Almirola's top-10 has him excited, 8 crew confident (cont'd)

A couple notable figures in the infield were ecstatic after the race, including Joe Gibbs Racing president J.D. Gibbs, who gave Almirola his chance in NASCAR's upper levels after nurturing him in JGR's development program that was started with the late Reggie White.

Almirola made his Cup debut last spring in a JGR car at Las Vegas, where he crashed. Later, before he moved from JGR to Ginn Racing, where he became an accessory following Ginn's dissolution and merger with DEI, he won a Busch Series pole in relief of Denny Hamlin at Milwaukee. He then started the race and is credited with the victory, though JGR teammate Hamlin arrived after the green flag and replaced him in mid-race.

Gibbs sought out Almirola after the Bristol race, as the youngster accepted congratulations from a number of other competitors.

"I told him he did a great job," Gibbs said later. "I went over and high-fived him and told him he did great -- a heckuva job.

"It was kind of the same story with Aric that it was with Denny. We kind of started a program five or six years ago, [Almirola] was running Late Models, Truck things, Nationwide stuff. He should be really encouraged."

To hear his DEI crew chief Tony Gibson tell it, Almirola is certainly appreciated.

"Awesome, just awesome," Gibson said. "Aric drove the wheels off that Army Chevrolet. We had a decent car, not a great one. But Aric drove both patiently and hard.

"He has talent. The team believes in him and he believes in us. He is the future and we're just happy that he is driving our stuff."

While five-time Bristol winner Jeff Gordon battled with an ill-handling car that he could never fix, finishing three spots behind Almirola, Almirola and Gibson were spot-on while working together for the first time.

"It was great," Almirola said. "We got behind a couple of times on the setup. We just kept trying stuff and trying to make it better. We were trying to make it turn better -- we just never got it where we needed to be. We finally just went back to where we were the best. It still wasn't great but we got it back to where it was the best. That was what we had. We had a fifth- to eighth-place car and we finished eighth, so I'm really proud of all my guys. I think we could have run a little better with track position. It was just really tough to pass."

The only thing that will be harder for Almirola to pass is his time between races. He's scheduled to run Martinsville in two weeks before Martin steps back in for the race at Texas.

"Yeah, I don't want to sit on the pit box no more," said Almirola, who's attended races and tests this season that he's not been scheduled to drive at. "It is what it is. I get to race 12 races and I'll hopefully go get 12 top-10s."

Talking Martin into giving up any of his races isn't likely.

"I wish," Almirola said before leaving Bristol. "As long as I'm in the racecar, I'm happy."