High speeds, high anxiety hand-in-hand at Talladega

Carl Edwards would write the check right now.

"If somebody said, 'Hey, will you take 10th at Talladega, right now? You don't have to run the race.' I'd take in it a heartbeat," the Sprint Cup title contender said. "I'd pay a million dollars for it, because you just don't know what's going to happen there."

Such is the anxiety that big, bad Talladega Superspeedway instills within drivers competing for the championship within NASCAR's top division, which visits the 2.66-mile beast in the north Alabama hills this weekend. Talladega is a place where crazy, unpredictable, seemingly uncontrollable things happen, a track with a legacy of danger and destruction, a facility capable of point swings so large that they can bury a contender or give an also-ran a second chance. Just ask current series leader Jimmie Johnson, who after being spun out at the hands of former teammate Brian Vickers at 'Dega in 2006 found himself in eighth place, 156 points down.

Johnson climbed out of that hole, notching the first of what could be three consecutive championships. Nobody wants to attempt to duplicate that feat.

"Basically all you do is try to put yourself in the best position to stay up front," said Kevin Harvick, currently 136 points behind Johnson in fifth place. "But you have seen the wrecks happen up front, and start with the first car and collect the last car. There is no safe spot. You just go and you push and shove as hard as you can all day, and try to keep to yourself, and hopefully it isn't your day to wreck. You have a 50-50 shot when you go there, and that is just kind of how it is."

That's an understatement. For most drivers Talladega carries a level of apprehension unmatched by any other racetrack, an overarching sense of foreboding that's amplified in October by the narrowed point margins of the Chase. The competitors behind the wheel know their amount of control extends only so far, and that their entire season can be wrecked -- literally -- by another vehicle flying out of control. And that happens quite often at Talladega, a place where the infamous Big One is as omnipresent as barbecue, fish camps, mountain caverns and big bonfires ranging in the campgrounds.

"It doesn't matter where you're running on the racetrack," said Greg Biffle, 30 points back and in third place. "I was running third in a Nationwide race and watched the 10 car fly upside-down across my hood, so being at the front, at the back or in the middle, it doesn't matter, because you can be involved in something anywhere. And a lot of times it's not about speed or talent. It's, did you miss the accident?"

It all serves to burnish something of a sinister reputation at a track that's been controversial since the very beginning. The facility's inaugural event in 1969 was marred by a driver boycott over concerns that tires wouldn't hold up at such high speeds. Series founder Bill France Sr. ran the event anyway, busting a fledging driver union with a field comprised mostly of fill-ins. The ensuing years were filled with freak, tragic incidents -- Davey Allison's helicopter crash, Randy Owens' death in a water tank explosion, massive pileups that have sent cars, tires and drivers flying into a catchfence or over a wall.

"Over the years we've seen a lot of amazing things happen there, a lot of drama and tragedy as well. It just has always remained toward the forefront of our sport. It's the biggest track and the longest track on the circuit. It's had a lot of facelifts. It's just always been very dramatic," said five-time Talladega winner Dale Earnhardt Jr., eighth in the standings and 190 points back.

"It really created the big one before Daytona did, the big wrecks that you guys [in the media] like to talk about. I mean, it's the place where all that started. It's sort of always been in the shadow of Daytona. But to me, I don't know, it's just impressive, the size of the track, the speed, how close we run together. I mean, we're running 190 miles an hour in the draft, tight door-to-door, bumper-to-bumper. There's literally no room for any error whatsoever. It's just really, really exciting. It's an amazing adrenaline rush for four straight hours. You've got that feeling constantly throughout the whole race."

And Earnhardt relishes it. He's among the minority who doesn't feel that sense of dread when he enters the Talladega infield -- and, as the son of the racetrack's all-time most successful driver, why should he? Dale Earnhardt won at Talladega 10 times, building his name, as well as that of the race team he started, partly on his restrictor-plate prowess. No wonder Junior loves the place.

"It's pretty fun to be able to push a friend into the lead, get help from a buddy of yours to get to a lead, things like that going on throughout the day," Earnhardt said. "It's pretty fun, it really is. I like being in the packs. I like being three- and four-wide, making the best of it. I don't know, it's a lot of fun for me."

Safe to say, not all of his peers share that view. Some just want to get safely away from the place -- even if costs them a million bucks.