Storylines: Flirting with disaster

There is a photo from last year's Chase race at Talladega Superspeedway in which every car in the picture but one wrecks. The photo shows Dale Earnhardt Jr. pinching Greg Biffle into the wall, then plowing into the side of Matt Kenseth. It gives the impression that Kevin Harvick and Reed Sorenson avoid the carnage, but they didn't. They were part of it, too.

In all, 12 drivers were caught in this "Big One" just nine laps from the finish of last year's AMP Energy 500.

The one who stayed out of trouble? Jimmie Johnson, who despite being smack-dab in the middle of it all drove through entirely unscathed.

Six weeks later, Johnson won his third straight championship by a scant 69 points. Had he not skirted the danger that day in Talladega, the 2008 title almost assuredly would have gone to Carl Edwards.

Teflon Jimmie, that's what he's been since crashing at Talladega in the fall of 2006. Since then, however, he hasn't finished outside the top 15 in a single Chase race – a span of 32 events. In that time he's altered the playoff mindset from one that accepted room for a Mulligan in the Chase to one where near perfection is what it will take to win it all.

Six races into this year's Chase and once again Johnson is Mulligan-free. The competition can't say the same, which is why the three-time defending champ's closest competitor (Mark Martin) is 118 points back.

Now Talladega looms again.

Though there are three more stops remaining after this weekend's race, Sunday's AMP Energy 500 will determine the fate of this Chase. Will it be a blowout or will Talladega jump up, rip the Teflon off Johnson and bring him back to the field?

It's possible to make up 161 points in one race, meaning Martin and Jeff Gordon (150 points back) could conceivably leave Talladega ahead of Johnson in the standings.

But even if that were to happen – if Johnson were to wreck and Martin and Gordon were able to finish at or near the front – Johnson would still have to be considered the favorite. He does, after all, have a better average finish than anyone at Texas and Phoenix, and the one time he went to Homestead-Miami Speedway trailing but with a realistic shot at the title, he finished second.

No, the title is not his, yet. But Talladega will determine how precarious the route will be from here to claiming championship No. 4.

Here are five other storylines to watch for on Sunday:

1. Will Talladega be "safer?"

The real question might be do fans even want Talladega to be safer?

Following Carl Edwards' dramatic and very scary wreck in April, in which one fan sustained a broken jaw from flying debris, speedway and NASCAR officials took to taking measures to reduce the chances of that happening again.

The height of the catch fence along the frontstretch at Talladega was increased, and NASCAR is mandating an even smaller restrictor plate this weekend, which will decrease speeds.

These are good steps, but they won't change the style of racing at Talladega, which is probably a good thing because most fans love what Talladega produces – tight, bumper-to-bumper action where a multi-car wreck is but one bad decision away.

"Slowing the speed down will keep the cars on the ground when they get turned around backwards," Jimmie Johnson explained. "Yes, they will be safer. We will still be in the big group and it won't change that aspect. The potential is there for the wrecks. But for a car being airborne, I think the chances of that go way, way down with the speed loss.

"I don't see a change in [the racing] too much. Maybe a little. But we'll still have the same product."

2. If Dale Earnhardt Jr. can't do well here …

… can he do well anywhere?

It used to be that Talladega was the cure for any of Junior's ills. That's not the case anymore.

Since reeling off a string of five wins in seven races between 2001 and 2004, Earnhardt has been winless at the Alabama superspeedway. His second-place finish there in April is his best finish in four years. In fact, it was just his third top 10 in the last nine races there.

But whether it's the CoT or his confidence, something has changed for Junior at Talladega. The magic is gone.

Going into Sunday's race, Junior isn't just looking to reverse his fortunes at Talladega; he's in desperate need of anything positive to build on heading into 2010. Talladega used to be that cure. Can it be again?

3. Can two cars beat all?

Forever Talladega has been about a pack of cars helping push and pull each other around the massive 2.66-mile oval. Without a draft, you didn't stand a chance.

But since the introduction of the Car of Tomorrow, two cars working together have been able to do the job it used to take 10 cars to do.

"Things are definitely changing here," Jeff Gordon said. "We saw it a little bit last year and again here in April – two cars working together could separate themselves from the bigger pack. We’re still going to see three-and-four-wide racing with a big pack of 30 to 40 cars, but you could see some breakaways during the race and again at the end."

This would seemingly be the safest strategy – two drivers working together to not only lead, but stay ahead of and out of trouble. Will two drivers get together and try it?

4. When will the Big One come?

Yep, it's only a matter of when, because in the last four races there has been at least one wreck involving 10 or more cars.

As noted earlier, NASCAR is mandating a smaller restrictor plate. However, according to some drivers the smaller plate will only enhance the chance of a Big One.

"The smaller plate is only gonna magnify that or amplify the chance for that," Carl Edwards said. "If we were unrestricted here and we were going so fast we could trim the cars out and try to lift in the corner, we would probably have less wrecks, but, boy, the ones that we'd have would be big."

Though it's impossible to predict when it will come – the first Big One happened on Lap 6 earlier this year – do not turn away from the action around Lap 175. In six of the last seven Talladega races, there has been a major accident as the race neared the 10-lap-to-go mark.

5. Who will win the crapshoot?

It seems a rather obvious storyline, except that picking a winner at Talladega, even with only a lap to go, is tantamount to predicting the price of gold. You know it's going to change; it's just a matter of when.

Brad Keselowski wasn't on anyone's radar to win there in April until the moment he actually took the checkered flag. Last October, the win would have gone to Regan Smith had he not been penalized for driving under the yellow line.

Over the last eight races at Talladega, there have been an average of 53 lead changes – or about one every 3.5 laps.

To some degree, it's a matter of having your number shuffled to the front at the right time. So, whose number will come up on Lap 188?