Talladega strategy: A game of survival and finding the right dancing partner

For anyone monitoring earlier practices, it was not a surprise when the Camrys lined up for the final 10 laps enabling at least one Toyota to have an excellent shot at the win. 

Coming to the white flag, Matt Kenseth led Truex Jr., Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin and Carl Edwards. Then the 11 car made its move. Hamlin pulled out of line and with a push from Kevin Harvick, he sailed to his first Daytona 500 win. 

As Hamlin celebrated Toyota’s first 500 win, he said of his team’s effort, “I’ve never seen it executed so flawlessly as what we did today.”

JGR "did it with perfection" at Daytona

The competition noticed as well. Although Dale Earnhardt Jr. wrecked 31 laps before the finish — he was impressed how well the Toyota teammates worked together.

“The Gibbs guys did it to perfection in Daytona,” Earnhardt said. “I think that we did a great job of that the last time at Talladega at the end of the season when I needed to win and Jeff (Gordon) was trying to protect his position. The other drivers certainly worked with each of us a lot more than we typically would. I think it helped us and almost allowed us to achieve what we were trying to do there with winning the race.  

“But what the Gibbs guys did was good.  That is what you want to do.  You don’t start from 20th and all of you work together up through there.  All of you have to find your way to the front on your own.  Once you get there you quit racing each other and just race everybody else.  It’s hard to do because somebody is going to have to be at the back of that line of teammates.  That is not where any of us want to be.  I would rather be leading every lap and I think all my teammates would certainly rather be leading every lap.”

Running up front vs. riding at the back

Earnhardt has been burned before by hanging out at the back of field with his teammate Jimmie Johnson and waiting for the right time to move through the field. As a rule, Earnhardt, who holds a series-best six wins at Talladega among current drivers, would prefer to run out front. 

“Being the leader is so much easier than trying to hold off everybody that is going to get these runs,” Earnhardt said. “All they are going to keep doing is trying to get runs, get up beside you over and over and over.  

“If you are third, fourth in line you may run side-by-side with somebody on your door for 20 laps, 50 laps before somehow your line can break free or that whole line dominates the particular line you are in. It just depends on how it works out. We can’t sit there in 10th place and work together because we are just going to run in 10th.  You’ve got to get to the front on your own and once you get there hopefully, you find your buddies up there with you.”

Finding the right dancing partner

With Harvick’s restrictor plate prowess, he was fortunate to find alternative dancing partners despite his teammates being scattered throughout the field. Despite qualifying 29th for Sunday, Harvick says he’ll use the same strategy.

“We about won the race,” said Harvick, who finished fourth. “So we’ll just do what we did.” 

Joey Logano’s restrictor-plate stock has risen since won here in the fall and the 2015 Daytona 500. Yet when it comes to finding drafting partners, he’s been limited with Team Penske having just one other driver with Brad Keselowski and a technical alliance with The Wood Brothers’ Ryan Blaney. 

Logano's crew chief Todd Gordon says it’s up to the driver to find the right partners to secure an advantage.

“You have to look for those others because you can’t do it with three,” Gordon told motorsport.com. “If you have a Junior out there or the 24 (Chase Elliott) or Kurt Busch — and there’s a lot of speed in the Ford camp. The Roush guys have been good. We’ll work with whoever we can around us and see what we can do. 

“With any of these situations, you have to be aware of who is around us and who we can work with — obviously our own teammates as much as we can. But you just hope that other organizations with multiple cars can create the same effect and some loyalty. If you get two groups that have that loyalty, that creates two lines and then I think that breaks some of that trend of the success of that program back up."

Toyota's Daytona strategy may not work at Talladega

Kyle Busch isn’t convinced the Daytona strategy will pay off at Talladega since it’s wider and less of a handling track. 

“I’m not sure if it will have the same effect here," Busch said. "I still think that if you can coordinate enough of a group to stick together for a long enough group of time that that’s going to overcome some of those that are trying to get through to you.”

Gordon agrees. He acknowledges the Gibbs cars “executed very well” at Daytona, but he believes speed contributed to Toyota’s success at Daytona. Gordon feels that if teams can organize properly, they can thwart Gibbs’ game plan.

“I think speedway racing is all about the relationships you build during the race and who you can work with and we’ll look for cars that can work with us and try to make something happen," Gordon said. “At the end of that race, I think the Gibbs guys did a phenomenal job but we were trying to tow the outside line and Harvick made an aggressive in front of us. 

"Once you get some people that aren't in that organization making a line, then that organization has to make a counter move — which is what Denny did. He pulled up to block the run that Harvick had coming.

“Now that we’ve all seen the game, we’ll play the game differently but you just hope other organizations see the same thing and don’t fall in line.”