Kris Johnson: Allmendinger’s roller-coaster ride continues in NASCAR
By SceneDaily Staff
Saturday, June 21, 2008
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COMMENTARY
The up-and-down NASCAR adventure continues for Red Bull Racing’s AJ Allmendinger in his sophomore Sprint Cup season.
Happy to be back home in his native California to compete at Infineon Raceway, where he failed to make the show last season, the former Champ Car standout was just hoping to qualify for Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 before worrying about a strong finish.
Mission accomplished.
“I’m just so relieved – relief and that’s it. That was a big deal. I was really nervous about this,” said Allmendinger, who will start 36th.
While being pulled from the seat of his No. 84 Toyota in favor of veteran Mike Skinner for five races earlier this year, Allmendinger clearly benefited from his time as an observer. The highlight since his return in late April is a 12th-place showing, the best of his career, at Pocono.
Perhaps most important, though, he’s qualified for seven straight races since getting the seat back from Skinner at Talladega.
“Mike Skinner does a great job, and he did a great job in the race car, but he helped me a ton outside of it, just more than anything giving me a peace of mind,” Allmendinger said. “He taught me that I was doing the right thing, saying the right things, me and him both were feeling the same things in the race car – it gave me a lot of confidence to know when I got back in it that I was doing the right things.”
Red Bull Racing is building new cars, something Allmendinger said has benefited both himself and teammate Brian Vickers. Still, the adjustment to stock cars is an ongoing process for the 26-year-old driver from Los Gatos, Calif.
“A stock car isn’t like anything else that open-wheel guys or even sports-car drivers drive, really. I mean, they’re big, heavy cars with a lot of horsepower; the tires are really small,” he said, adding, “I think except for the guys that go through it, the open-wheel drivers that go through it, that try to come over, that really take it and understand it, it’s tough for other people to understand just how big of a change it is.”
Allmendinger, though, said his learning curve is “definitely shrinking because I’m definitely a lot more comfortable and feel good in the race car each and every time that I’m in it.”
The success of fellow Red Bull-sponsored driver Scott Speed, who won the recent Craftsman Truck Series race at Dover, has led some observers to speculate that Allmendinger may be supplanted by Speed at the Cup level next year.
Rumors, though, aren’t enough to faze Allmendinger after the challenges he’s faced in the last year and a half, a period he called the “most difficult” in his entire racing career.
“I’m never going to give up; that’s one thing you’ll never see out of me is me giving up. I’m OK with it. I’m OK with having to fight,” Allmendinger said.
- Mentioned Drivers:
- Brian Vickers
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