With part-time Truck ride, future remains in limbo for Aric Almirola

Aric Almirola’s roller-coaster 2009 NASCAR season continues.

Nearly four months removed from his last start in Earnhardt Ganassi Racing’s No. 8 Sprint Cup car, Almirola has found a home – at least temporarily – in the Camping World Truck Series with Billy Ballew Motorsports.

Four starts in the organization’s No. 15 Toyota have yielded two top-five finishes but no more certainty for Almirola about where his next full-time ride might come. The team has sponsorship for Friday night’s Truck race at O’Reilly Raceway Park but needs sponsorship beyond that.

Fielding a truck for Almirola without sponsorship is possible but uncertain, team owner Billy Ballew says. So Almirola, who has spent the last few months searching for a ride in any of NASCAR’s three national series, has no more guarantees about his future now than he did when a lack of sponsorship forced Earnhardt Ganassi to park its No. 8 car after the season’s seventh race.

“I hate to undermine anything else and try to compare it to anything, but it really does take the wind out of your sails, so to speak,” said Almirola, who is also making a cameo appearance for Key Motorsports in Saturday's Nationwide Series event at ORP. “It really, really wears on you. It wears on you as a human being, as a race car driver, as a lot of things. You start to doubt yourself and doubt your ability and doubt just yourself period. So it has definitely been tough.

“It’s not been something that I would wish on anybody, and it gives me a great appreciation for the times that I do get to race now. It definitely makes me realize that you never know when your last race could be.”

Since the No. 8 team folded, Almirola has gone to almost every Cup race in an effort to keep his name circulating in the garage as a driver looking for a ride.

“I’ve been going and talking to people and showing my face,” said the 25-year-old Tampa, Fla., native. “I’m really scared of basically [being] out of sight, out of mind. I’ve been trying really hard to not let that happen. I don’t want to be forgotten, and I want people to think about me if they have an opportunity or if they’re looking to put somebody in the seat. … Or if I run into somebody and they’re thinking about it, I want to be someone that crosses their mind.”

Ballew was on the list of team owners Almirola planned to call when the Georgia businessman called him about running the Truck race at Texas Motor Speedway on June 5.

The two have been friends for several years and thought joining forces for a few races could benefit both. That has happened so far, as Almirola has posted finishes of fourth and fifth in his last two starts, including last Saturday’s outing at Kentucky Speedway.

“I knew of his talent level,” Ballew said. “I just think that he has gotten better with the Cup car experience as far as the mechanics of a race car. It wasn’t like that it was a gamble in any way on my part. I knew how good he was, given the right equipment and the right opportunity. So even though I’m very proud of what he’s done, it has not surprised me in any way.”

Almirola, who ran a full Truck schedule in 2006 and has made only eight Truck starts since, hasn’t had a big problem transitioning back to the series after spending most of the last two years competing in NASCAR’s new model Sprint Cup car. He says the only real adjustment has been getting acclimated to the horsepower-reducing tapered spacer that NASCAR has mandated for all trucks since Almirola drove one full time.

“First and foremost it’s been a lot of fun,” Almirola said of returning to the seat. “I’ve realized how much I enjoy racing just getting back to racing and being in the Truck series and stuff. You don’t realize how much you miss something until you have it taken away.

“Man, I have missed it so much, and for Billy to give me an opportunity to get back in a car or in a truck and be back on the race track has been a lot of fun, and I’ve been very thankful of that.”

Looking back on his time in the No. 8 car, which he shared with Mark Martin last year before Dale Earnhardt Inc. merged with Chip Ganassi Racing in the offseason to form EGR, Almirola wishes he could have produced better results. His top finish in seven starts this season was a 21st at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

“Right from the very, very beginning of this year, the morale of our team was extremely uncertain,” said Almirola, who took over the ride full time when Martin left for Hendrick Motorsports at the end of last season. “Our race team was pretty much on an emotional roller coaster right from Christmas because whether I was going to drive it or somebody else was going to drive it was very unclear up until not very long before we left to go to Daytona. And then everybody kind of knew from the very beginning that we only had enough money to race the first seven races.

“So you had guys on the race team that were unsure of their future, and any time that you’re unsure of something and you don’t have a set-in-stone plan, it’s really hard to be 100 percent committed and 100 percent focused on your job at hand. … I think a lot of that just basically compounded into not as good of a performance as we had hoped.”

Almirola, who remains under contract with EGR, says he has talked with team officials about possibly returning to the seat at some point but has been given no indication that will happen. Whether with EGR or another team, Almirola still wants to return to NASCAR’s top series as soon as possible. He says he would be open to taking a full-time Truck ride in 2010, however, if the opportunity arose.

Right now, though, he doesn’t know what his future in the sport – long term or short team – holds.

“I’m a very regimented and detail and planned person, and the uncertainly that I’ve went through, I guess, has made me a better person,” he said. “Everybody says what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I’m definitely getting stronger.”