Notes: Gale gets big start at home track of Talladega

Nothing like a little pressure to top off a homecoming.

Cale Gale comes to Talladega Superspeedway as the lone driver for Kevin Harvick Inc., a team owned by the two-time series champion and his wife, DeLana.

Fast facts

What	Aaron's 312
When	Green, 3:20 p.m. ET Saturday
TV	ABC, 2:30 p.m. ET
Radio	MRN (Sirius Ch. 28), 3 p.m. ET

• Track Page | Tickets | Travel

Normally at a companion event, Harvick is behind the wheel of one of the team's two cars in the Nationwide Series race. Only twice this season has Gale competed with Harvick.

But at Talladega, it's the 23-year-old Mobile, Ala., native all by his lonesome. Driving for the team that won this race last year. With its second car in the runner-up position. In front of his home crowd.

"Obviously I do put a little added pressure on myself since I am from Alabama," Gale said. "The last person from Alabama to win at Talladega was Davey Allison, so to be in good equipment and have a shot is pretty cool.

"KHI won this race last year with Bobby [Labonte] and Tony [Stewart] finished second. That's more pressure on me because we're returning with only one car this time."

Gale is scheduled to compete in 14 races for KHI this season, sharing time with his boss and also with defending Truck Series champion Ron Hornaday, to gain knowledge and experience. He's run three races thus far and his last outing was a successful one -- he finished a career-best eighth at Nashville Superspeedway in March.

"This is the same car Kevin ran at Daytona [finishing 21st] and since then, [we've] worked hard to improve [it] before heading back to the superspeedways," Gale said. "The main thing is to stay in line, hang in the draft and hopefully have a shot at the end of the day."

Busch takes aim at Ard

What more can Kyle Busch do for an encore?

He's been pretty successful in his follow-up work since winning three weeks ago at Texas Motor Speedway. Since that victory, Busch has posted two more wins -- at Phoenix International Raceway and last Sunday at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

Not only has Busch -- who is in the top 10 in the standings in each of NASCAR's national series -- won three in a row for the first time since Ryan Newman in 2005, but he's shown his talent and versatility off the same way Newman did.

Like Newman, Busch accumulated his wins on totally different tracks -- the intermediate and racy venue at Texas; the one-mile short track at Phoenix and the winding road course in Mexico City.

He has two top-fives in four series races at Talladega, but was 39th last year after an early accident.

The only series driver to win four races in succession is Sam Ard. The two-time series champion did so in 1983. Three of Ard's four consecutive wins were on short tracks while one was an intermediate-track victory.

Ambrose, Wallace back In The groove?

The collective sigh that emanated Sunday from Mexico City was let loose by two drivers who came into this season with high expectations but thus far hadn't delivered.

Marcos Ambrose collected a runner-up finish, not a surprise for the veteran of road-course racing. More surprising was the career-best result for the Aussie, his first top-10 since last year's season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway (10th).

Steve Wallace was due for his breakthrough top-10 finish but few figured it would be on a road course in his 61st start. Wallace finished 10th in Mexico and moved to 14th in the rankings, tying his career-best standing. He was 26th at Talladega in 2007.

Ambrose, who finished eighth in the final standings last year, had understandably lofty goals for 2008, but it's been his JTG Racing teammate, Kelly Bires, who's been the leader for the organization.

Bires is 10th in the standings and will make his track debut at Talladega. Ambrose was 25th at last year's race.

In The Loop

Saturday's race at Talladega Superspeedway looks like a perfect opportunity for Clint Bowyer to put some space between himself and a hard-charging Carl Edwards.

Edwards tightened the gap with a fourth-place finish at Mexico City last weekend, closing to within nine points of the series-leading Bowyer.

Now comes the unpredictable nature of Talladega, where Bowyer has performed well in the Nationwide Series (as opposed to his 30.2 average finish in the Cup Series). Bowyer finished fifth there in 2006 and 13th the last time the series raced at Talladega in 2007. In the last three races, Bowyer has a driver rating of 93.8, an average running position of 10.5 and has run 70.9 percent of the laps in the top 15.

Edwards, though solid with two consecutive 10th-place runs at Talladega, hasn't been as statistically strong as Bowyer. In his Nationwide Series career at Talladega, Edwards has a driver rating of 87.4, an average running position of 14.8 and has run 67.5 percent of the laps in the top 15.

Also watch for a strong run by David Ragan, who sits fifth in the standings. In his only series start at Talladega, Ragan scored a fourth-place finish, had a driver rating of 100.1, an average running position of 10.8 and ran 66.7 percent of the laps in the top 15.

Of the series regulars, watch for a solid run from David Stremme, who returns to the track for the first time since 2005. He finished fourth in that race, earned a driver rating of 89.1 and an average running position of 12.5.