Talladega Superspeedway has a well-documented history of chaos and carnage that places it rather high among the tracks that drivers, particularly ones in a favorable position in the points standings, don’t look forward to.
This is often due to Talladega presenting a formidable and relatively unique combination of challenges.
Starting with the introduction of the carburetor restrictor plate in 1988, the 2.66-mile tri-oval greatly leveled the playing field among the competitors. True, the big budget teams can potentially finish in the back at any speedway. But at Talladega, they can end up at the bottom of the finishing order without really having a notable reason why.
Additionally, the tightly grouped cars are prone to catastrophic accidents that wipe out several of them at a time, whether they were part of the reason for the melee or not. Such crashes are all too often accepted as inevitable by teams and fans alike.
Except that they aren’t inevitable at all. Three times, the NASCAR Cup Series has completed a 500-mile race at Talladega without a caution flag. That’s right, not even a single sheet-metal-obliterating accident. And all three occurred over a span of just six years.
I wouldn’t fault anyone who doesn’t know this. With each return to Talladega, those three caution-free days get further away in more ways than one.
In April of 1997, Mark Martin was in the midst of a winless streak. He hadn’t won a NASCAR Cup Series race since October of 1995. Talladega presented Martin and his team with an opportunity to break out of the slump. After all, he had won the very same race in April of 1995.
But persistent rain on Sunday and Monday and an upcoming trip to Sears Point Raceway (now Sonoma Raceway) forced NASCAR to postpone the event to an off date the week following the next race at Sears Point.
When the series returned to Alabama, Martin was suddenly the most recent winner, having won from the pole at Sonoma. He started the Winston 500 in 18th position and led three times for a total of 46 laps en route to his second consecutive win.
Unusual was the fact that Martin led the final 31 laps, an extraordinarily long stretch for the end of a Talladega race. Finishing second that day was Dale Earnhardt, who led the most laps but left Talladega still mired in a winless streak of his own.
The yellow flag never waved that day, a welcome relief from the track’s previous few events, which even today are…
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