Wild Card At Talladega

The unpredictable nature of Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Talladega Superspeedway makes it what many call a "wild card" in the Chase of the Championship.

The idea that anything can happen at Talladega has been proved many times over. The spring race at Talladega showed just how true this can be when teammates David Ragan and David Gilliland were the unlikely first and second place finishers.

Or go back to the Chase race last year when a 25-car pileup on the last lap took out many contenders including leader Tony Stewart and it was Matt Kenseth steering through the mess who scored his first win at Talladega. Kenseth is the leader in drivers' points heading into Sunday's race.  He was 12th and 17th fastest in Friday's two practice sessions.

Intermittent rain on Saturday morning looked at first like it would delay the start of qualifying but the weather instead forced officials to cancel qualifying altogether. With the session washed out, qualifying procedures revert by rule back to speeds from Friday's opening practice session, putting Aric Almirola and Jeff Burton on the front row for Sunday's race.

Here is the complete starting lineup.

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