TALLADEGA, Ala. — Aric Almirola capped an absolute Stewart-Haas Racing rout at Talladega Superspeedway with an overtime victory that earned him an automatic berth into the third round of NASCAR’s playoffs.
It also snapped a 149-race losing streak for Almirola and atoned for his oh-so-close moment in the season-opening Daytona 500.
“I just love racing at Talladega and I came to the track with the mindset that we were going to go race and we were going to go give them hell, and if we wrecked, we wrecked,” Almirola said. “And if we win, we win. And we won. What a cool time to do it, too.”
More important, it showed that SHR arrived at Talladega prepared to work as a four-car team and ensure one of its drivers made it to Victory Lane.
The SHR Fords were untouchable all weekend. They swept qualifying, won every stage of Sunday’s race and used teamwork to pull away from the field. As the laps wound down, Kurt Busch led his three teammates in a straight line and pulled the train away from the pack, which couldn’t organize itself behind the SHR group to mount any sort of challenge.
But the dynamics changed when Alex Bowman spun with three laps remaining to bring out an ill-timed caution.
That meant the race was going to overtime, and the SHR cars didn’t have enough gas for the extra laps.
First, Busch’s fuel light began to flicker. Then Kevin Harvick got the same warning. As the field roared to the green flag, Harvick forfeited a shot at victory by pulling off the track to get enough gas to make it to the finish.
Busch stayed out as the leader, with Almirola and Clint Bowyer looking for a slot to slip past him for the victory. Then Busch ran out of gas and Almirola zipped by for his first victory of the season, his first since joining SHR this year as the replacement for Danica Patrick, and his first since the rain-shortened Daytona race in July 2014. It was the second Cup victory of his career.
Almirola was also leading on the final lap in overtime of the season-opening Daytona 500 until he was wrecked by winner Austin Dillon.
Almirola thought he had last week’s race at Dover won until a caution triggered by teammate Bowyer ruined his shot at the victory. A week later, he took the checkered flag and advanced to the round of eight in the playoffs.
“Four or five times this year, I feel like we’ve had a shot to win and haven’t been able to seal the deal,” Almirola said.
Bowyer finished second, followed by Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in a Ford from Roush Fenway Racing. Busch faded to 14th and Harvick wound up 28th.
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