MARTINSVILLE, Va. – For the second consecutive weekend, A.J. Allmendinger stood up to the powerhouse teams in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) and won.
No, the driver nicknamed “Dinger” didn’t get to victory lane, but the driver of the No. 47 Kroger / Butterfinger / Coffeemate Chevrolet utilized his short track skills and his liking of the circuit’s smallest race track, to earn his best finish of the season in Sunday’s STP 500 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway.
“It was a lot of fun,” said a jubilant Allmendinger. “I passed Jimmie Johnson like five times at Martinsville. That is pretty fricking cool. I just can’t thank everybody on this team enough. Randall Burnett (crew chief), Ernie Cope (competition director), Brain Burns (engineer), Tony Palmer (engineer) for embracing their new roles and everybody really stepping up together, especially Tad and Jodi Geschickter (team owners) for putting all this effort into this team. It’s pretty cool to be on this race team right now.”
Allmendinger capitalized on a strong sixth-place qualifying run on Friday to put him in place for good track position, but also a solid pit selection.
Showing patience throughout the race, the Los Gatos, California native put the pressure on when he needed to most. When it mattered.
When the last caution of the race waved on Lap 484, while most of the competition behind him opted to pit road for fresh tires, the JTG-Daugherty Racing team chose to stay out, which lined him up third on the restart behind the Joe Gibbs Racing duo of leader Kyle Busch and Matt Kenseth.
Wrestling second away from Kenseth on the restart, the 34-year-old ran out of laps to steal the win from eventual winner Busch, but cleverly allowed him to earn his first top-five finish since winning at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International in 2014.
Allmendinger credits the improvement of his No. 47 Cup team to the recent changes that owner Tad Geschickter and Brad Daugherty made during the off-season. The addition of Randall Burnett as crew chief and Ernie Cope as general manager have been instrumental in bringing a new beat to the team on and off the track.
“Well, Brian Burns and Tony Palmer, my crew chief and race engineer last year, they were just at a bit of a disadvantage,” admitted Allmendinger. “We didn’t have the personnel to have the cars where we needed them when they left the race shop exactly where they needed to be, getting put into the hauler and getting brought to the racetrack. Ernie is really good. He’s had a relationship with RCR working there, and obviously, when he worked with Kevin Harvick and they had the truck and Busch teams at the time. So he’s been really good about making sure we got what we need for the race cars and built the way they need to be to the specs that he wants them and things like that, and Randall, for a first-year crew chief, you wouldn’t really know it.”
“He’s great on the box. He calms me, which shockingly I don’t know if you guys know that, I probably need that sometimes.
The whole team here at the racetrack, at the shop, they’ve all stepped up. Pit crews the last two weeks have really stepped up, and there’s a good vibe around the team. It’s fun to be at the race shop. It’s fun to be at the racetrack with the guys. Everybody seems a little bit more energetic. It’s a big deal, and Tad is working Jodi is working hard to keep putting stickers on those race cars. That’s important when they do that to try to give them in return good runs.”
Looking ahead, the former IndyCar Series driver heads to Texas Motor Speedway looking for a third consecutive top-10 finish, which would be a new accomplishment for him since joining the team in late 2013.
In 14 starts at Texas, Allmendinger has just two top-10 finishes, the last in November 2011.
“Yeah, Texas hasn’t been one of our best racetracks, but I feel like our mile and a half program has definitely improved,” Allmendinger mentioned. “That’s a racetrack that it’s tough, a guy like Kyle, he’s really good. He goes and runs the top there, so it’s a place that I’ve had decent runs but I’ve never really had great runs there, so I’m always kind of searching to find what I need. But race cars are getting better, so I know the guys back at the shop are really pumped up with the Texas car, and we’ll unload it and see what kind of speed we had and kind of base the rest of our weekend.”
The likable driver has good reason to alter that statistic, though. With his finish on Sunday, Allmendinger vaulted to 12th in the championship standings, a gain of seven from Auto Club (Calif.) Speedway two weekends ago.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
