By Caleb Whisler, Staff Writer
Instead of calling the race the 1000Bulbs.com 500, Talladega Superspeedway should have called the race the Stewart-Haas Racing Invitational.
Kurt Busch, Kevin Harvick, Aric Almirola, and Clint Bowyer qualified one-two-three-four. Once the green flag flew, all four teams were able to set the tempo of the race.
While many drivers were trying to find their dancing partner for the Talladega Tango, SHR was able to organize themselves in a single file line and at times pull away from the field.
If it wasn’t for some teams pitting when the caution flag flew before the end of the second stage, SHR could have led all the laps. Throughout the event, the organization led 155 of the 193 laps run during the event.
With a dominant day at Talladega, the organization was happy with how well their plan of working together was executed.
“I want to thank everybody from the engine department at Roush Yates for all the work and effort that they put into everything that goes on the race track,” Harvick said.
“This all about cars and people and engines and everything that goes and when you can have a group of guys that work together like we did today, you can control the situation in the race a lot more than just battling it out amongst each other.
Although he wanted to win the race after leading the most laps, Kurt Busch was proud of the synergy from the organization.
“It was a very different Talladega for me. I really enjoyed leading the race, working with my teammates. I’m really happy a Stewart-Haas car won, but the four of us, I’ve never seen so much synergy. We knew we were gonna have to race when we got to Kansas. It would have been nice to have the win. We’re here to win,” Busch stated.
While echoing the thoughts of Busch and Harvick, Clint Bowyer was proud that their crop of drivers arose to the top of the field this weekend.
Man, you can’t say enough. I mean, I don’t think you can write enough about the job that everybody at Stewart-Haas did. 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,” Bowyer said.
“Oh my gosh, was it awesome. To be able to work together like that, we could hold on. They get runs on you and everything else, but as long as you stayed your ground, stayed in line, we’d prevail. Seemed like our cars not only were fast, they handled good at the end of the runs. We would start stretching it out on them. The Penske cars were second best. The rest was racing for whatever position after our two Fords. Can’t say enough about Ford Performance, the job that everybody does there.”
Despite running in the top-four positions in the race, Aric Almirola and Bowyer finished one-two. Busch finished 14th, while Harvick finished 28th after pitting for fuel before the final restart.