How to remove a hex on a track? Carl Edwards, who nearly flew out of Talladega at the end of last spring’s race, hopes to finish this weekend’s Spritn Cup race inside his car.

 

TALLADEGA, Ala. - If Joseph Conrad had written a novel about Talladega Superspeedway, perhaps he would’ve titled it Heart of Darkness.

And perhaps the movie made from it would be titled "Apocalypse Now."

Conrad died in 1924, meaning that his entire life predated NASCAR. His life also predated the Vietnam War, though, and that didn’t prevent Francis Ford Coppola from adapting his motion picture from Heart of Darkness.

There’s no napalm in the morning here in the rolling hills of eastern Alabama. There’s a stock car racing equivalent, though. The spectacle of race cars flipping, bouncing off each other and generally behaving apocalyptically has been an all too common occurrence at the track supposedly built on a burial ground of Creek Indians.

Way back before the Civil War, the Creek were uprooted from these lands and marched unceremoniously and cruelly off to Oklahoma. Understandably, they made sure to leave a few curses and hexes before reluctantly leaving on "a Trail of Tears." That was in 1834, long before the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

Last week a tribal leader showed up here, at the behest of track officials, to "remove the hex" from the track. It couldn’t hurt.

The finish of Aaron’s 499, on April 26, has been emblematic of Carl Edwards’ season of discontent. On the final lap, Edwards was in first place, his Ford screaming toward the finish line.

Something went terribly wrong. Trying to hold off Brad Keselowski, Edwards blocked just a bit too much. The result was his car leaving the ground, ripping out protective fencing that has since been raised and strengthened. That crash almost defied description. At the time it occurred, most observers reacted by uttering either one or two words, neither of which belong in civilized conversation. Edwards, frazzled but uninjured, behaved like a Creek medicine man himself, dashing inexplicably to the finish line as if he still had a car wrapped around him.

Edwards, who won nine races, more than anyone else, in 2008, is winless in 2009. It might not be a bad idea for him to seek out Robert Thrower, the local medicine man who supposedly expunged the great Native American curse by means of the spiritual use of rabbit tobacco, wild sage and red cedar.

"We’re going back to Talladega, and we really have nothing to lose at this point in the Chase, so we’ll just go for it and try to get a win," said Edwards. "I’ve heard they raised the fences, so that’s good.

"You never like to come back and see a new fence because of you."

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