Kahne, Gordon talk Talladega: 'There's no safe place out there'

AVONDALE, Ariz. – In between testing sessions at Phoenix International Raceway, Jeff Gordon and Kasey Kahne made their way to the media center to discuss what will be the most pressure-filled race of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

On Sunday, 10 drivers will compete for six remaining spots in the Eliminator Round at one of the most unpredictable tracks on the Sprint Cup Series schedule – Talladega Superspeedway.

"There's a lot of pressure right now on a group of drivers to advance to the next round,” said Kahne, who is currently in eighth in the standings – the cutoff spot for the next round.

Gordon is in the best position of the four Hendrick Motorsports drivers, as he is currently in the sixth position. He can control his own destiny and advance regardless of any other drivers’ finish if he takes home a 16th-place finish. If he leads a lap, he can finish 17th and advance, and if he leads the most laps in the race, he can finish 18th.

For Kahne, Jimmie Johnson (11th) and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (12th), only a win would assure their advancement without taking into account the results of other Chase contenders.

Both Johnson and Earnhardt made contact with the wall at Kansas Speedway, putting them in a points hole after the first race of the Contender Round. They came out of Charlotte Motor Speedway with 17th- and 20th-place finishes, respectively.

"What's interesting is with this format, those same things could have happened in the past and those guys would have been basically out of contention for the championship but have more races to make up those points if at all possible, but for the most part, probably would have been out of it,” Gordon said. “At least with the new format they still have a shot. They can go to a race -- there are 43 cars that are going to be in that field next week that can win that race."

Winning the race at Talladega is no easy task. But Gordon, Johnson and Earnhardt have all done so multiple times. Kahne has three top-five finishes in his career at the superspeedway.

"There's no set strategy on what gets you that finish,” Gordon explained. “I've tried everything over the years and been unsuccessful at all of them and had success on occasion with all of them. We've gone into it saying, 'OK, we qualified up front, let's just stay up front as long as we can,' and been caught up in big wrecks even doing that. So there's no safe place out there.”

"I pretty much totally agree with Jeff,” Kahne added. “You're having a great day and it can change so quick at Talladega. You could be running third, you could be running in the very front, you could be running in the middle or the back -- I've wrecked across the entire field. It's just kind of the way that place goes.”

Both drivers agreed that they will have to go to the event and just race. Even though Gordon has a cushion in the points standings, he said it’s not big enough for him to relax on the track.

So it will be all about controlling what they can control – their own cars, pit stops and pit strategy.

“I think we need to race and we need to have a really fast car and just hope we stay out of the trouble,” Kahne said. “Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't."

In the end, the drivers noted the importance of being as smart as possible on the track to avoid the ‘big one’ wrecks that can take out large portions of the field in one fell swoop.

“I go into Talladega and I think of sort of your destiny -- if it's your destiny to move past to the next round, if it's your destiny to have a top-five at Talladega and it's meant to be, then it will happen for you,” Gordon said. “If it's not, then it's just not going to happen.”

“It's going to be an interesting race. We know that there are going to be some big names that aren't moving forward,” he continued.

“We just want to make sure that we're not one of those.”