Drivers exhale after Talladega

Jeff Gordon took the blame for a move whose poor timing left him in 19th place at Talladega, a track at which he normally excels. Matthew T. Thacker/ASP Inc/Icon

MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- Throughout the NASCAR Sprint Cup season, trends that begin at one track often given an indication of what to expect in the following race on the schedule.

And then there is Talladega, where little that happens on this restrictor-plate superspeedway comes close to what will happen this Saturday night at the three-quarters of a mile short track at Richmond, Va.

Races at Talladega Superspeedway are like watching a physics experiment gone awry. It has more to do with momentum, inertia and even Milk of Magnesia than horsepower and race strategy.

Talladega used to be quite predictable -- either Dale Earnhardt Jr. or a Hendrick driver such as Jeff Gordon or Jimmie Johnson was going to win the race.

That is what made Sunday's outcome a bit of a surprise when Kyle Busch finally scored his first top-10 finish with his victory in a race that ended under caution.

But to add to the surprise factor was Juan Pablo Montoya, who equaled his career-best oval track finish with a second place. Montoya finished second at last year's Allstate 400 at the Brickyard at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a track where he enjoyed success when he won the 2000 Indianapolis 500.

These days, a win by Kyle Busch should not be a surprise -- he's probably the best driver in racing this season considering his accomplishments in Cup, Nationwide and Craftsman Trucks. But considering Busch has only had sniffs at the top 10 in his previous Sprint Cup races and then drives to victory on Sunday only underlines how restrictor-plate racing is the "lottery drum" of NASCAR events.

Just spin the drum over and over and see which number pops out at any particular moment.

Make a bad decision and watch your hopes drop like the money just wasted on that lottery ticket.

"I just couldn't make a good decision all day long," Gordon said after finishing 19th. "I just made bad decisions left and right. Finally got ourselves right there in position to be awesome. They told me about the run coming. I saw Juan Pablo [Montoya] coming and it looked like they had a pretty good run. I tried to go up there and use that line. It was just too early. I should have stayed down low and waited it out another half of a lap.

"With this new package, it is just bumper cars. You are just getting beat to heck around every corner, every straightaway. You just keep going straight. You certainly have to wait for a very long time. Sometimes you can wait too long and sometimes you go too early and today we went too early."

It will be vastly different when NASCAR returns to its Saturday night short track roots at Richmond this weekend.

Many drivers in the series consider Richmond International Raceway as their favorite race track. It rewards the total combination of race car setup, driver skill and race strategy. While Talladega rewards bravery, the style of racing will be more traditional at Richmond, where a little fender rubbing won't result in "The Big One."

Crashes at Talladega can be started simply by taking the air off another driver's car or pushing them up on the high side of the race track.

At Richmond, a little bumping and banging is considered acceptable.

So that big gust of wind that came from Talladega Superspeedway at the conclusion of Sunday's race wasn't the rush and vortex of race cars zooming by in the draft; it was a collective sigh of relief from the Sprint Cup drivers that they had survived another Talladega race and were returning to normalcy beginning with Richmond.