TALLADEGA, Ala. – On a day when Stewart-Haas Racing utterly decimated the field, Aric Almirola played the part of the good soldier, and his patience was rewarded with a victory at Talladega Superspeedway in the 1000bulbs.com 500.

Almirola, who ran fourth in a four-man freight train at the front of the field behind teammates Kurt Busch, Clint Bowyer and Kevin Harvick for most of the afternoon, took advantage of a well-timed push from Ricky Stenhouse Jr. to pass a slowing Busch on the last lap of an overtime finish on Sunday.

Busch, who started from the pole and led a race-high 108 of 193 laps, ran out of luck when his fuel-starved engine began sputtering coming into turn four as the field was storming towards the finish line.

At that point, Almirola shot to the high side with help from Stenhouse, dove back down to the yellow line and successfully defended both lanes through the tri-oval and to the checkered flag.

Sunday’s victory was the second of Almirola’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series career and his first since July of 2014 at Daytona Int’l Speedway, snapping a 149-race winless drought.

It also advanced him directly into the third round of the playoffs and ended a season of heartbreak, after Almirola had been in position for no less than three Cup Series triumphs during the year before circumstances took him out of contention in the closing laps.

“This is so awesome!” said Almirola, who led only the final lap en route to the win. “We’ve been so close, so many times this year, and I never gave up because of all the people on this Smithfield team, Tony Stewart, Gene Haas and everyone at Stewart-Haas Racing who believed in me and have worked so hard to make all of this a reality.

“To come here, a place that I love, and win the race … it’s such a cool moment and an incredible time to break through and make all this happen,” he added. “What a team effort. It was us against the world and we just stayed so committed to each other. This was an amazing day.”

The Stewart-Haas contingent was virtually untouchable all weekend long at NASCAR’s longest race track.

They swept the top four spots on the grid in qualifying on Saturday, won every stage of the race on Sunday and had a sweep of the top four positions in the race within reach, until a caution with three laps left sent the final outcome into flux due to major fuel concerns for most of the frontrunners.

After a turn-four crash involving Alex Bowman, J.J. Yeley and William Byron set up overtime, Harvick was the first of the frontrunners to blink when he ducked to pit road for a splash of gas as the field came to green for the final restart, giving up third place on-track and moving Joey Logano up behind Bowyer.

When the green flag waved, Logano shoved Bowyer down into turn one as Busch – who elected the outside as the race leader – stormed ahead on top with help from Almirola before changing lanes and darting down to the bottom of the track.

That left Almirola alone up top with drafting help from Paul Menard and Stenhouse, at least until Busch drifted high off turn four coming to the white flag to block Almirola’s advances.

Stenhouse then shot to the outside of Menard to go three-wide for third as the field crossed the start/finish line, while further back, Trevor Bayne hooked Matt DiBenedetto into the outside wall in turn one and sparked a multi-car accident.

While several drivers, including Chase Elliott, endured vicious hits, NASCAR officials elected to keep the green flag out and let the field race back to the finish as there were no cars blocking the racing surface.

That left Busch and Almirola alone out front, until Busch’s car began to lose momentum in the final corner and he slowed, ducking to the inside and falling out of contention as the field stormed past.

Almirola never looked back after that, beating Bowyer to the finish line by .105 of a second.

After the race, Bowyer was pleased that his team’s strategy proved effective all race long, but was still somewhat disappointed at just missing out on what would have been his third Talladega victory.

“What a day for Stewart-Haas. I’m so happy and proud to drive these race cars,” Bowyer said. “That was the easiest Talladega race weekend that I’ve ever had in my life, and it’s all because of the rocket ships that this team brought us to race with here.

“I was waiting on that white flag and trying to drag back to see if I could get a run on Kurt, but it opened the door up the other way because the bottom lane just didn’t go at the end,” he continued. “Ford ruled the day. I’m proud of the effort we put in; we just came up a little shy when it mattered most.”

Stenhouse crossed the line in third to complete a one-two-three sweep for the Blue Ovals, followed by Denny Hamlin’s Toyota and Logano in another Ford.

A.J. Allmendinger was the highest-finishing Chevrolet driver in sixth, followed by Jimmie Johnson, who rallied back from a lap 62 crash to end up seventh.

Erik Jones, Menard and Regan Smith completed the top 10.