AJ Allmendinger Tag

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor As the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series heads into week 16 of the 2017 season, the series gets ready to make its first right hand turns of the year. This week, the series makes the trek out to California wine country to take on the 1.990 mile Sonoma Raceway, a 12-turn technical road course situated about 30 miles north of San Francisco. This week’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 consists of 110 laps, which calculates out to 218.9 miles, or 350 kilometers. Over the years, the courseRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service TALLADEGA, Ala. – There’s no longer a goose egg in the win column next to Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s name. With a last-lap pass in Sunday’s GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, Stenhouse collected his first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victory in his 158th start and delivered the first win for Roush Fenway Racing since Carl Edwards triumphed at Sonoma in June 2014. “This is for all the guys at the shop–we’ve been terrible for a long time,” an exuberant Stenhouse said of the Roush renaissance.Read More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor “Talladega: World’s Fastest Junkyard,” quipped FOX Sports announcer Mike Joy after an 18-car crash broke out on the backstretch of the 2.66-mile superspeedway with 19 laps to go in Sunday’s GEICO 500. Couldn’t have summed it up any better. After a relatively quiet race by Talladega standards through the first 170 laps, the inevitable “Big One” was coming and when it came, it certainly was big. Coming off Turn 2, AJ Allmendinger, who was running third, made contact with the second-place driver, Chase Elliott, turningRead More

By Seth Eggert, NASCAR Contributor Despite a third-place finish in the Daytona 500, the 2017 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season has not started off as planned for A.J. Allmendinger. A penalty at Atlanta Motor Speedway dropped Allmendinger to 34th in the Championship standings. The penalty also resulted in a four-race suspension for his crew chief, Randall Burnett. Several finishes outside the top-15 have held him back in the standings as the field rolled into Martinsville Speedway, one of Allmendinger’s best tracks. Left looking for more speed after placing hisRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor After stops in Las Vegas and Phoenix to kick off the Western swing, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series wraps up their venture to the West Coast this weekend as they roll into Southern California to do battle on the two mile Auto Club Speedway in Sunday’s Auto Club 400. Built on the site of an old steel mill featured in the movie “Terminator”, the two mile oval has been a part of the NASCAR schedule since opening in 1997. The track has gone throughRead More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor A.J. Allmendinger had a decent start to the 2017 season going after finishing third in the Daytona 500, and surviving for a 26th place effort in Atlanta, but when his car made it back to the garage for post-race inspection NASCAR found that his No. 47 Chevrolet SS had three lug nuts that were not properly fastened. NASCAR announced Atlanta penalties Wednesday, and Allmendinger and his No. 47 team have been docked 35 championship driver and owner points. His crew chief Randall Burnett has alsoRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – His car damaged in a wreck on the backstretch and held together with tape, Kurt Busch grabbed the lead on the final lap of the 59th Daytona 500 on Sunday and took the checkered flag in the Great American Race as a capstone to a checkered career that has trended upward since Busch joined Stewart-Haas Racing in 2014. In a race that featured the first test of a new three-stage race format in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series—and featuredRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor Close, but no cigar….again. After a stellar rookie season in 2016, Ryan Blaney and the Wood Brothers entered the 2017 season looking to improve on last season’s results as well as getting Blaney his first career win. In Sunday’s Daytona 500, the team nearly accomplished that feat, but fell just short as they had to settle for a runner-up finish instead. Although it wasn’t a win, the second-place finish for Blaney marks the best career finish for the 23-year old, besting his three fourth placeRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor For much of the second Can-Am Duel at Daytona, it looked like it would be Dale Earnhardt, Jr following the lead of his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott to score the win after qualifying on the front row for the Daytona 500, but Denny Hamlin had other plans as he was able to execute a late race pass to take the lead and the win. “It was great. Great car. Got a great push there for Austin (Dillon). We worked really well together that entireRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor *Editor’s note: Motorsports Tribune will be previewing the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season for 24 drivers. We will release one driver preview per day over a 24-day stretch. Age: 35 Years in Cup: 11 Career Wins: One Biggest Accomplishment: First career Cup Series win (Watkins Glen – 2014) For A.J. Allmendinger, 2016 may not have provided a race win or a Chase berth, but the California native was still able to rebound from a down year in 2015 to make some noise in hisRead More