Mears when Stewart ran out of fuel on the last lap at Kansas. But Stewart was able to coast across the finish line to score his third win of the season. "Boy, it was close, but we had nothing to lose," said crew chief Greg Zipadelli. Added Stewart, "Zippy asked me what I thought and I said we might as well go for it. That is the thing about not being in the Chase — we can roll the dice."

Etc.: Stewart has finished second in the last three races at Talladega to extend his streak of top-six finishes at the track to four.

Greg biffle
No. 16 Ford, Roush Racing

This week: Biffle is still looking for his first top-10 finish at Talladega. In seven starts there, his best finish is 13th. Biffle trails Tony Stewart by 270 points with seven races left in the season in the battle for the million-dollar bonus that goes to the 11th-place finisher.

Last week: A late race pit stop for fuel forced Biffle to settle for a 12th-place finish at Kansas. "It's just kind of the way our season has gone," said Biffle.

Carl Edwards
No. 99 Ford, Roush Racing

This week: Edwards has finished eighth or better in the last two races at Talladega. He also led in those two events. For the year, Edwards has nine top-five finishes and 15 top-10s but is still looking for his first win of 2006 after visiting Victory Lane four times last season, his first full year on the Nextel Cup circuit.

Last week: Edwards finished sixth at Kansas, a finish that he admitted really surprised him. "Wally (Brown, crew chief) just made some great adjustments," said Edwards.

Kurt Busch
No. 2 Dodge, Penske Racing South

This week: Busch has a streak of four top-10 finishes at Talladega. In his 11 races at the high-speed oval, Busch has four top-five finishes and eight top-10s. "I really enjoy plate racing," said Busch. "It's a different kind of challenge than what we do during the other 32 races."

Last week: Busch battled an ill-handling race car all afternoon at Kansas as he finished 25th, two laps down.

Casey Mears
No. 42 Dodge, Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates

This week: In seven starts at Talladega, Mears has two only top-10 finishes. But he is optimistic about his return to the 2.66-mile speedway. "We finished second at Daytona (in the Daytona 500), and I know we'll have another great restrictor-plate car this weekend," said Mears.

Last week: Mears ran out of gas on the last lap and coasted across the finish line in second place. The runner-up finish equaled his career best.

Clint Bowyer
No. 07 Chevrolet, Richard Childress Racing

This week: Bowyer has two top-10 finishes in the three restrictor-plate races run this season, including a sixth in the Daytona 500.

Last week: Even though he finished ninth at Kansas, Bowyer was disappointed with how the day turned out after leading for 43 laps. "To lead laps and run up front at my hometown (track), that just means so much to me," said Bowyer. "I was just trying too hard and trying to win this thing (when he spun on lap 172)."

Ryan Newman
No. 12 Dodge, Penske Racing South

This week: Newman has three top-10 finishes in nine starts at Talladega, including two fourth-place finishes. He also has four DNFs there.

Last week: It was a long afternoon for Newman as he spun twice while battling a "real loose" race car and was cited twice by NASCAR for pitting before pit road was open and speeding on pit road during another stop. "It was a pretty ugly day all around," admitted crew chief Matt Borland. Newman finished 24th.

Brian Vickers
No. 25 Chevrolet, Hendrick Motorsports

This week: Vickers finished third in the spring race at Talladega, and he was sixth a year ago in the UAW-Ford 500. So he is optimistic about this weekend, especially since he was one of the drivers to test on the newly repaved surface.

Last week: Vickers was able to run the final 67 laps at Kansas without pitting, and it paid big dividends as he finished eighth on a day when the car didn't perform as well as expected.

Elliott Sadler
No. 19 Dodge, Evernham Motorsports

This week: Sadler will be seeking his third straight pole position at Talladega and his fourth in the last seven races there. But Sadler has only one top-10 finish in that stretch. This weekend's race will be Sadler's first start in a Dodge at Talladega.

Last week: Sadler's hopes of a top-10 run at Kansas ended early in the race when his car was badly damaged during a pit road accident in which Sadler ran into Jamie McMurray as he was exiting his pit stall.

Jamie McMurray
No. 26 Ford, Roush Racing

This week: McMurray has two fifth-place finishes in the last three races at Talladega. "We need a good run," admitted McMurray, who has only three top-five finishes since joining Roush Racing after last season.

Last week: McMurray was involved in two wrecks at Kansas and finished 42nd. The first one took place on pit road when Elliott Sadler clipped McMurray as Sadler was exiting his pit stall. The second took place on lap 131 in turn two, ending his day.

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Ryan Newman, Daytona 500 Champion!!
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TALLADEGA, Ala. (Oct. 7, 2006) - Ryan Newman qualified 11th Friday for this weekend's UAW-Ford 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, giving Dodge its only top-15 start for Sunday's event.
Newman, who topped out at 188.775 mph for a lap time of 50.727 seconds on the 2.66-mile track, earned the highest starting position for the Dodge Charger. The next Dodge was Kyle Petty in 18th.

"We had a good car today," Newman said. "We knew we weren't going to be in contention for the pole, but to be just outside the top-10 and the fastest Dodge in qualifying shows just how hard my crew has worked.

"All of the Dodges were struggling throughout practice and qualifying, so to be able to go out and qualify top-15 is a good accomplishment for this team this weekend. Hopefully, we can continue to have this success on Sunday and bring home a good finish for Penske Racing, Alltel and all of our sponsors."

The start gives Newman his 10th consecutive top-20 start at Talladega.

The UAW-Ford 500 will air live on NBC and MRN Radio at 1:30 p.m., ET.

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Ryan Newman, Daytona 500 Champion!!
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