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TALLADEGA, Ala. -- Cars in front. Cars behind. Cars all around. A bobble, an erratic move or an antsy driver will turn this collage of colors into a smoky mess that resembles a demolition derby.

Many drivers hate racing at Talladega Superspeedway, where the NASCAR Sprint Cup series competes today. Restrictor plates choke horsepower and herd the cars. Success depends more on what others do and avoiding the big accident that's so prevalent.

Make it through all that and a driver walks away exhausted. Not from physical activity, though. This glass-smooth track makes the race easy physically, but it's mentally taxing because of everything a driver goes through each lap.

To understand what a driver sees, feels and how he reacts during a race, let several drivers take you inside the car. Five-time track winner Dale Earnhardt Jr. begins by explaining what he wants to hear from his spotter, T.J. Majors.

"I just tell T.J. to basically tell me the story of what's going on behind me, so I have to look in the (rearview) mirror a whole lot less here than I do at other race tracks,'' Earnhardt says. "If he can tell me what's going on before it's happening, I can be in position before I have to even make the block. You don't ruffle too many feathers out there trying to do it that way.''

That doesn't always work, as John Andretti notes: "There's a lot of hand signals. They're pretty much telling you what they think their opinion is of you.''

"Every once in a while you will see a guy stick his hand out the window,'' Ryan Newman says. "It is more a five-finger salute any more than a one-finger salute.''

"There's so much stuff going on all around you,'' Greg Biffle says. "You've always got to be looking in the mirror to be ready for a guy to push you from behind. If you're not expecting it and that guy bump drafts you from behind and &ellipses; you turn the steering wheel a tiny bit, the guy hits you and now you're crashing.''

"There are some guys that will bump draft nice little taps with you,'' Kurt Busch says. "I call those 1 mile an hour taps. Like I'm doing 180, and he's doing 181. Those are nice taps. But then there are times where I'll be doing 180 and I'll see a guy coming in the mirror and he'll hit me (going 6 mph faster). You've got to brace yourself for when you're going to get hit. It's a good little punt.''

"You can't tell every second who is back there and whether you're going to get a big shot in the back or you're just going to get a tap,'' Michael Waltrip says.

"What you have to deal with &ellipses; is what is the car doing with somebody pushing you all around the track. It's just so fast with somebody hooked up on your rear end. You just hold on. A lot of times, you're just holding on. It's a thrill ride.''

"You want to utilize that moment,'' says six-time track winner Jeff Gordon, the winningest active driver at Talladega.

"Sometimes you're sitting there being patient and you're not really in a place where you really want to go anywhere and you don't want to make any passes or do anything drastic, you just want to kind of sit there and ride.

"So sometimes you're just looking to see how far back that car (behind) is. The further back that car gets, the better chance you have of going backward and you might need to switch lanes. You see certain cars getting in your lane or getting out of your lane, so you pay attention of all those things because that's going to dictate the momentum of your line.''

"Dale Earnhardt (Sr.) said there's a feel of the air, there definitely is,'' Busch says. "Where you're side drafting on somebody and you're so focused on side drafting that guy, you forget about the guy that is side drafting you and he'll pull you a little bit to the left or the right, whichever side that car is on.

"About a foot. It will pull you over just enough that you have to react with the steering wheel but then you're still trying to make sure you don't bump the guy that you're drafting with.''

"It's just a matter of timing and making sure you can hook with somebody who is fast,'' pole-sitter Juan Pablo Montoya says. "and you've got to be loyal. If you are loyal to people during the day, at the end of the day, you're going to need them if you want to win this.''

If not, after the race can be as hectic, as Busch notes: "I think this race, more than any other, your brain is still circling around the race track on what could I have done different, what could I have done to have made sure I was in this draft. You replay the race in your mind more here than anywhere else because it's such a mental race.''

Contact Dustin Long at 373-7062 or dustin.long@news-record.com