JEFF BURTON QUOTES:
Though both are restrictor plate tracks, what is the difference between Talladega and Daytona? “You don’t have to worry as much about how your car handles at Talladega, that’s the bottom line. There will be bigger packs at Talladega, more cars running together. Talladega requires a little more patience than Daytona. And to be honest, Friday for qualifying is almost like a day off because there is nothing I can do, I just sit in the car and mash the gas. It’s a lot of work for the teams because there is so much stuff they have to change over from qualifying to racing, but Friday is pretty boring for the drivers. Saturday is when it starts to pick up, it’s about learning what your car can and can’t do. But, in all honesty, once you get there, you’ve got what you’ve got at that point, there isn’t a lot of changing you can do. Come Sunday, I go into the race thinking patience, be smart, it’s a long race, don’t mess up on pit road and keep yourself in position by not losing the draft so you can get to the front at the end. That’s really all it’s about at Talladega.”

Does Talladega drive a rough as it looks? “It’s not bad. It used to be when we could run whatever shock we wanted, the ride was really bad, but now it’s not bad. Talladega is a real wide race track, so you can run anywhere on the track you want. The SAFER barriers narrowed the track up quite a bit, but you can still run three-wide no problem, four-wide sometimes. But our ride is not bad at all anymore.”