Double-file restarts add new twist to road racing (cont'd)

Edwards was quick to agree.

"The first turn is not that big of a deal," Edwards said. "But that second turn, where you can't see over the top of the hill and it's about a 110-degree, 120-degree radius, that's going to be wild right there."

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Kurt Busch admitted he is going to be nervous under the new conditions for restarts. He also said he's fairly certain one bad caution likely will now breed another.

"It's going to be a logjam. It's going to be a parking lot. It's going to take two laps for it to settle out," Busch said.

"Normally, we have one of those at the initial start [of the race]. And so there are going to be many opportunities for extra yellows to happen, I believe, because cars are going to be going off in Turns 2 and 4, and having issues in Turn 7 with running into each other. We're just going to be up on top of each other that much more due to the new double-file restart rule, and it's a very congested race track to begin with."

Edwards added that the late cautions in the scheduled 110-lap event will be the most agonizing -- if you're up front. If you're toward the front but not quite there, it could work to a driver's advantage, he said.

"The whole idea is to make it exciting -- and it will sure be exciting," Edwards said. "If I'm leading this thing or running second or third, that double-file restart is the last thing I'm going to want to see. But if I'm running eighth or something, it'll be just fine."

One of the few drivers to downplay the potential for mayhem on the road-course restarts under the new rule is three-time defending points champion Jimmie Johnson.

"You just take it as it comes," Johnson said of racing at one of the few tracks where he has never won. "I think there has been a lot of concern about the double-file restart here, and I don't know what the big concern is. I guess I'll have to get in the race and see what the potential problem would be. But to me, it doesn't seem like it's a big deal."

Johnson obviously appears to be in the minority amongst the drivers, although Burton said he is trying to see some positives, too.

"The positive to it is we've seen a lot of moves made up there because everybody tries to get to the bottom and a lot of people try to dig something out by trying to go to the outside [on restarts]," Burton said. "So you end up in a real awkward position on top of the hill -- because someone tried to make a move to go from eighth to third. That gets real awkward. We're not going to have as much of that because there isn't going to be anywhere to go.

"I'm as curious as everyone else is to know how that's going to work. It works OK at the start of the race -- but it's a different mentality when it's 100 laps to go versus when it's 10 laps to go. With the fuel-mileage game and all that stuff going on, man, I don't know what's going to happen. I'd watch closely because I think it's going to be pretty interesting. My strategy, like I said, is to survive it."

Joe Menzer is the author of "The Great American Gamble: How the 1979 Daytona 500 Gave Birth to a NASCAR Nation." Click here to purchase.