NASCAR contenders aim to avoid trouble

Associated Press

TALLADEGA, Ala.

Denny Hamlin wishes no ill will on Jimmie Johnson and Kevin Harvick this weekend at Talladega Superspeedway.

He wants a clean race Sunday, with no outside interference, and an honest final push to the Sprint Cup championship.

“You really would like to beat the guy heads-up,” Hamlin said Friday. “You almost don’t want anything to happen to anyone because you want to beat ’em straight-up, 10 weeks, no questions about it when you get down to Homestead.”

That will, of course, depend on the results of Sunday’s race, the most anticipated of the 10 in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship. Talladega is considered the “wild card” race of the Chase, and the one where the drivers are at the mercy of one another on the track.

Because of the tight packs and high speeds — both Hamlin and teammate Kyle Busch posted laps at 201 mph in Friday’s first practices — the race is a white-knuckle exercise in trying to avoid the slips, bumps and nudges that create multi-car accidents.

So as the Chase hits the homestretch, Talladega becomes a critical spot on the tour. Johnson, the four-time defending series champion, takes a six-point lead into Sunday over Hamlin.

Lurking back in third is Harvick, the winner of April’s race at Talladega who trails by 62 points. Harvick has had decent success at restrictor-plate races, but is taking nothing for granted.

“Obviously at this place anything can happen whether you are leading the race or running last — you can wind up in somebody else’s mess,” he said. “There is a lot of strategy involved in it, and you have to have fast cars.”

That strategy could include teammates as all three title contenders drive for multi-car organizations.

Teammates came into play last weekend at Martinsville, where Hamlin won and Busch passed Johnson in the closing laps to take away fourth place.