By NATE RYAN
USA TODAY
NASCAR will race its spookiest track on Halloween weekend for the first time, and the top two title contenders view Talladega Superspeedway in a way befitting the witching hour.
Trick or treat.
Mark Martin, for once, hopes for the latter. Jimmie Johnson is wary of the former.
"You can't control what's going on," Johnson said, explaining why he considers the 2.66-mile superspeedway, where restrictor plates are used to restrict airflow to the engine and reduce speeds, the most foreboding of the 10 tracks in the Chase for the Sprint Cup. "There's nowhere safe. That worries me the most."
With an average finish of 17.7 in 15 starts, Talladega is easily the points leader's worst track in the Chase. In April, Johnson proclaimed "man, it sucks racing here" after finishing 30th in a 10-car crash with 30 laps remaining.
Martin, who trails Johnson by 118 points with four races left in the season, hasn't been so enamored with NASCAR's longest track either. He's finished 30th or worse in six of his last 11 Talladega starts and intentionally left it off his part-time Cup schedule the last two years.
Martin also crashed in April but is taking the opposite stance of his Hendrick Motorsports teammate, saying Talladega represents "my opportunity to really get back into the running (for the championship)" because of its capricious nature.
"I have a feeling that I'm going to have a great Talladega race," Martin said. "The law of averages is going to get you sooner or later, and I think I've got some good karma. I am going to race like I am not concerned about getting in an accident."
But many of his peers, starting with Johnson, will be. Since its controversial opening 40 years ago caused a driver's strike, Talladega has been known for big crashes and bad omens (Bobby Isaac retired from a 1973 race claiming a ghostly voice told him to get out of the car). A native American blessing ceremony recently was conducted at its finish line "to restore balance," according to a track release.
The latest ominous event was when Carl Edwards' Ford went sailing into the frontstretch fence on the final lap of the April race. The track raised the catch-fence from 14 to 22 feet, and NASCAR has reduced its restrictor plates by one-sixty-fourth of an inch, a decrease of about 12 horsepower. But Talladega's high banks figure to remain just as clogged with tight packs of cars stretched four wide and inches apart.
"It won't make much difference," Greg Biffle said. "One of these times your number is going to get pulled. One guy will cause a wreck, it'll collect 12 cars and you never know who'll be in it."
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