NASCAR Talladega: What we learned during the 1000Bulbs.com 500

Do you remember the Total Team Control NASCAR video game? That was the 2006 version of EA Sports’ officially licensed franchise in which a player could take control all four teammates from a given organization like Hendrick Motorsports, Roush Racing or Dale Earnhardt Inc. and get each one of them to the front, one driver at a time. If you’ve played the game, then you might have been hit with all the nostalgia upon watching the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race on Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway. Stewart-Haas Racing legitimately Total Team Controlled the hell out of that race. Not once, not twice, but thrice did all four drivers manage to link up 1-2-3-4 on Sunday, breaking away from the pack and threatened to pull away from the rest of the field. If not for the occasional caution and stage racing, Stewart-Haas Racing very well could have naturally lapped into the top-10 in the 1000Bulbs.com 500. It was the kind of ass-kicking that you just don’t see in restrictor-plate racing -- NASCAR’s long-standing pillar of parity, where pack racing is supposed to ensure an opportunity for anyone to race near the front of the field. Stewart-Haas stacked the deck this past weekend, taking the first four positions in Saturday time trials, and selflessly committed to a strategy of staying in line and pulling away from the rest of the field until the deciding final laps.....

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