Restrictor race at Talladega is different from other speedways

NASCAR founder Bill France built Talladega Superspeedway in 1969, wanting a track that was longer and even faster than his beloved Daytona International Speedway.

When NASCAR stock cars became so fast that a blown tire could literally launch them into the catchfence, as happened to NASCAR Hall of Famer Bobby Allison in 1987, the era of the infamous restrictor plates was born.

Rusty Wallace set the world closed course speed record for stock cars at Talladega in 2004 with a lap of 216.309 MPH.

Located on a former Air Force Base in the heart of Alabama, Talladega could often be mistaken for an open air Civil War museum, there were so many Confederate flags flying.

But that was then.

This now.

The last two Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series winners on the 2.66-mile super speedway, Aric Almirola and Joey Logano, hail from Cuba and Connecticut, respectively.

This is not your father’s Talladega Superspeedway.

Chevrolet once dominated Talladega, winning 17 straight Cup races

at one point.

In the GEICO 500 Sunday, Ford seeks its eighth straight Alabama win and its ninth in the last 10 starts.

The Blue Oval has been so dominant, it’s led 40 percent of the laps in the last eight Cup races.

Logano led 126-of-188 laps in the spring race a year ago.

Almirola, a Cuban-American by way of Tampa, has been making himself at home on restrictor plate tracks since 2014. He won the July race at Daytona in 2014, and had the lead in the 2018 Daytona 500 in turn three on the final lap before eventual winner Austin Dillon wrecked him.

“I just had to be as aggressive as possible a few years back,” said Almirola, who’s now solidly established at Stewart Haas Racing. “You never know what’s going to happen at a plate race, so the best thing to do is as far up front as possible to avoid The Big One.”

Almirola, 35, used his win at Talladega last October to vault to a fifth place finish in the 2018 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series final points.

This year, he’s already led 72 laps, nearly half of his career-best total of 181 last season.

Kevin Harvick hopes his No. 4 Busch Beer Flannel Mustang continues Ford’s dominance at Talladega.

Only once since 2010, in 2017, has Bakersfield’s native son failed to win a race in the first 10 starts of the season. He could be 0-for10 in 2019 Sunday evening.

“I have no idea what is going to happen,” the onetime Mesa Marin legend said. “Talladega is bigger and wider than Daytona. The tri-oval is shaped differently than Daytona, with the start/finish line almost all the way down in turn one.

The bottom groove in the tri-oval doesn’t have any banking. So it’s like you’re going down in a ditch. That causes a lot of the wrecks.”