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TALLADEGA, Ala. – It was a show never seen before. At least in the Chevrolet camp.
About 10 Chevrolet cars raced together during the final practice session on Friday at Talladega Superspeedway, a sign that Chevrolet wants its teams to work more closely together after teaming up with the Toyotas at the Daytona 500.
To reaffirm this message, Jim Campbell, Chevrolet's vice president of performance vehicles and motorsport, met with Chevrolet drivers on Saturday.
"The benefit of working together is too great compared to the penalty of not working together," Campbell told NBC Sports.
"We have to work together as a team, but also to be adaptive. That's what we try to balance. "
Austin Dillon, Talladega's pole sitter, said, "We are now unified as a group."
While Chevrolet teams work together on off-road projects, they have not always been as cooperative on the track, whether for reasons of philosophy or uneven performance. This has contributed to Chevrolet's decline at Daytona and Talladega – the builder has won one of the last 15 races on these tracks.
Toyota is behind the strategy of working together within the same manufacturer and dominates the 2016 Daytona 500. Denny Hamlin wins, leading to a 1-2-3 Toyota finish. The Fords started to work together and dominated last year's playoff race at Talladega – his seventh consecutive NASCAR longest run. Aric Almirola won and Ford cars led nearly 95% of the race.
To fight Ford's forces, Toyota and the Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet team worked together on the Daytona 500. In the second leg, a six-car train consisting of Toyotas and Hendrick controlled the pace. Accidents later in the race have reduced the effectiveness of the maneuver, but a strategy against Ford was created.
This particular pair of Chevrolet and Toyota teams will not be repeated, however.
"I think some of the other Chevrolet probably feared the Hendricks are working with us," Hamlin said.
Chevrolet teams have met several times since February to work together.
"They make the law," Bubba Wallace told NBC Sports.
The result was that 10 drivers were on the track together on Friday during the tests. They walked about fifteen laps, came to dig the road together and went out together to simulate a pit stop with green flag.
This could be critical Sunday. The teams discovered this weekend that the more cars there were in a line, the faster they would go. Last fall, Stewart-Haas Racing's four cars ran in single file and moved away from the pack. This is not expected to happen on Sunday with the rule changes that include teams still having 100 horsepower at 550 horsepower and the larger rear spoiler (with the wicker added to the Friday spoiler).
"On tracks like this, the numbers are winning," Jimmie Johnson told NBC Sports. "So, the more we can be organized, and if we can get more quality cars, more quality Chevrolet to work together, we can hope to have this advantage in these rare situations of coring under the green light."
When Almirola saw the Chevrolets running together on Friday, he said, "It's time.
"What's that old saying … Trump me once, shame on you. Deceive me twice, shame on me. Deceive me three times, it's not going to happen. They have often been fooled by the association and the collaboration of manufacturers.
"To see that, it says a lot about what we did at Ford several years ago to organize our racing teams to work together to create a blue oval at the front and that's what this race has become. I think that they finally got acquainted. "
Kyle Larson said that everything had gone well, teams working together until now.
"We have been disciplined enough about this," he said. "We'll see how it goes in the race. Hope we can do what the other teams have done, but even better. I am delighted to work together and hope that we will learn throughout this project, we will make improvements in the future and we will go even better. "
This is a challenge noted by Dillon. Toyota and Ford teams know how to work together during the race. It will be Chevrolet's first attempt to move forward.
"These guys have been working for a few races now and they have been able to fine-tune their way of getting to the front and working together," said Dillon. "We have a young group of Chevrolet drivers, a little less experience. As a group, I have the feeling of having done a good job during the weekend. "
If Chevrolet cars work together on Sunday, Toyota teams could suffer. Toyota has the fewest cars in the group of 39 cars with seven – this includes two part-time teams.
"I knew it was going to happen," Hamlin said of the partnership's loss with Hendrick Motorsports. "I'm friends with a couple of (Chevrolet pilots), so I knew that meetings had been going on for about a month. I knew we were going to fend for ourselves.
But this edict of Chevrolet does not mean that a Chevrolet driver can not work with another manufacturer during the race. This will happen. The pack will be mixed. But the goal is to work together when you can.
"Chevy is an important part of our success," said Daniel Hemric at NBC Sports. "Whether we have it or not, they have all given us the path to have it. At the end of the day, one of us must be on the road to victory. That's why we have to come together to make it happen. "
If it's not possible Sunday, it's the first time since 1971 that Chevrolet has not won the first 10 races of the season.
"The goal is to win," Campbell told NBC Sports. "We also want so many Chevys to finish well with the points of the stage and at the end of the race. It's a long season. Our goal is to have the largest number of Chevrolet riders in the series, whether it's wins, points or both.
"Cleary, the goal is to get some wins on the board. The advantage of our key partners is that we continue to learn from each other to gain speed and improve performance. "
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