| | TALLADEGA, Ala. -- No one should be fooled by any brave smiles on the faces of drivers preparing for Sunday's Winston 500.
Restrictor-plate racing causes fear and trepidation even in the most courageous of men.
"You wake up in the morning with an ache in the pit of your stomach," said Jeff Burton, a five-time winner this season in NASCAR's Winston Cup series. "I don't get nervous before any races with the exception of Daytona and Talladega."
Those are the two longest and fastest ovals on NASCAR's top circuit, and the only tracks at which the sanctioning body requires carburetor restrictor plates to keep the cars under 200 mph in the interest of safety for both drivers and the spectators.
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I don't get nervous
before any races with the exception of Daytona and Talladega. ” |
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— Jeff Burton |
The plates reduce airflow to the carburetor, thereby cutting
considerable horsepower.
It works as intended, but the consequence is that the cars have
about the same horsepower, keeping them bunched like long freight
trains. That, added to a slower throttle response, virtually
guarantees at least one multicar crash during each race.
"It's difficult when you're running 20th and the leader is a
second ahead of you and you're sitting there just hoping to miss
the wreck," Burton said.
Beyond the danger lurking on Talladega's 2.66-mile oval, Dale
Earnhardt says the plates have taken away some of the enjoyment of
competition.
"I enjoy racing on the big tracks, but it used to be more fun
than it is now because we could run wide open with no restrictor
plates," said Earnhardt, who won the spring race in Talladega, as
well as last year's Daytona 500. "Before the restrictor plates,
you would carry so much speed going into the corners that you had
to lift to make it around.
"Now, it's straight leg, foot to the floor all the way around
the track, and the first one that lifts goes back to the end of the
line."
And, as much success as Earnhardt _ a master of drafting at
Daytona and Talladega _ has had at the big tracks, he knows how
fast they can bite you.
He was caught up in a 21-car crash in Talladega in April of
1998, and finished 36th.
Ward Burton says the best plans often don't matter.
"You've got to be good and you've got to be lucky to win at
Talladega," he said. "You can't be one or the other. You have to
be both."
Last April, his Pontiac was a top-five car, one he easily felt
could have won the DieHard 500.
"Bad luck is another car running into us on pit road and doing
enough damage to completely take us out of the running for
anything," he recalled.
But, it's on the track where most of the problems arise in
Talladega.
"The big wreck is the thing that's on everybody's mind once the
race starts," he said. "If you're going to win the race, you have
to finish. You start figuring that big wreck is going to happen at
some point."
Ward noted that Talladega is one of the few tracks where running
near the rear of the field in the early going could become an
advantage.
"Look at the big wreck in the first Talladega race last year,"
he said. "There were a bunch of guys struggling a little bit
during the day, but then a bunch of cars starting running into each
other with about 40 laps to go.
"The ones who missed the wreck ended up, at the worst, with
halfway decent finishes. The wrecks went to the garage and had a
terrible day."
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