All season long, pundits have been pointing to Talladega as the "wild card" race of the Nextel Cup Chase, or as Boris Said calls it "a crap shoot."

But after last weekend, 'Dega might find itself playing second fiddle to Kansas when it comes to shaking things up both on the track and in the points. Sunday's Kansas race marked the first time in three weeks that drivers and fans were treated to the racy car of today, as opposed to the boxy Car of Tomorrow. The racing was better right from the start, but there was a storm brewing on the horizon - literally.

The race was red-flagged at lap 16, and again about 100 laps later, as brief but violent thunderstorms rolled across the Kansas plains. Perhaps it was the combination of the more maneuverable car with the urgent need to gain track position before darkness fell, but the end result was a wild day of crashes, controversy, and a big shake up in point standings among the title contenders.

Prior to the Kansas race, all 12 Chase drivers were within the 161-point margin that can be earned in a single race. After Kansas, only eight drivers can still make that claim. The bottom four Chasers - Kurt Busch, Jeff Burton, Matt Kenseth, and Denny Hamlin, now need more than one race to make up the difference between their positions and first-place Jimmie Johnson.

This week, the circuit heads to Talladega Superspeedway, a 2.66-mile tri-oval known for its own brand of wild racing. The north and south turns at Talladega have 33-degrees of banking, while the grandstands tri-oval is banked at 18 degrees.

Talladega is one of two courses on the Cup circuit requiring the mandatory use of a restrictor plate to keep speeds at or below the 200 mph mark. Because cars fitted with restrictor plates tend to travel in tight-knit packs, racing at Talladega usually results in at least one multi-car melee euphemistically termed "The Big One."

This year, drivers at Talladega will be dealing with yet another concern: The premiere of the Car of Tomorrow on a restrictor plate track. While the car is supposed to be safer overall, the lack of visibility from car to car, brought on by the COT's big wing and Gurney lip, will make it extremely difficult for drivers to read hand signals directly in front of them. While previous Talladega race stats may not hold the same value when comparing a non-COT event to this weekend's race, the most striking statistic from previous races at Talladega is the incredible dominance of the Chevy race teams. The Cup circuit visits Talladega twice a year - once in the spring and again in the fall. Looking at the last 35 races going all the way back to May of 1990, 27 of them (77%) have been one Chevy drivers. The remaining eight were split among three manufacturers: One each for Oldsmobile and Pontiac, which no longer race in the series, and six for Fords.

Notably, only one race in the past 17 at Talladega has been one by a car other than a Chevy - a Ford in 2005 driven by Dale Jarrett. And you'd have to go all the way back to the '70s to find a Dodge in the winner's circle at 'Dega, which makes any Dodge driver an unlikely pick to win this Sunday's race outright - particularly since Dodge's COT program has not caught up with Chevy or Ford this year.

That's not to say that a Dodge driver like Kurt Busch, currently showing at 10:1, can't be relatively successful here. Busch, the only Dodge man in the Chase, has an excellent record at Talladega, including six top 5s, ten top 10s, and an average finish of 10.2 in 13 starts. Busch was also the overall lap leader last week in Kansas, where he finished 11th.

Brian Vickers won this race a year ago in a controversial finish that gave the young driver his first Nextel Cup victory, but only after he punted then-teammate Jimmie Johnson, as well as fan favorite Dale Earnhardt Jr., for the win. Having moved to Toyota this year with Team Red Bull, Vickers is definitely not a threat to repeat, but his win does point up the success of HMS here, winning the past three races and five of the last seven. Jeff Gordon (5:1) accounts for three of those victories, with one each for Johnson (6:1) and Vickers.

No discussion of Talladega would be complete without a mention of Dale Earnhardt Jr., currently at 8:1, who used to be an odds-on favorite here. Junior won four straight Talladega races from 2001 to 2003, carrying on his father's legendary success at restrictor plate tracks. His last win at Talladega was in October of 2004, but he still has excellent numbers overall, with five wins, seven top 5s, and nine top 10s in 15 races, and an average finish of 12.6.

Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson finished 1-2 at Talladega back in April, in the last non-COT race that will ever be run here. Jeff Gordon was also the lap leader in the spring, but Denny Hamlin, currently 18:1, led the second-most laps with 48, though he finished a disappointing 21st. Rounding out the top 5 in April were Kurt Busch (10:1), David Gilliland (100:1), and Jamie McMurray (30:1).