BRISTOL, Tenn. -- Sunday's Food City 500 was a breakout day for Aric Almirola and his Dale Earnhardt Inc. Chevrolet team, as Almirola, in his first start of the season, scored a career-best eighth-place finish, the No. 8 car's best run this year.

With Almirola's schedule in the No. 8 set to include only the races that the veteran Mark Martin opts out of, the driver who earned the title "Cuban Missile" for his Busch Series pole-winning exploits is especially glad he won't have to wait for his next start.

Almirola

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Martin is scheduled to contest 24 of 36 Sprint Cup point races. But Almirola, who turned 24 last Friday and has not been in an official NASCAR race since Nov. 11, made the most of the opportunity in only his seventh career start.

His best previous finish, 26th, came in his last race, at Phoenix International Raceway. After Sunday at Bristol, Almirola, who started 16th when the rainout lineup was set based on last year's owner points, said to expect more of the same.

"That's where we should run," Almirola said. "I've been telling all these guys on this crew for so long now throughout my career, whether I was at Joe Gibbs Racing or last year when I first got [to be] part of the [DEI and Ginn Racing] merger.

"I tried hard to run all the laps and learn as much as I could."

That resulted in some finishes and some failures -- but nothing particularly flashy. Over the winter, Almirola kept his desire patiently buttoned up while getting as many laps as he could in a few test sessions.

After Martin logged finishes of 31st at Daytona, 16th in California, 10th at Las Vegas and 22nd at Atlanta, Almirola stepped up to the plate.

Almirola, who made his second career start and DEI debut last summer on the same Bristol configuration but only had a 36th-place result, said his limited schedule would place no lid on his desire.

"Coming into this year, I've taken a different approach," Almirola said. "I've got my elbows up and I'm going to go out there and race with these guys. These guys on this team deserve it. These guys on this Army team deserve the credit. They build great racecars [and] it makes it very possible for me to go out there and do my job.

"I had a good car with a lot of speed and didn't have to hustle it. It was a lot of fun out there and I want to thank all the guys on this team for believing in me. The pit stops were excellent all day. We had great test sessions and this validates what we've been doing. I have all the confidence in the world with this team."

Many in Sunday's packed crowd of about 160,000 no doubt noticed the difference, as Almirola started 16th, made it to 14th by halfway and was 11th with 50 laps to go. He squeezed into the top 10 when Jimmie Johnson abruptly fell back. He got knocked back out and, with eight laps remaining was 11th.

Then, when Kevin Harvick and Tony Stewart tangled while racing for second and the race's final caution flew, Almirola -- along with most of the lead-lap drivers -- dove onto pit road for tires. He restarted 10th and picked up two spots in the green-white-checkered finish.

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."