Top 35 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers: No. 24 - AJ Allmendinger
Richard Petty Motorsports' AJ Allmendinger finished 24th in the final NASCAR Sprint Cup Series standings in 2009.
// David Griffin, NASCAR Scene
Richard Petty Motorsports driver AJ Allmendinger had his best season as a NASCAR Sprint Cup driver in 2009, his third season as a stock-car driver.
Allmendinger competed in all 36 races, posting one top-five and six top-10 finishes and ended up 24th in the Sprint Cup standings. Allmendinger also earned $3,878,483 in purses.
Allmendinger’s numbers have increased every year he has been in NASCAR.
In his first season in Cup, in 2007, he ran 17 races, didn’t have a top-10 and finished 43rd in points.
And last year, Allmendinger ran in 27 races, posted two top-10s and finished 36th in the points.
During the offseason, SceneDaily is taking a look at the top 35 in 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup driver points. Here’s how AJ Allmendinger’s season unfolded:
By the numbers: Allmendinger joined RPM late in 2008 and had four finishes of 16th or better in five races. For 2009, he increased that to 10 – including three in a row after his No. 44 team switched from Dodge to Ford for the final trio of races in the season.
Season highlights: Allmendinger grabbed his first career top-five when he finished third in the Daytona 500, trailing only winner Matt Kenseth and runnerup Kevin Harvick. He later had top-10s on the Martinsville short track, the Infineon road course and the Dover mile. He closed out the season with finishes of 10th, 13th and 10th in a Ford.
Key setbacks: Allmendinger’s ninth-place finish at Martinsville in March moved him to 15th in the point standings, but then he finished 34th, 35th and 35th to fall all the way to 27th.
Newsworthy moment: RPM announced in September it was merging with Yates Racing for 2010, and the team put Allmendinger in a Ford for the final three races of ’09 to begin preparation for next year.
In his words: “I’m just proud of everybody on the 44 team to get two top-10s and three top-15s in [the final] three races. That’s good. I wish we could’ve had this all year. It was a lot of fun. I thank Ford for allowing this to happen and everybody that sponsored this 44 car to keep us going, and I’m looking forward to next year.”
