Around the Track: Find a line, get in high gear

Rudd: No brakes needed at Talladega

Leave pit road, get it in high gear, lay a brick on the throttle, stay on the bottom of the racetrack and that's it.

Talladega is very similar to Daytona, but much more uneventful. The car that will handle good at Daytona will be effortless to drive at Talladega.

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Still, the track is a little rougher. It has a lot of cracks in it where the track has been filled with sealant to try to keep water from getting in the cracks during the winter. It doesn't really create a big problem, but you've got to pay attention to the shocks on the car. It gives the shock guy a little more to work with because the racetrack has more high-speed chatter built into it. That is fixable or a lot of that is adjustable with the shock absorbers.

Running at Talladega is pretty uneventful when you are out there by yourself. It is the kind of racetrack where you could put anybody in the car and tell them to go out there and hold the white line at the bottom of the racetrack; don't touch the brake, don't lift the gas pedal and it's not a big effort.

In race trim, that's another story. You run three-wide, four-wide and it's all about choosing the right line. It's very similar to pulling up to a tollbooth and jumping into the shorter line and somebody drops their quarters. All of a sudden that line is moving slower.

I haven't quite figured that out. I don't know if anybody has figured out when you are in the middle of the pack which line you should get into -- unless you are in a DEI car and then you can make it five-wide and you don't need any help.

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Everybody in the race at one time or another will probably find themselves up at the front of the pack either leading the race or in the top three, and it's not unusual that 10 laps later you'll be running dead last. You'll go to the front of the pack and you'll go to the back of the pack.

I like to find out where the strengths and weaknesses are in the first half, three-quarters of the race. I even put myself in positions that I know are not the right way to go, but you are sort of testing the different lines. Is your car better inside, outside or in the middle? You want to have all that understood and know where your strong points are before you get to the end of the race. By the time you get to the last fuel stop you want to have that all figured out. Then it is time to go racing.

There is a lot of defensive driving and a lot of mirror driving that goes on at Talladega that doesn't happen anywhere else with the exception of maybe Daytona.

Ricky Rudd drives the No. 21 Motorcraft Racing Ford Taurus owned by Wood Brothers Racing.