BROADCAST INFORMATION: Sunday’s race at Talladega Superspeedway will air live on FOX at 2 p.m. ET. Can’t make it to a television? The race can be heard live on MRN and SIRIUS XM NASCAR Radio. Below is the broadcast schedule for the remainder of the weekend.
Friday, May 5
2:30 p.m. ET: NASCAR Cup Series practice, FOX Sports 1
4:30 p.m. ET: NASCAR Cup Series final practice, FOX Sports 1
Saturday, May 6
4 p.m. ET: NASCAR Cup Series qualifying, FOX
Sunday, May 7
2 p.m. ET: NASCAR Cup Series race, FOX
THIS WEEKEND’S PAINT SCHEMES: Kasey Kahne will debut the No. 5 UniFirst Chevrolet SS, Chase Elliott will man the No. 24 Hooters Chevrolet SS for the first time this season. Jimmie Johnson will pilot the No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet SS while Dale Earnhardt Jr. will be behind the wheel of the No. 88 Nationwide Chevrolet SS.
HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS AT TALLADEGA: At Talladega Superspeedway, Hendrick Motorsports has 12 wins, 11 pole positions, 54 top-five finishes and 78 top-10s. Hendrick Motorsports’ most recent Talladega win came in 2015, when Earnhardt made his way to Victory Lane in the May race after qualifying fourth.
KAHNE’S TALLADEGA STATS: Kahne has captured one of his 27 career NASCAR Cup Series pole awards at Talladega Superspeedway – October 2012 – with a speed of 191.455 mph to edge out Ryan Newman. He also has two starts on the outside pole at the 2.66-mile track, both in 2015. The 37-year-old has two runner-up finishes at Talladega – October 2006 and November 2009.
ELLIOTT AT TALLADEGA: This weekend at Talladega, the 21-year-old driver is set to make his third Cup Series start at the Alabama superspeedway. In Elliott’s prior two starts, he earned one top-five and one top-10 finish, led 36 laps and collected the pole award in May 2016. He averages a starting position of 2.5 and finishing position of 8.5 at the track. Elliott also has three starts at Talladega in the NASCAR XFINITY Series, collecting one top-10 finish.
JOHNSON’S TALLADEGA STATS: According to NASCAR’s loop data since 2005, Jimmie Johnson has an average running position at Talladega of 14.938 and average finish of 16.0. Johnson’s last win at the superspeedway was on April 17, 2011, when teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. pushed Johnson to the finish line, tying the closest finish in NASCAR history (since the implementation of electronic scoring) as he edged Clint Bowyer by 0.002 seconds at the stripe.
A WINNING EARNHARDT: Winning may not be all Earnhardt does at Talladega Superspeedway, but the driver of the No. 88 Nationwide Chevrolet SS does have six wins on the 2.66-mile tri-oval, more than he has at any other track on the NASCAR Cup Series circuit. In 2015, he won the spring race and entered Talladega’s fall race in a win-to-continue playoff scenario, where he finished second, just missing his opportunity to make it into the penultimate round of the postseason. The 2016 spring race looked promising as Earnhardt qualified third, but after two separate incidents, he wasn’t able to finish the race. According to NASCAR’s loop data statistics, Earnhardt is at the top of the chart among active drivers in the laps led category, leading a total of 471 laps since 2005, 19 more than his next closest competitor.