Author: Nate Ryan
Date: May 1, 2014
TALLADEGA, Ala. – The debut of knockout qualifying at Talladega Superspeedway promises to be among the most action-packed (and perhaps crash-marred) high-speed scrambles of the Sprint Cup season.
There will be myriad strategies employed Saturday (charge to the front with a small squadron of wingmen? Lay back and wait to be swallowed by the pack?), but Kevin Harvick might have the sanest -- and safest – approach for the one-hour session that will determine the pole-sitter for the Aaron's 499.
"I thought about just going home and starting in the back," Harvick said with a laugh. "It's going to be exciting, to say the least. There is only one way to get a good lap, and that is to catch the pack and have four or five cars lined up behind you."
That figures to be a daunting prospect at Talladega, which is the longest and widest oval in NASCAR but also among the most treacherous because its ultrasmooth surface perpetuates the illusion of countless options for navigating the finicky draft. Because of horsepower-robbing plates that choke airflow to the engine and prevent "takeoff" speeds well above 200 mph, the track tends to produce tight packs of cars three wide and several rows deep, and massive pileups often are triggered by antsy drivers trying to force their way through lanes that disappear quickly.
Registering a fast qualifying lap will be tricky with the cars closely bunched, as evidenced by Nationwide Series qualifying at Daytona International Speedway, a sister restrictor-plate track. Though the time trails were cut short to 25 minutes by rain, it was a fierce display of 200-mph pack racing that produced a crash and many disquieting moments.
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