For the competitors in the Chase for the Nextel Cup, it must feel like wrestling an alligator and then getting tossed into a pit with a bear. For two consecutive Sundays now, they've been beaten up by wrecks and mishaps that have shattered NASCAR's championship field. All this even before they arrive at the one racetrack that's long been their greatest worry -- Talladega Superspeedway, the sinister, snarling 2.66-mile monster of a facility that greets them this week.

They've been here before, of course; two times each season the Nextel Cup tour visits the white-knuckle raceway in the hills of northeastern Alabama, where restrictor plates limit horsepower but also compact the field into buzzing, tumultuous, sometimes car-flipping packs. But never under conditions like these, with a Car of Tomorrow that's been on the track for all of two test days, and will reveal some of its characteristics only in the thick of an event crucial to the title chase.

"I feel concerned and worried," said Chase leader Jimmie Johnson. "But that's no different than any other plate race. And with all the new things coming along, it's still going to be a plate race and we still have the same issues to deal with. I think it's a little bit more difficult now. There are a lot of unknowns that we'll have to sort out. But it's still the feeling of a restrictor-plate race in my stomach."

What more damage can Talladega do? Ten of the 12 drivers suffered mechanical issues or mistakes in the event two weeks ago at Dover International Speedway, and 10 more ran into problems last week in Kansas City. The result was a close points race that was ripped apart, with only two drivers -- Jeff Gordon (six behind) and Clint Bowyer (14 behind) -- within 100 points of Johnson. Fourth-place Tony Stewart is 117 points back. Two drivers, Matt Kenseth and Denny Hamlin, are more than 200 behind.

But those numbers don't assuage the concerns of the drivers at the top of the standings, who have to get through this weekend before they can realistically begin looking at the title hunt's stretch run.

"Everybody is worried about Talladega," Bowyer said. "It's going to be a handful. You can get away with so much more in this car. You can push each other all the way around the racetrack. You have to lift in the corner and in the tri-oval to keep from running over the guy in front of you. You drag the brake a little bit on those areas and go right back to it on the straightaways. Obviously, if everyone can keep their heads it will be fine, but I've got a feeling we're going to struggle with that."

The draft is the big unknown. In the two-day COT test at Talladega, drivers focused on single-car runs and rarely drafted in packs larger than 10 or 12 cars, giving them little indication as to how the vehicle will perform in traffic Sunday. There are all kinds of theories -- it will be harder to pass, it will be harder to stay in the draft, it will be more difficult to go from the back to the front, drivers are going to have to bump-draft almost all the way around the racetrack even though NASCAR doesn't want them to do it in the corners and tri-oval. No one will know for sure until the green flag falls on the UAW-Ford 500.

"The interesting thing about the Car of Tomorrow at Talladega, and I know this contradicts itself, but it's easier to lose the draft and at the same it's easier to catch the draft," said 10th-place Jeff Burton, 186 points behind Johnson. "It's much more situational. But I believe that if you got far enough behind, I don't know that you'll catch the draft. Even if they are three-wide, two-wide, there's a point of no return where you won't catch it anymore. We still don't understand exactly what that point is. I also saw the possibility where people got lined up, say the top 10 got lined up, and 12 on back was double-file. Maybe the top 10 will pull away. Those are the things that are hard to tell what's going to happen."

Added sixth-place Kyle Busch, 136 points behind Johnson: "Obviously the biggest unknown is putting all 43 cars on the track and seeing where everybody's going to wind up. You don't want to fall far behind. If you get too far behind, the pack gets substantially faster than it was before, but it seems harder to catch up because the cars are so draggy compared to what we used to run. So they draft a little bit different."

Then there's the issue of bump-drafting. From the test, drivers learned that the COT "sucks up" to the car in front of it better than the old car, which leads to the distinct possibility of nose-to-tail fields spinning all the way around the racetrack. Of course, NASCAR implements bump-draft "no zones" in the corners and tri-oval of restrictor-plate tracks, and has officials on watch for violators. But drivers wonder if they'll be able to stop doing it, even in areas where bump-drafting is supposedly off-limits, and even if some of the competitors in the full field aren't very experienced at it.

"The cars are going to be closer together," Bowyer said. "You're able to push each other all the way around the track and because of that, the least little slip-up, because everybody is a lot closer, it's going to be more catastrophic. That's going to be the main thing about Talladega. It's going to be more of what we already had."

Added Busch: "I hope that guys keep their heads on their shoulders and we don't wreck each other. You need the bump-draft more now than you ever have, and when you do bump somebody they get squirrely. That's not too promising right there, but we're just going to have to see. You can't have four guys deep bumping each other because somebody's going to come spitting out of the middle."