TALLADEGA — “Boring.” “Momentum-killer.” “Snoozefest.”
Those were some of the ways the majority of Sunday’s 1000Bulbs.com was described by some — that is right until the very end.
After a late-race caution and a subsequent overtime period, Aric Almirola, driver of the No. 10 Stewart-Haas Smithfield Bacon for Life Ford, was able to score his second career NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Series race victory.
By virtue of the win, Almirola joins Chase Elliott with a clinched spot in the next round of eight in the Monster Energy Cup’s playoffs.
Almirola’s victory was his first in four years and the second of his career. His first also came at a restrictor-plate race track in the 2014 Daytona’s Coke Zero 400.
“I knew when we qualified with all four of us starting up there in the front,” he said. “We kind of talked about it in our competition meeting that we needed to be committed to each other. We needed to score as many stage points as we can.”
Almirola added, “When we all qualified top four, all of us together — I knew that all four of us were going to be tough to beat.”
Almirola likened the Stewart-Haas effort to the past efforts from the stable of Roger Penske-owned cars at restrictor-plate race tracks.
“We’ve been chasing those Penske cars at the restrictor-plate races,” he said. “They’ve been able to do somewhat of what we did today where they get out front, Brad [Keselowski], Joey [Logano] and [Ryan] Blaney — you know, get organized and basically dominate the race.”
“It was us against the field,” he added.
Second-place finisher and Almirola teammate Clint Bowyer talked about the team effort, noting that there had been other times in NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Series history where teams had dominant performances, as Stewart-Haas did on Sunday.
“I don’t think you can write enough about the job that everybody at Stewart-Haas did,” Bowyer said. “Those cars were so fast. I’ve seen other guys, other teams, other organizations put that together before. The Hendrick organization has been there before. The Gibbs cars have done that before. It was our turn, you know what I mean? The Penske cars have done that before. We finally got all four cars to the cream of the crop, and oh my gosh was it awesome.”
The early stages of the race were also dominated by the Stewart-Haas Racing cars, with pole winner Kurt Busch winning stage one and Kevin Harvick winning the second stage.
However, the magic ran out for those two Stewart-Haas drivers. Busch and Harvick came up short on fuel in the end and came away with 14th place and 28th place finishes respectively.
For much of the race, the pack racing that spectators had become accustomed to over the years in restrictor-plate racing was not on display. For the first time in a long time at the Talladega Superspeedway, a Monster Energy Cup race had long spells of single-file racing and was broken up into two or three distinctive packs throughout.
That brand of racing was called boring by some of those watching from home.
An incredibly boring race; an incredibly exciting final lap. Congrats to @Aric_Almirola #Talladega #TheChase
— John Carvalho (@John_P_Carvalho) October 14, 2018
I love @TalladegaSuperS and it isn’t so much their fault. I’m just bored with the racing.
HELP! @NASCAR
— Matt Murphy (@mattmurphyshow) October 14, 2018
Among the manufacturers, Ford had the most dominant showing at the aerodynamic-sensitive track with five drivers finishing in the top 10 — Almirola, Bowyer, Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. in third, Joey Logano in fifth and Paul Menard in ninth.
Two Toyotas finished in the top 10, Denny Hamlin with a fourth-place finish and Erik Jones with an eighth-place finish. Chevrolets filled out the rest of the top 10 with AJ Allmendinger in sixth, Jimmie Johnson, who rallied from mid-race trouble for a seventh-place finish and Regan Smith with a tenth-place finish.
Kevin Harvick came away with the points lead, followed by Kyle Busch, Joey Logano, Kurt Busch and Clint Bowyer rounding out the top five.
Next up on the schedule is the Hollywood Casino 400 at the Kansas Speedway in Kansas City as just five races remain to determine the 2018 Monster Energy Cup series championship.
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and is the editor of Breitbart TV.
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