AJ Allmendinger Tag

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service SONOMA, Calif. – Is Tony Stewart having fun yet? In his last year of NASCAR Sprint Cup Series racing, Stewart came to Sonoma Racing asserting on Friday he wasn’t having much fun driving a Sprint Cup car. That all changed in Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 at the 1.99-mile road course, where Stewart bulldozed Denny Hamlin into the outside wall in Turn 11, executing a dramatic last-lap pass for his first victory since June 2, 2013 at Dover. In the three years since that victory,Read More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor Heading into Sunday’s race at Sonoma Raceway, one driver at the top of everyone’s list of potential winners was AJ Allmendinger, who has run exceptionally well on the 12-turn California road course over the years only to have lost the race for one reason or another. With a second place start, Allmendinger looked to be in prime position to make the most of the race in an effort to score his first win at the track and moved into the lead over polesitter Carl EdwardsRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service SONOMA, Calif. – Carl Edwards ran a lightning-fast lap in the first round of Saturday’s knockout qualifying at Sonoma Raceway—and it worried him. “After that first lap—I have to be honest—I sat here and thought, ‘Man, I’m really going to screw this up on the second one,’ ‘cause the first one was really good, but it held on for the pole, and so I’m really excited.” Edwards toured the 1.99-mile road course in 1 minute, 14.392 seconds (96.301 mph) in the first round andRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor As the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series gets back to work after taking Father’s Day weekend off, they head to the west coast for the first road course race of the season, the Toyota Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway. The 1.990 mile Sonoma Raceway, a 12 turn technical road course situated about 30 miles north of San Francisco, has played host to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series since 1989 and has gone through a series of changes since opening its doors 27 years ago. WhenRead More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor It’s been an odd season for Dale Earnhardt Jr. Usually, if you’re an Earnhardt fan, you circle the restrictor plate races and Michigan on the schedule as places where the No. 88 is expected to contend for victory. At Daytona and Talladega earlier this year, Earnhardt just lost control of his car and crashed out of the events. Sunday on lap 60 at Michigan Earnhardt suffered a similar fate as he slammed into the outside retaining wall at the exit of turn two. This crashRead More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor There is a brand-spankin’ new format for this weekend’s Sprint All-Star race, and one of the big changes is how many drivers will advance from the preliminary Showdown. The race before the big race will consist of three 20-lap segments, the leader at the end of each segment will advance to the All-Star race. There will also be two more drivers who will make it into the big show by way of the fan vote. Conventional wisdom would tell you that drivers like Chase Elliott, KyleRead More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor On most weeks in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, only the super teams (such as Hendrick Motorsports, Team Penske, Joe Gibbs Racing and a few others) should really expect to end their day in victory lane. In order to win at intermediate 1.5-mile speedways it takes teams of engineers, and millions of dollars just to finish inside the top-10. Talladega though, is a different animal. Instead of gobs of resources, it just takes an unrelenting will to win and incredible intestinal fortitude to conquer the day atRead More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor AJ Allmendinger is in the midst of a hot streak. The driver of the No. 47 Chevrolet overcame numerous obstacles to finish eighth at Auto Club Speedway a couple of races ago, and then this past week he was battling Kyle Busch for the win en route to a second-place finish at one of NASCAR’s toughest tracks — Martinsville Speedway. Following his best effort of the season, Allmendinger was ecstatic. “It was a lot of fun.  I passed Jimmie Johnson like five times at Martinsville. ThatRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief An eventful STP 500 from Martinsville Speedway has been settled and Kyle Busch is the man that grabbed the traditional grandfather clock after holding off AJ Allmendinger in the closing stages. Here are the key topics coming from Sunday’s race at NASCAR’s oldest track. 1) Impatience from start to finish The common theme is patience early and then to take everything late. That certainly wasn’t the case on Sunday, from the drop of the green flag bumpers found each other with drivers more than willing toRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Kyle Busch came to Martinsville Speedway this weekend with no grandfather clock trophies from the shortest and tightest of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series short tracks. He left with two clocks after completing an unprecedented Martinsville sweep in Sunday’s STP 500, and, appropriately, the first question he radioed to his crew after his celebratory burnouts dealt with telling time. “What time is it?” crowed the reigning series champion, who a day earlier had won the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series raceRead More