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Speedway Cursed?

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Anonymous

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Fact or fiction?
The Talladega Jinx

By ED HINTON

The Orlando Sentinel


ORLANDO, Fla. - Dale Earnhardt enjoyed winning the 1999 Diehard 500 at Talladega, Ala. He got his last victory there four years ago this month. It was the 76th of his career.
Long before the world's biggest oval track was built - even before white settlers came, naming the place Dry Valley after failing to find water for their oxen - "the Indians used to have pony races over there, ever' Sunday," the old-timer said.

He shifted his weight on a park bench in downtown Talladega, Ala., and went on: "One Sunday evenin', a big Talladega chief got knocked off his horse and got killed. That's what started this whole thing."

He meant the notion of the Talladega Jinx.

He spoke so long ago I can't remember his name, only that he told a whopper. Why would the Talladegas, long before they were exposed to European customs, observe any such day as "Sunday," let alone designate it for sports events?

But the old guy seemed to believe it. That's how deeply rooted the Jinx was in the local psyche.

I have two reasons for bringing this up. First, as Talladega Superspeedway celebrates its 35th anniversary leading into Sunday's EA Sports 500, there has been no mention of the Jinx, which loomed over the place for years. There have been huge omissions of legend and lore-and some eerie facts-that are essential to any commemoration at Talladega.

Second, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Talladega's most successful driver of recent years, told CBS's Mike Wallace, for a 60 Minutes segment broadcast Wednesday night, that he felt something supernatural when he was burned in a sports car crash on July 18 at Sonoma, Calif. - that his dead father was somehow there, pulling him free of the burning car.

And so this is a week when the eerie is apropos.

There is some risk of spooking current-generation drivers who may not know about the Jinx. But then, the 10 finalists in the Chase to the Championship hardly could be any more spooked than they already are.

That's because of the crapshoot nature of restrictor-plate racing at Talladega, where the inevitable mass wreck they call The Big One could do more to determine the championship than any or all of the remaining seven races.

The track was born under a bad sign in the fall of 1969. Nearly all the star drivers of the time went on strike, led by Richard Petty. The 2.66-mile 33-degree-banked track was deemed too fast; tires had been blowing in practice because of the stress, and drivers felt light-headed to the point of blacking out due to G-forces in the turns.

Of the big names then, only Bobby Isaac participated in the race, and his peers never trusted him after that. The rest of the field was padded with replacement drivers, including Richard Brickhouse, who won the race but never dared compete in NASCAR afterward.

Things were worked out by 1970, but there ensued a rapid succession of bad and mysterious things.

In 1973, rising star Larry Smith hit the wall in what appeared to be a minor crash. Safety workers arrived to find him dead inside the car. That same year, Isaac suddenly parked his car after challenging for the lead, claiming he'd heard a distinct supernatural voice in the car, telling him to get out.

On the morning of the '74 Talladega 500, crewmen arrived to discover a massive sabotage attempt. Tires had been cut-not enough to flatten them, but enough for them to blow as soon as they were stressed in the corners at race speeds. Sand had been poured into fuel cells to make engines blow. Buddy Baker called it "attempted murder," but the perpetrators never were caught.

In '75, Petty's brother-in-law, Randy Owens, was blown into the air and killed by an exploding pressurized water tank in the pits. In '77, the mother of David Sisco, a journeyman driver of the time, was walking through the infield when she was struck and killed by the outside mirror of a pickup truck speeding past.

By that point, stories of the Talladega Jinx were rampant. The NASCAR press corps searched for ghosts and curses in Dry Valley. What was true was that in the early 19th century many white-friendly Talladegas had been massacred by the bellicose Creek tribe. Then General Andrew Jackson had marched an army into the area to put down the Creeks. In other words, there were lots of restless spirits in the valley.

In '87, Bill Elliott won the pole at Talladega with what remains the all-time record stock car qualifying speed, 212.809 mph. In the race, Bobby Allison's car went airborne, tearing down 100 feet of fence along the main grandstands. Had two big cables behind the fence not held, the car might have gone into the crowd and killed hundreds, if not thousands.

Ever since, NASCAR has mandated restrictor plates on the carburetors to keep the cars under 200 mph.

The dicey racing associated with the plates gave drivers more to worry about than just malevolent magic. Talladega remains, Dale Jarrett has said, "the most nerve-racking place we go."

With the plates the Talladega Jinx faded, not to reappear until 1997 when Automobile Racing Club of America president Bob Loga was killed in a passenger-car accident outside the track.

Dry Valley has been somewhat peaceful since except for the occasional Big One.

Dale Earnhardt got his 76th-and last-Cup win there four years ago this month. Since then Dale Jr. has dominated, winning four in a row between 2001-03, and finishing no worse than second in his past six Talladega races.

So intensely do worshipers of the late Intimidator seek his presence that legends have mushroomed - e.g., that the clouds over part of North Carolina formed a "3" in the sky at the very moment he was killed in the 2001 Daytona 500.

Now comes the younger Earnhardt telling 60 Minutes his father's spirit may have lifted him out of a fiery crash.

So if you're superstitious, Sunday's race ought to be some show: the Talladega Jinx vs. the friendly ghost of Dale Earnhardt in a sort of NASCAR Armageddon.

http://www.thatsracin.com/mld/thatsracin/9799204.htm
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sureshot
 
Talladega

I know what you mean. Talladega just seems to make race fans hold their breath, thinking "if not this lap, then next lap, for sure...the Big One is out there, waiting..." Which is odd, as Daytona is also almost as big at two and a half miles, and so is Pocono, and those tracks have claimed their racing victims, too, with Earnhardt just the most recent. Talladega is spooky.

Go, Mark Martin!
 
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