Attitude AJ-ustment: Allmendinger proud of Kaulig, thankful for another shot in Cup Series
When it comes to mentoring his younger teammate, Justin Haley, and other drivers in the Kaulig Racing organization, AJ Allmendinger said they can all learn from his experiences.
“What not to do, to be honest,” Allmendinger said with a grin.
Sure, there have been speed bumps along the way, but it hasn’t been Allmendinger’s stumbles that have led him back to here: another shot in a full-time Cup Series ride. It’s been the comebacks.
“Every opportunity I get now, I don’t take for granted,” he added.
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He’s certainly had his share of them. This season will mark the fifth different race team in which he’s been slated to run a full Cup Season. It started back in 2007 with Team Red Bull, included seasons with Richard Petty Motorsports and JTG Daugherty and includes the 2012 season, in which he was signed to drive the Team Penske No. 22 before a failed drug test led to his eventual firing midway through the year.
This latest chance is one Allmendinger admits he could’ve never foreseen in 2019, fresh off a five-year stint at JTG Daugherty Racing that, competitively speaking, had more downs than ups. That included a final year with just five top-10 finishes. He registered but a single victory in the No. 47 car, coming at Watkins Glen in his first year with the organization in 2014.
At the time, Allmendinger had begun to dabble in television and thought he was settling into a post-racing career. That's when an upstart organization called Kaulig enlisted his help part time in the Xfinity Series. His fifth and final such start in 2019 resulted in a win at the Roval. Eleven more starts and two more victories followed in 2020, and by 2021 Allmendinger was named the full-time driver.
More success followed. He won five races each in 2021 and 2022 but still, another return to the Cup Series hadn’t crossed his mind. In fact, Allmendinger said if not for the Next-Gen car, unveiled last year, he wouldn’t have likely been interested.
“Quite honestly, the aero package they ran at that time with that full downforce, low horsepower on those bigger racetracks, I wanted no part of that,” Allmendinger said. “I felt like it was boring. I tried that at the All-Star race when they tried some semblance of what that package looks like. It puts on cool racing but as a driver, I wanted no part of that.”
But last year brought with it 18 part-time Cup Series starts and after a rocky beginning, finishing 20th or worse in the first five races, Allmendinger took to the Next-Gen quite nicely with nine top 10s over his final 13. With the new car in mind, when Kaulig offered another opportunity to run full time at the Cup Series level, Allmendinger took it and ran.
“After running it last year I kind of thought, ‘OK, I like the feel of this car, it’s fun to drive,’ and that’s kind of what led me on the path,” Allmendinger said. “It’s one of those things that I laughed as we made this decision — I don’t know if it’s stupidity or if I’m smart or it’s the competitive side of me, whatever it may be, I still feel like we can go out there and beat the best of the best.”
Building a team banner by banner
Having spent half a season with Team Penske and a year with Chip Ganassi in the Xfinity Series, Allmendinger knows what it’s like to stand in the shop of a successful organization.
That’s not what it looked like when he first toured the Kaulig garage.
“You walk into Penske and all the banners of everything they’ve won and I remember being there thinking, ‘Man, I’d love to have a banner up there,’ just to be a part of the history,” Allmendinger said. “When I walked into the [Kaulig] shop, there were hardly any banners there. The ones that were, were playoff banners and things. There were no winning banners in there.”
Yet, Allmendinger has helped change all that in just a few seasons, adding a Cup Series win at the Indianapolis Road Course in 2021 to his 13 Xfinity victories.
The banners that hang in Kaulig's shop? Allmendinger put them there and that has only heightened his affection for the race team that threw him a lifeline just a few years ago.
“I personally have a lot of pride in this race team,” Allmendinger said. “There’s a lot of winning banners in the race shop now and it’s really special … With this race team I feel like I’m a big part of hopefully creating a lot of history and I love that and that’s why I enjoy this team.”
The Daytona 500: the 'grandaddy of them all'
Allmendinger has run 23 Cup races over the past two seasons for Kaulig, but no Daytona 500s, and when the green flag drops next Sunday, it will mark his first appearance in the Great American Race since 2018.
Now 41 years old and having traversed the bumpy road his career has followed over the last 15 years, maturity and perseverance have brought with them appreciation. Certainly for another opportunity and certainly for what he’s helping to build at Kaulig Racing.
But also, for another shot in the Super Bowl of stock-car racing and what a win would mean.
“To be a Daytona 500 champion is something truly special and I’d love to be a part of that history,” Allmendinger said. “I feel so fortunate I get to race this race again. I’ll be the first to admit, I hate superspeedway racing, but it’s the Daytona 500 and you lay it on the line and that’s what it is.
“This is the granddaddy of them all. It’s one of the biggest races in the world and yeah, I’d love to win it.”
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: AJ Allmendinger 'fortunate' to have another shot with Kaulig Racing
