California native eyes first win at 1.99-mile track
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SONOMA, Calif. — AJ Allmendinger‘s extensive road-racing background and aggressive driving style make him one of the favorites Sunday on the twisty turns of Sonoma Raceway.
The spoils of winning here aren’t limited to the checkered flag, the Victory Lane glass of wine and post-race burnouts. For drivers such as Allmendinger who have yet to scratch the win column this year, a Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoff berth is among the rewards. But even with the more favorable odds, the JTG Daugherty Racing driver isn’t obsessing about the first of two road courses on the series schedule.
“At the end of the day, I know what the prize is,” said Allmendinger, in his second full season driving the No. 47 Chevrolet. “I know if you win, you make the Chase; and that’s so important. But I try not to focus on putting the pressure on that this race is do or die, or Watkins Glen is do or die; and if we don’t, it doesn’t happen. We’ve just got to get better every weekend. I know that’s kind of cliché, but right now that’s really our goal. If we go out here and have a great run and build some momentum, that’s all we can do.
“Like I said, for me, I just try to drive my butt off. And if it’s good enough, it’s good enough. If it’s not, it’s not.”
Allmendinger will have the added advantage of starting first in Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 (3 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1, PRN, SiriusXM) after securing his third career Coors Light Pole Award in Saturday’s qualifying. The 33-year-old driver landed his first victory and first Chase berth last August at Watkins Glen International by outdueling road racing ace Marcos Ambrose in a frantic finish. But despite his road racing portfolio, Allmendinger has had few bright spots over his career on Sonoma’s more technical 1.99-mile layout, where he’s yet to post a top-five finish in six tries.
While Allmendinger’s driving technique arguably more suited to Watkins Glen’s faster circuit, his peers still keep him in high regard for Sunday’s main event.
“AJ is extremely aggressive. Nobody drives in the corners deeper than AJ does,” said Jeff Gordon, NASCAR’s all-time road course king with nine wins, five at Sonoma. “I think that at Watkins Glen that way of attacking the race track is very beneficial and definitely puts good lap times together and is tough to beat. Here I think there is a fine line and balance between that. I think AJ has the skills to be the fastest and the best here this weekend, certainly in qualifying. Then it’s going to come down to executing that in the race. I would say he is the guy to beat.”
While Allmendinger’s skills match up well with the two road courses on the schedule, his focus remains finding improvement for the remaining 34 events. He began his season with two top-10 finishes in the first three races, lifting him to as high as fifth in the Sprint Cup standings. But Allmendinger hasn’t claimed a top-10 since, enduring three DNFs — including a crash at Bristol that ruined a possible top-10 — and dropping to 22nd in driver points.
“And from there, I wouldn’t say panic set in, but we started trying different things,” Allmendinger said. “OK, where have we lost it? In a way, maybe we hadn’t lost it. We just had bad results. And then we kind of got off track and we came full circle. So, in the end, we know where we have to improve. We have the steps in place and the ideas in place, but it’s not an overnight process, either. So, I think that’s just the biggest thing is that it’s not that we show up at say, Kentucky, really because that’s the next oval track, 1.5-mile typical race, and we’ll have better cars once we get there, but it’s a process.
“So, we have improved a lot, but the way this sport is, everybody else has as well. So, we’ve got to kind of keep stepping up our game. But in the end, what makes a race team is not all the positives. It’s the negatives and how you deal with them. And I think over the last couple of weeks that, to me, is what’s the most positive.”