ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. _ When I heard the big news out of Talladega on Sunday, I thought of a story about Tampa Bay racer Aric Almirola that his grandfather told me several years ago.
Sam Rodriguez was a local dirt track legend. And every time he'd shake his young grandson's hand, he'd give the youngster the No. 1 vice grip, the one that steered Rodriguez through all those turns.
Funny thing, though ...
"Aric, he'd squeeze my hand as hard as he could, and I'd squeeze a little more and tell him, 'Say Uncle,' and he'd keep squeezing," Rodriguez said. "And even when it hurt he wouldn't say a thing, tears coming out of his eyes. He wasn't going to give in. He doesn't accept defeat."
Here's to a winner.
Almirola, 34, who was raised in Tampa (Hillsborough High) just broke through in a major way on NASCAR's highest rung. He's a surefire playoff contender after using a last-lap pass of Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Kurt Busch to win at Talladega, Almirola's first victory on his sport's big stage since he won the summer race at Daytona in 2014. He had run 149 races since. Sunday's victory clinched a spot in the next round of the Chase for the Cup, Almirola's first trip to the round of eight. He has announced his presence with authority.
"It was so sweet, it was so gratifying," Almirola said by phone. "Honestly, it was validation, for me personally, for all the people who believed in me, Tony Stewart and Gene Haas, to my sponsor, Smithfield, which has supported me going on eight years now, for all those people who've given me this chance and believed in me this way."
It's Almirola's first year driving for juggernaut Stewart-Haas. He's in the best cars, the best of everything, and has delivered. He'll never forget the climb to get here _ his family's journey from Cuba, all those years plugging along on NASCAR's lower ranks, the wreck last year at Kansas that broke his back and dashed playoff hopes, even the six years he spent with Petty Motorsports, an iconic ride for sure, but a middle-tier team. This season is the real deal. Almirola made it even more real on Sunday.
Forgotten was the heartbreaking start to his season, when he was leading on the final lap of the Daytona 500, the race of his childhood dreams at his childhood track, only to get caught in a wreck.
"For me, it fueled my fire," Almirola said. "Granted, there's not a Daytona 500 every weekend. That part still stings. It's the most prestigious race, and to be that close, and not get it ... but this weekend was special, to do it on that stage and come through, it was huge."
Almirola had been knocking on the door all season, with some great runs, but no wins. The week before Talladega, he led at Dover eight laps from the checkers, but faltered after a costly caution caused by teammate Clint Bowyer's wreck.
But Almirola hung in there, as did his young race team, which includes crew chief Johnny Klausmeier, 36, who has known Almirola for 10 years, and also has known what he could do with the right ride.
Still ...
"You can say that we nearly won at Daytona," Klausmeier said. "You can say we were eight laps away at Dover, but until you actually do it, you don't know how to do it."
And now he has done it.
Almirola credited encouragement from three-time Cup champion Stewart.
"He kept telling me, 'I know you're disappointed that you haven't won, I know you're disappointed that you've come so close a half a dozen times this year and it hasn't happened, but don't change anything that you're doing, just keep putting yourself in position. And all of a sudden one day it's going to happen, and when it does, the floodgates are going to open and you're going to win a bunch of races.'
"Now we'll see if he's right, if the floodgate opens and we go and win a bunch of races."
Almirola likes his team's chances in the third round of the playoffs. He made NASCAR's playoffs in 2014 but didn't get out of the first round.
"When people think about teams that are going to run up front every weekend, that are really fast, I think they overlook us," he said. "I feel like that kind of makes us sneaky dangerous, where we can come out of nowhere and steal a win."
There are now Almirola believers all over NASCAR. There was a time when Almirola wasn't one of them, when he considered putting his engineering studies at UCF to use. That was Plan B.
"To be a hundred percent honest, I can't say that I've always believed in myself," Almirola said. "There have been plenty of times where I was like, 'Maybe I'm not that good. Maybe I'm not good enough.' But what kept me going is a hard head. I don't have an ounce of give-up in me."
Almirola laughed.
"Plan A is still in full effect."
The kid just kept squeezing.
