NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
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CUP: Dinger Looking Toward Solid 2011
AJ Allmendinger won't be content continuing to run mid-pack in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series...
Mike Hembree  |  Posted August 25, 2010   Concord, NC
AJ Allmendinger (Center) and team co-owner Richard Petty (Left) talk with World Rally driver Ken Block (Right) on Tuesday at Concord Motorsport Park in Concord, N.C. (Photo: Mike Hembree, SPEED.com)
Thanks to his name – an odd one, he admits, AJ Allmendinger is listed first in the NASCAR Sprint Cup media guide, and he is likely to retain that spot unless some guy named Al Abrams comes along.

In a much more important category, Allmendinger is 22nd. That would be the Sprint Cup point standings, and Allmendinger has played in the 20s in that column virtually the entire season.

This is not what the 2004 Champ Car series rookie of the year had in mind when he tossed out his open-wheel gear after winning five times in 2006 and detoured to Sprint Cup racing, joining Team Red Bull in what became a difficult debut season in 2007. Allmendinger failed to qualify for what should have been his first four races in that dark season, and he ultimately missed 19.

Flash forward to late 2010, and Allmendinger has reached a crossroads of sorts that he likely assumed would have come much earlier. He is not going to make the Chase in the iconic No. 43 Richard Petty Motorsports car, but he has driven close to the edge enough this season to be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

He hopes to come out the other side next year, when, he figures, RPM, its Ford connection and the experience of the team Petty is building will merge into a cohesive, competitive unit.

It is time, Allmendinger said, for he is in this to win, not to be a former open-wheel “name” player who’ll be satisfied to drive around in the mediocrity of the middle of Sprint Cup fields.

“I think we’ve shown signs of promise that we can contend, and we’ve shown signs of struggle at times,” said Allmendinger of this year, one he considers his first “true” season in NASCAR because of the difficulties of the Red Bull launch and the revamping of Petty’s team and its switch to Ford last year.

“With that comes a lot of good and bad. I think we can still salvage something pretty decent for the rest of the year. We can start building the race team so that we have something strong going into 2011.

“Making the Chase would have been a lofty goal this year. There are not a lot of first-year ‘put-together’ teams making the Chase. They’re solid teams that have been together five, six, seven, eight years or even more than that.

“Next year we have to take that next step, and the only way we do that is to finish this year strong, and that’s what we’re trying to focus on.”

These are the kinds of comments you expect drivers floating in the 20s to say. Wait ’til next year. We’ll be better. It’s a common tune. But Allmendinger makes it clear that he’s serious about the targets he’s establishing.

“Last year was about survival,” he said. “We were just trying to get from race to race. This year is the first year I’ve gotten to experience the ups and downs where you get on a good streak and then hit a lull. All this is new to me.

“This is hard. The Sprint Cup Series may be the hardest form of racing out there. The setups are so critical and everything that goes with it. When I went in with Red Bull in ’07, I don’t think the team thought it was going to be as much of a struggle as it was. Brian Vickers [then Allmendinger’s teammate] is one of the best qualifiers out there, and he missed about as many races as I did.
AJ Allmendinger is 22nd in the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

“Just to get to this point is a true sign of how much I want it. It’s put a lot of stress on everything around me – my family, my friends. I think there are times that I maybe overdrive the car because I didn’t get to learn those lessons early on because I was more about survival than anything and trying to prove myself. To a certain extent, I’m still trying to do that.

“For three years I had to basically live and die by the sword. I had to think with every lap, ‘OK, is this going to be my last lap in a stock car in the Sprint Cup Series?’ Maybe now I can roll with the punches a little better.”

Allmendinger signed a new contract with RPM after a not-so-pleasant summer. In June at Pocono, a controversial last-lap move by Allmendinger sent teammate Kasey Kahne onto the grass and almost out of the ballpark as part of a multi-car wreck. In July, after crashing out of the race at Daytona, Allmendinger engaged in a heated discussion with Petty and stormed off.

“Everybody made a bigger deal of it than it was,” Allmendinger said of the Daytona incident. “It was frustrated levels on both of our parts. The next day we were fine. I can be frustrated at the moment, but in a 10-minute period I can be calmed down. We both want to win.

“I want to win, and until I do I won’t think I’ve completely made it. Hopefully, that’s the next step.”

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 28 years. He has written several books on NASCAR, including "NASCAR: The Definitive History of America's Sport" and "Then Tony Said To Junior: The Best NASCAR Stories Ever Told". He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.

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