First-time viewer’s guide to Talladega

Greetings, new viewers! This weekend, NASCAR is racing at Talladega Superspeedway – a track that has built its own legacy based on both racing and revelry. This event will look different than any of the ones you’ve watched so far, so @nascarcasm and Steve Luvender are here to help you through your first race at this storied track.

Talladega is more than just a race. It’s an event. During a normal year, more than 100,000 race fans young and old will cram their trucks, motorhomes and hollowed-out school buses with stripper poles installed inside into the Talladega campgrounds for an unforgettable weekend. Picture if Mardi Gras has a pack of cars driving 200 mph around it and replaced the jazz bands with “Sweet Home Alabama” on frustrating repeat.

“Why are they running so close together?” you’re probably wondering. At Talladega, the cars run in what’s called a “draft.” This means they run faster if they run closer together, for scientific, aerodynamic reasons we don't dare try to explain. Watching them run that close together also causes ulcer-inducing tension. It’s OK to watch portions of the race through your fingers like you’re watching “Halloween” and waiting for Jason Voorhees to jump out. We’ve all done it. It’s OK.

At 2.66 miles in length, Talladega is the biggest track in NASCAR. The state of Delaware could fit inside its infield! (Don’t actually look this one up. Just take us at our word.)

OK. Talladega is where ride-sharing services were invented.

Not at all. The idea that an actual race-car driver would emerge from his wrecked care and run to the … oh hell, nevermind.

YEP. You’ll see cars contending for the win that consist of at least 25% duct-tape content. This is normal for ‘Dega. The car that enters Victory Lane will likely look like the sorry attempt at your child’s home-school papier-mache project. Look at that thing. I assure you they’re trying to fix it and not mummify it.

Rumor has it the track is built on an ancient burial ground and the land is cursed by angry ghosts — buuuut, anyway, not to worry. This is not confirmed, BUT it would explain a lot.

Oh, how to describe the Talladega infield. On a normal race weekend, it’s a place where hordes of scantily-clad revelers gather for beer, beads, more beer and terrible decisions. Do not enter the infield, especially in the evening, unless you are fully aware the technology to unsee something does not yet exist.

This would be two women wrestling in a giant vat of barbecue sauce. And know what else? On the grand scale of bizarre and sometimes harrowing things you’ll see happen in the Talladega infield, this is barely even a 1. If like 500 gallons of barbecue sauce barely registers, you know you’re gonna see some s—t.

Neither of us were there, but rumor has it when Dale Earnhardt Jr. won there in 2015, nine months later the population of Alabama doubled.

Yep. They put this on the spotter stand so when infield revelers wake up bleary-eyed, raucously hungover and wondering what the hell happened last night, they can look up and learn their current geographic location.

You bet it is! You definitely need to go whenever things return to normal. Whether on track or in the infield, you’re gonna see some crushed metal with beer logos on the side.