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There are two superspeedways on the NASCAR Cup Series circuit: Daytona and Talladega. Racing is simply different at those two huge tracks and that’s why NASCAR used to put restrictor plates on the cars to keep speeds from getting too high. The 1997 event at Talladega still stands as the fastest NASCAR race to date ever run with an average speed of 188.354 mph.

Restrictor plates in theory prevented such crazy speeds and ensured pack racing, but they usually also guaranteed at least one monster multi-car wreck per race. The series did away with restrictor plates last year, replaced by tapered spacers.

Denny Hamlin won the season-opening Daytona 500 this year, and he’s a co-favorite at +1000 to win the Cup Series’ first trip of the season to Talladega on Sunday for the Geico 500 – that’s miles, not laps (there will be 188 laps). This was to be held in late April but rescheduled due to the coronavirus. Talladega also is set to host the YellaWood 500 playoff race on October 4.