NASCAR viewer’s guide: Talladega Superspeedway

The Next Gen returns to a superspeedway this week as NASCAR rolls into Talladega Superspeedway.

Austin Cindric won the last true superspeedway race in the Daytona 500 back in February and Fords dominated the week.

But everybody feels like they have a chance to fight for the victory Sunday (3 p.m. ET, Fox) around the 2.66-mile oval in Alabama. Get set for the weekend with story lines, entry lists, forecasts and more here:

For a track as unpredictable as Talladega can be, Team Penske has an astounding record in Alabama as winners of eight of the track’s last 13 races. Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano hold three wins apiece in that stretch. Ryan Blaney has two victories.

This year, of course, marks Keselowski’s first to Talladega without Team Penske since 2009, when he scored his first career win with Phoenix Racing before an eighth-place finish in the fall. Keselowski, who won this race a year ago and leads all active drivers with six Talladega wins, now drives and co-owns the No. 6 Ford for RFK Racing.

In his place is Cindric, who brought the No. 2 Ford its first Daytona 500 victory in February. The Penske brigade has been masterful in superspeedway races, but Blaney has been the team’s superspeedway leader of late, winning two of the last five at Talladega and three of the last 10 superspeedways overall.

Logano, on the other hand, has led laps in each of the last 13 superspeedway races but hasn’t won in the past 15 such events. He is also on a 38-race winless streak in points events, his last such win coming on the dirt at Bristol in 2021 – with an exhibition win in February’s Clash at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in between.

Bubba Wallace made history the last time NASCAR came to Talladega. He won the rain-shortened