Amp Energy 500 Qualifying Update

Talladega Superspeedway -- 10/31/2010

Author: Jed Henson

Published: Saturday Oct 30 2010 7:09pm

Read all of Jed Henson's articles here


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Practice and qualifying are in the books at Talladega, but unfortunately we still don't have a great idea of how Sunday's race will unfold because the prelim data's value is extremely limited. If you look at the practice speed charts, the cars at the top are the cars that just happened to run fast while practicing running in the draft. Those numbers come from a relatively small number of laps and don't provide much of a window into what will transpire during the 500 mile nail-biter.

In addition, qualifying helps give an idea which cars have the most total speed, but that's probably the last time the cars will run solo this weekend. Plus, a number of drivers didn't even get on the track in Happy Hour, and that throws the numbers way off.

That's not to say the data is totally worthless, however. And if you add in the 10-lap averages, impressions gleaned from watching the prelim telecasts (including driver and crew-chief interviews), and the historical data, at least a fuzzy handicapping picture emerges.

That's what I did, and I came up with this top 17:

1. Dale Earnhardt Jr.
2. Jeff Burton
3. Matt Kenseth
4. Mark Martin
5. Kurt Busch
6. Kyle Busch
7. Carl Edwards
8. David Reutimann
9. Clint Bowyer
10. Denny Hamlin
11. Joey Logano
12. Kevin Harvick
13. Kasey Kahne
14. Jimmie Johnson
15. Jamie McMurray
16. Jeff Gordon
17. Tony Stewart

That's probably the longest list I've published all year. I did it because Talladega is such a crapshoot, the winner could easily come from any of these fellows.

As you can see, Dale Jr. has jumped to the top of my chart. I liked him in the historical data, he looked pretty good in practice and he qualified sixth despite going out very late after the wind had begun blowing a bit. Also, I liked a lot what I heard from Junior in an interview prior to qualifying Saturday. He liked his car in race trim quite a bit, noting that he felt more on offense than defense in the pack during practice—a good sign.

If you're looking to bet this race, make sure you get outstanding odds. Good luck!

Jed Henson publishes the blog NASCARPredict.com. He participates in the Nascapper forums and Free NASCAR Picks Monitor under the name Tucker19.

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