What do Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. have in common? They both need to win this weekend or at least place in the top five. Given his recent performance, a top-10 would be a good day for Junior.

Since Talladega is a crapshoot, what will it take for Junior to have a good run this weekend?

• He’ll need a lot of friends, which he doesn’t have.
• He’ll need confidence, which he doesn’t have.
• He’ll need a good car which…you can finish the sentence.

Johnson clearly has the equipment and a crew chief that knows what it takes to make his car better during the race. The problem I see with Johnson this weekend is that he's not looking forward to this race. Does he lack confidence? Maybe, and here's why.

Johnson’s current lead of 118 points might appear comfortable, but history suggests otherwise. Although Johnson has finished ninth and second in his past two AMP Energy 500 starts, the three-time champion’s overall record in the race isn’t good.

Before his runner-up performance in 2007, Johnson failed to finish higher than 24th, with four finishes of 31st or worse. He finished 30th in Talladega’s Aaron’s 499 earlier this year. Talladega is his third-worst track for average finish (17.7) and Driver Rating (84.1) Ironically; Johnson is the only driver to win a championship in the Chase era with an AMP Energy 500 finish outside the top 10. He overcame a 24th-place performance in 2007.

Earnhardt Jr., in 19 Sprint Cup Series starts at Talladega Superspeedway, has scored five wins, eight top-five finishes and 11 top-10s. He has a record-setting four consecutive wins at the 2.66-mile oval from October 2001 to April 2003. Junior has led 655 laps around the track. This past spring, Junior scored his season-best finish of second in the spring NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event at Talladega. He led seven times for 20 laps on his way to his first top-five finish of the season.

The seventh race of the 2009 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, at Talladega, will truly be the wild card event. Anything can happen, as restrictor-plate racing requires a new set of skills and provides a new set of challenges: reduced horsepower, running in packs, speed, etc.

Lance McGrew, Junior’s interim crew chief, said it best. "You can go there with a strategy if you want to, but it's not going to make a difference in how you finish, I don't think. Because you can get wrecked in the back, you can get wrecked in the front, you can get wrecked in the middle. You can get wrecked at the beginning of the race, you can get wrecked at the end of the race -- it just doesn't matter." 

               Junior and Junior Nation love going to Talladega, Johnson, not so much. Confidence is the one thing both drivers need to find if they are going to be successful. That, and a little luck.