I hate Talladega Superspeedway.

I've hated it ever since the first race I ever saw there, in the fall of 2001, when Bobby Labonte went rolling down the backstretch on the final lap and everyone just accepted it as a matter of course.

I hate it because it gives me this tight, uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach that does not go away until all 43 drivers slide out of their cars and walk away. I hate it because from Bobby Allison to Rusty Wallace to Elliott Sadler to Carl Edwards, vehicles have been going airborne there and no one seems to really know how to stop them. I hate it because it's a place that glorifies spectacular accidents and near-death experiences, no matter how much people say they really love it for the racing.

I hate it because it's the one track on the NASCAR circuit that panders to the lowest common denominator of race fan, and this past Sunday afternoon it was at it again. There was Ryan Newman, flipping into the air and landing upside down and sliding on his roof and needing several long minutes to be extricated from his crushed race car, all for your viewing pleasure. Thanks to the great God in heaven that he was not hurt, or the vehicle was not on fire, or there was not some other threatening circumstance that would have mandated a hastier exit. Yes, a pesky thing like a serious injury would have ruined all the fun.

I hate Talladega because to me it seems the last vestige of the bad old days of NASCAR, when the sport was slow to adapt to safety advances, when drivers who wore head-and-neck restraints were mocked my their more macho counterparts in the garage area, when the series was considerably more perilous than it is today.

I hate Talladega because it seems to give license to the kind of flying-through-the-air crashes that should not happen anymore, because it provides cute euphemisms like the "Big One" that excuse needless mechanical carnage, because it allows NASCAR to try and blame driver behavior for events on a track that's been tossing cars around like pick-up sticks for 40 years now.

But most of all, I hate the risk. Goodness, I deplore it. I know full well that no NASCAR driver has been killed at Talladega since the great Tiny Lund lost his life in a T-bone accident in 1975, and that in terms of raw numbers Daytona and Indianapolis -- the two foremost shrines of the sport -- have proven far more deadly.

Fatal accidents can occur on any kind of race track, and it's a testament to NASCAR's renewed effort to safety that the sport's national divisions have been free of such incidents for more than seven years now. And yet, Talladega is the one place where the series most flirts with disaster. In the spring, we were lucky that not more than seven fans were hurt when Edwards' car went spinning into the fence. Sunday, we were lucky that Kevin Harvick's hood broke Newman's fall. How much longer will that luck hold out?

I hate Talladega because it seems a track beyond anyone's control. The place is an unruly beast, and has been since its first race, which was boycotted by many top drivers over safety concerns. Ever since, NASCAR has tried to reign it in -- with restrictor plates, with higher catchfences, with yellow-line penalties, with mandates against bump-drafting. Check out the highlights from the final five laps Sunday to see how all that worked out.

Video
• Newman goes airborne, comes down on roof
• Martin flips over as multi-car wreck ends race (Continued)