BROADCAST INFORMATION: Sunday’s race at Talladega Superspeedway will air live on NBC 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 weekend.
Friday, October 13
1 p.m. ET: NASCAR Cup Series practice, NBC Sports Network
3 p.m. ET: NASCAR Cup Series final practice, NBC Sports Network
Saturday, October 14
4:15 p.m. ET: NASCAR Cup Series qualifying, NBC Sports Network
Sunday, October 15
2 p.m. ET: NASCAR Cup Series race, NBC
THIS WEEKEND'S PAINT SCHEMES: Kasey Kahne will drive the No. 5 Farmers Insurance Chevrolet SS, Chase Elliott will man the No. 24 NAPA AUTO PARTS Chevrolet SS, Jimmie Johnson will pilot the No. 48 Lowe's Chevrolet SS and Dale Earnhardt Jr. will drive the No. 88 Mountain Dew Chevrolet SS.
HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS AT TALLADEGA: At Talladega Superspeedway, Hendrick Motorsports has 12 wins, 11 pole positions, 55 top-five finishes and 80 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 AT TALLADEGA: Kahne has earned one of his 27 pole awards at Talladega. He captured the prime starting position with a speed of 191.455 mph in October 2012. The Enumclaw, Washington, native also has two starts on the outside pole position – both in 2015. Kahne has finished second in the Talladega race twice - October 2006 and November 2009. Earlier this year at Talladega, Kahne finished in the fifth position.
ELLIOTT'S TALLADEGA STATS: Elliott will make his fourth start at Talladega Superspeedway this weekend. The 21-year-old driver earned the pole award in his first start at the track in May 2016 and garnered a top-five finish. Elliott has led 36 laps and averages a starting position of 4.3 and finishing position of 15.7 at the track. He has three starts at Talladega in the NASCAR XFINITY Series, collecting one top-10 finish.
JOHNSON'S PLAYOFF PICTURE: With four races in the books and a seventh-place finish at Charlotte Motor Speedway last weekend, Johnson and the No. 48 team are currently seventh in the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs standings heading into Talladega.
EARNHARDT'S WINNING WAYS: Winning may not be all Earnhardt does at Talladega Superspeedway, but the driver of the No. 88 Mountain Dew 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 playoffs 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. In this year’s spring race, Earnhardt qualified second and was running third with 15 laps to go before having to pit for a loose wheel. According to NASCAR’s loop data statistics, Earnhardt is at the top of the chart among active drivers in the laps led category at the track, leading a total of 471 laps since 2005, 15 more laps than his next closest competitor.