Justin Allgaier hopes stronger cars, reduced stable at Turner makes him Nationwide contender
Turner Motorsports driver Justin Allgaier heads into the 2012 NASCAR Nationwide Series season hoping to improve on last year's third-place points finish. // Jim Fluharty, NASCAR Illustrated
If Turner Motorsports wants to win a Nationwide Series championship, it will be up to Justin Allgaier to get it done in 2012.
Last year, the organization had three drivers competing for the title with Allgaier, Reed Sorenson and Jason Leffler starting off the year with championship hopes.
Sorenson was third when he was released from the organization late in the season and ended up fifth, a spot ahead of Leffler and two spots behind Allgaier.
Allgaier, who won at Chicagoland and finished with six top-fives and 17 top-10s last year, knows he will have to improve to catch the drivers who finished 1-2 in the standings. He finished 117 points behind champion Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and 72 points behind runnerup Elliott Sadler.
“Last year, I thought we could [contend] but we couldn’t run with Elliott and with Ricky – we had moments of greatness and we had times where we had really fast race cars, but we just never really had that speed week in and week out,” Allgaier said.
“Some of the stuff that we’ve learned this offseason [testing] out in the desert and in the shop, I feel like … we’ve found some really good stuff.”
Allgaier enters his fourth year in the series after two at Penske Racing and now a second at Turner, which absorbed Braun Racing late in the 2010 season.
A year ago, Turner fielded four Nationwide teams (its fourth car had a variety of drivers) and three Camping World Truck Series teams.
For 2012, it will have only Allgaier running for the Nationwide title, with a second Nationwide car to be split by Kasey Kahne and Brad Sweet and a third part-time Nationwide car with James Buescher and possibly other drivers.
Turner will have three trucks driven by Buescher, Nelson Piquet Jr. and Miguel Paludo.
“I’m not saying that we were over capacity, but we were probably not at 100 percent running four cars and three trucks,” Allgaier said. “It’s difficult. … We’re going to be two-and-a-half [cars] and three [trucks].
“Our program has definitely stepped up. Last year was great but as you saw with each week, we could always be better. Our cars have gotten better this winter. Hendrick [Motorsports] has gone to the drawing board and they’re trying to make our engines better.”
Having fewer cars will require less scrambling at the shop.
“If you look at the way our year went, Allgaier and Sorenson and Leffler were all right there,” Turner Motorsports general manager T.J. Puchyr said. “I don’t think there was a distinct advantage between anybody, but running the four cars full time as much as we grew and building all the [cars], it was a lot of work and it was a lot on the employees and guys at the place.
“They did a really good job competing with the Roushes and the Gibbs to maintain that high level of performance. I think there will be some improvement in our performance because there will be less activity.”
Allgaier, Stenhouse and Sadler won’t be the only contenders for the Nationwide title. JR Motorsports’ Danica Patrick and Cole Whitt, and Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Dillon also should have plenty of resources to contend as the series goes into its second full season with the new body styles and also the second with the new 43-to-1 points system.
“The biggest challenge is going to be who meshes well at the beginning of the season and who takes the least mulligans,” Allgaier said. “Ours is the best of 33 [races]. The team that gets rolling off the bat the quickest and runs competitively every week is going to be the team that wins the title. I don’t think you’re going to be able to take too many races where you have a DNF.
“We ran out of gas at Road America, we caught on fire at [Indianapolis], we blew a right front at Iowa and at Dover.”
One thing Allgaier isn’t certain about is who his crew chief will be for 2012. By shrinking the number of teams, Puchyr said the organization is still deciding whether to keep Jimmy Elledge paired with Allgaier or to pair Allgaier with Trent Owens. Whoever doesn’t work with Allgaier would crew chief the Buescher part-time car.
The organization brought in former Richard Petty Motorsports crew chief Mike Shiplett to crew chief for Kahne and Sweet and also has two new truck crew chiefs – Chris Carrier came over from Kevin Harvick Inc. along with Piquet and former Germain Racing crew chief Mike Hillman Jr. will be paired with Paludo.
The goal of the organization is to win championships.
“Justin obviously, we expect him to contend for the title,” Puchyr said. “He needs to. That’s what we expect, that’s what [sponsor] Brandt expects and that’s for sure what Mr. Turner has got us there for.”
