Playing the Talladega mind game

At my first visit to Talladega, a veteran driver told me that qualifying at the 2.66-mile track would be the easiest thing I would ever do in a racecar. Then he told me that the racing there might be the most difficult. Over the next 13 years, I found that he was correct.

Qualifying at Talladega is simple. It requires leaving pit road in first gear, shifting three times, maintaining full throttle and not braking until you’ve completed your two laps and are heading for pit road. Really, the only way a driver could fail would be forgetting to steer. It’s almost that easy.

Racing at the Alabama superspeedway is an entirely new ball game. I would say the difference between racing at Phoenix last week and Talladega this week is the difference between playing offense versus playing defense in any other sport.

In Phoenix, the objective is to manage roughly 850 horsepower in and out of turns with less than 12 degrees of banking, with the focus toward catching the car in front, passing and moving on to the next.

At Talladega, drivers operate with approximately half the horsepower and run full throttle, three wide most of the day, without the ability to drive away or separate from the pack on the 33 degrees of banking.

Believe it or not, a large part of the four hours of competition at Talladega is spent studying the mirror. How important is the mirror? A week ago in Arizona, the mirror could fall off and you could still carry on with the help of your spotter. You used the mirror sparingly, maybe a quick glance on corner exit to insure you were clear of the car you were passing.

At the Talladega track, losing the mirror would be like losing a tire. It feels as though you spend 60-percent of the day studying what’s in front of you and 40-percent studying what’s behind. If you’re fortunate to get to the lead at Talladega, the percentages reverse.

Talladega is such an unusual discipline of racing that I don’t think it’s fair to qualify driving there as good, bad or something you like or dislike. In fact, my perception of it, reflecting on my years of racing there, is that it’s an acquired taste.

Absolutely nothing about Talladega and the way you race there translated to what I had learned in my first 10 years competing on short tracks throughout New England. So for most drivers, learning to race at Talladega feels like a demotion. In other words, regardless of how old you are and how many years of experience you carry, if you’re competing at Talladega for the first time, you are at a serious disadvantage.

To compete at the largest track on the schedule, you must be a participant in “The Pack,” which usually consists of 10 to 15 cars during practice, but swells to 43 at the drop of the green flag.

What you discover when you enter this large group of competitors is that depending on where you position yourself relative to the cars around you, your car will be affected by different forces and consequently behave and drive differently.

Being in the very front of the pack is by far the most comfortable because the air traveling over your car is pure and undisrupted, so it helps stabilize the car by producing drag and down force. When you drift to the very back of the pack, the car has a more turbulent feel.

Ricky Craven (41) went airborne at Talladega back in 1996. He broke a vertebrae, was back racing the next week, though he had to give way to a back-up driver after a few laps.

(AP)

The three rows of cars in front constantly changing lanes creates a disruptive feel along the lines of crossing over a wake in a boat. When you’re in the back, you have the benefit of easing out of the accelerator because the 30-plus cars in front of you punch a large enough hole that there is little jeopardy of losing the draft.

This is why you often hear drivers refer to being in the front or the back as the safest and most comfortable places to run. But the middle is a place you have to occupy at some point in the day if you have any interest in winning the race, and it’s the middle where things become the most uncomfortable and often lead to …

The Big One is something that defines nearly every Talladega race, consuming a large number of cars, the majority being innocent bystanders to the matter.

The big one often is created in the middle of the pack, the most vulnerable of all areas within the draft. Driving the middle groove, in 20th position of a 43-car pack, is as mentally challenging as anything I have ever done. You are not only responsible for the car you are driving, but also you are, to some degree, responsible for the car to your inside and out, because an erratic move by one driver forces all others to react immediately.

Reacting inside a race car is nothing new, but reacting successfully at a track where cars are traveling 190 mph, inches apart, depends greatly on synchronized driver responses. Eventually, drivers’ ability to dart left or right together as perfectly as the formation of geese in flight will be tested and ultimately disrupted by a driver turning a little one way when the fate of the cars around him depends on him turning the other.

When contact is made and one car begins to spin, everyone beside or behind is potentially along for the ride. There simply is not enough distance between the cars to allow drivers to take evasive action.

Also, because of the speeds at Talladega, the tire is made of a harder material and is therefore less effective when it comes to braking, compounding an already difficult situation.

Every driver comes to Talladega aware of this possibility. I personally have been an unwilling participant in at least one of these 190-mph demolition derbies, with mine appearing more an attempt at flying than of the original objective which is 500-miles of rubber meeting asphalt.

The funny thing is, as a driver I never circled Talladega as a race I was looking forward to. But now, as a spectator, I do.