After a long and difficult race, A.J. Allmendinger from Los Gatos, CA and the #43 Best Buy Ford team made one last adjustment on the final pit stop on lap 186 of the 200 lap race, to really get the car right. He proceeded to gain one position on every lap till the end to finish in the 14th spot. They turned a potentially bad day into a good day, moving up one spot in the points standings. A.J. is now in the 15th position, only 21 points out of the top 12 and definitely deserves to be in the All Star Race. Vote Here!
A.J. had this to say after the race: “That was quite a weekend! I’ll admit, I was pretty frustrated with our pace through most of the weekend. No matter what we tried, we just didn’t get the car as quick as we needed to. But I’m proud of how we just kept fighting and to come out of here with a top fifteen is not bad. It’s not what we wanted out of the weekend but if we have an off weekend and still score those kinds of points, that will be huge in the long run.”
Also, by coming in 14th, he finished ahead of Casey Mears from Bakersfield who was 29th, to win the Sprint Bragging Rights Challenge. The winner received $5,000 for their charity. A.J. chose the Paralyzed Veterans of America. A.J. said: “I’m also really happy to get the chance to help the Paralyzed Veterans out with this award–they were on board with us at the Rolex 24 and we are looking forward to having them with us on the 43 again at Daytona this summer so it was great to win the Bragging Rights and it was another positive thing to come out of a weekend that didn’t start the way we were hoping. Richard Petty has got some good cars for the short track package and I’m already looking forward to next weekend.”
Help us get another NorCal driver in the NASCAR Sprint Cup All Star Race on May 21, 2011 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Jeff Gordon from Vallejo, CA is already in the race. You can vote for A.J. here: http://www.nascar.com/promos/allstar/2011/
