EA Sports 500
Thirty-five years of tradition. Thirteen thousand laps. Twenty-five hundred leaders. Thirty-three winners.
On an unassuming stretch of land suited for soybean farming located next to a couple of abandoned airport runways, Talladega Superspeedway was built to be the biggest, fastest and most competitive superspeedway in the world.
Since Alabama International Motor Speedway (as it was called until 1989) opened its gates in September of 1969, the track has surpassed every initial expectation in terms of sheer size, speed and ferocity of competition.
Talladega, Ala., was chosen from several possible sites in the Southeast, with the main criteria being availability of land, access to the interstate system and a population base of at least 20 million people within 300 miles. Anniston insurance executive Bill Ward, a race driver and fan himself, helped NASCAR and International Speedway Corporation founder William H.G. (Bill) France find the land in Alabama, following a casual conversation with France in Daytona in the mid-1960s.
Ward found what he thought was the perfect site in north Talladega County near an airport that the U.S. Government had sold to the City of Talladega after World War II. He set up a meeting with then-Talladega Mayor James Hardwick and other city officials, and in a restaurant in Anniston in 1966, France got the group to consider the idea of putting a major track on the site. After a trip to the Firecracker 400 in Daytona to observe first-hand the potential economic impact, the group was sold.
Several obstacles had to be overcome, one of which was financing. With France as the guiding force, however, construction began on the 2,000-acre site on May 23, 1968, with the first race being the 'Bama 400 Grand Touring race on Saturday, September 13, 1969. Ken Rush drove his Camaro to Victory Lane in that event. The next day, Richard Brickhouse won the first Grand National (now NASCAR NEXTEL Cup) race, the Talladega 500 (now known as the EA SPORTSTM 500), edging Jim Vandiver and Ramo Stott.
Setting precedents
But it wasn't that easy. The speeds were so high (Charlie Glotzbach won the pole at 199.466 mph) that the tire companies - try as they might - could not in the time available come up with a compound that held together for many laps. The Professional Drivers Association (PDA), led by Richard Petty, declared the situation unsafe, and left the track Saturday afternoon.
Knowing that thousands of fans had traveled great distances to see the race, France made the decision to run anyway, using the drivers that decided not to participate in the boycott, plus some of those who had raced the day before. The full 500 miles were run without major incident, and France rain-checked the house for any future race at either Daytona or Talladega. His action broke the back of the PDA, which dissolved a couple of years later.
Establishing records, developing careers
It was not long before the track came into its own with unprecedented speeds and unparalleled competition. The combination of the two also played a major role in the development of many drivers' careers as they built reputations for setting records and taking wins at the largest, fastest and most competitive track on the circuit.
While Brickhouse was the first winner of a NEXTEL Cup race at Talladega, his victory began a string of surprise winners in both headline events at Talladega each year. Pete Hamilton became the first to win two major events by sweeping the 1970 Grand National races in Plymouths prepared by Petty Enterprises. David Pearson became the first three-time winner at Talladega by capturing successive EA SPORTS" 500s in 1972, 1973 and 1974. Cale Yarborough and Davey Allison also won three NASCAR NEXTEL Cup races at Talladega.
Buddy Baker won three straight races, both 1975 races and the 1976 spring event, then added another, the Aaron's 499 in the spring of 1980, to become the first four-time winner. Darrell Waltrip and Bobby Allison later joined him in this category.
In 1987, Bill Elliott established a world stock-car record when he posted a speed of 212.809 in qualifying for the Aaron's 499. Mark Martin established a 500-mile stock-car record in 1997 when he won the caution-free spring Aaron's 499 with an average speed of 188.354 mph.
But the track's true dominator was Dale Earnhardt, who posted 10 NASCAR NEXTEL Cup wins at Talladega. Earnhardt's first victory was in the 1983 EA SPORTS 500, driving for Bud Moore. He won again the next year in his first season with Richard Childress. When he captured the 1990 EA SPORTS 500, he became its first three-time winner of that event, then added EA SPORTS 500 wins in 1991, 1993 and 2000.
Earnhardt also had victories in the 1990, 1995 and 1999 IROC races, as well as the 1993 Aaron's 312 Busch Series race, to give him a total of 13 career victories at Talladega. That put him ahead of Davey Allison, who had four ARCA triumphs and an IROC win to go with his three Aaron's 499 victories.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. has quickly followed in his father's footsteps. Dale Jr. won the 2001 EA SPORTS 500, defending the title for his late father. Dale Jr. swept both races at Talladega in 2002 and won the 2003 Aaron's 499 for an unprecedented four-in-a-row winning streak.
Delighting fans with fierce competition
The track itself is 2.66-miles long, four lanes wide and is banked 33 degrees on each end, with 18-degree banking in the tri-oval. This layout has produced some of the fastest and most competitive racing in history. The backstretch is nearly 4,000 feet long, and stock cars have reached speeds in excess of 220 miles per hour there in competition.
The track has a seating capacity of more than 143,500 with the most recent expansion of the O.V. Hill South Tower. The 212-acre all-reserved infield holds many thousands more. Fans know that flag-to-flag competition is the name of the game at Talladega, and the record book backs it up.
Perhaps the greatest 1-2-3 finish in motorsports occurred in the 1981 EA SPORTS 500, when rookie Ron Bouchard passed both Darrell Waltrip and Terry Labonte in the final 500 yards to win by less than a foot over Waltrip and two feet over Labonte. Labonte got even with the 30-year-old track 18 years later, when he edged Joe Nemechek by .007 seconds to win the Aaron's 312 Busch Series race. The finish had to be reviewed several times before a winner was determined. The 1984 Aaron's 499 set a motorsports standard with 75 official lead changes in a 500-mile race. In 1986, 26 of the 40 drivers who started the EA SPORTS 500 led at least one lap, 19 of them under green flag racing.
In 1993, the EA SPORTS 500 became the first 500-mile race to produce 1,000 official lead changes over the years, an amazing feat considering the race was only 25 years old, and has only 188 laps - or opportunities - to record lead changes.
Talladega Superspeedway's second event of the season was moved from the summer to October in 1997, and it marked the first time in the track's history it had two sellouts for its NASCAR NEXTEL Cup races.
But competition always has been fierce at Talladega, no matter what time of year. In the 2000 EA SPORTS 500, 26 cars finished on the lead lap, a NASCAR record for a 500-mile race.
The 2004 Aaron's 499 saw 54 lead changes among 23 drivers - 13th on the all-time list for lead changes and the most since July 1984, also at Talladega Superspeedway.
Thirty-five years have brought many changes to Talladega Superspeedway, but its status as NASCAR's most competitive track remains constant. It brings awe to the thousands that visit each year.