AJ Allmendinger showcased his road course prowess with a fourth place result at Watkins Glen. (Photo: Wayne Riegle | The Podium Finish)
WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. – Following a tough outing at Indianapolis, AJ Allmendinger returned to form in Sunday’s Go Bowling at The Glen.
Starting from the sixth position for the second consecutive year, the Kaulig Racing driver drove a smooth, steady race. In the fastest NASCAR Cup Series race in Watkins Glen’s history, Allmendinger had a mistake free performance.
Placing fifth in Stages 1 and 2, the 41-year-old Los Gatos, California native had the fourth highest Driver Rating with a dazzling 110.0. Averaging a running position of fourth and never dropping below seventh, the two-time Cup race winner placed fourth.
Naturally, the objective of Sunday’s race was to win and clinch a Playoffs spot. However, with Brad Keselowski and Kevin Harvick taking two of the three final, open spots along with Bubba Wallace’s respectable performance, Allmendinger needs to win at Daytona to chase his first Cup title.
Despite being in a must win situation for next Saturday night’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona, Allmendinger kept his head up high with his competitive outing.
“It was pretty good,” Allmendinger said. “It was a top five car all day, and I thought we executed a great race. It’s just super hard to pass. Everybody’s so close at the front. Tires don’t fall off a lot, so you just got to kind of try to force a guy into a mistake. And when you race against the best of the best, it’s hard to do that.
“So super proud of everybody at Kaulig Racing. We had a great week from start to finish. Qualified up front, ran up front all day. And of course we’d like to have won the race and made the Playoffs, but I felt like we gave everything we had made no mistakes and we had just a great day.”
It is never a bad day when Allmendinger battles door-to-door with Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell and Denny Hamlin while running inside the top five. Still, the 16th year racer recognized how William Byron, the race winner, was the class of the field.
The affable Allmendinger had one of his most sparking performances in Sunday’s race at Watkins Glen. (Photo: Wayne Riegle | The Podium Finish)
“I don’t think so,” he said. “But, there’s a few people that probably can say that, you know, I thought I was better than the 20 and the 11. Hard to say. The 24 was obviously really good. When I was in clean air, I had a really good balance.
“From there you just kind of burned the tires off once you’re behind guys and you’re just trying to make them make a mistake. It’s hard to say we had enough to win, but we were definitely up front enough.”
Battling for wins starts with consistently performing inside the top five on a weekly basis. The foundation for such success comes with strong performances in practice and qualifying, a caveat that Allmendinger acknowledged with his team’s efforts.
“Yeah, it was was solid,” he said. “You know, what was disappointing about last week was we shot ourselves in the foot in qualifying and that’s what put ourselves in a bad spot there to get wrecked. I thought we had top five speed last week as well.
“But, especially with no stage breaks and try to flip a strategy or anything like that, you have to be up front. I mean, the last two weeks we’ve had one yellow flag. You got to execute from from basically start of the weekend to the end of the weekend. It was pretty good for sure.”
Realistically, Allmendinger understands that a postseason berth may not be in the offing. Then again, the tide may be turning for better times for the skilled racer and the men and women at Kaulig Racing.
“I mean, just the last few weeks, I thought we had speed at Indy and it didn’t play out,” Allmendinger said. “Michigan, we were okay. Richmond, we were terrible. So three kind of bad weeks and a good week to build on.”
Editor’s Notes
Nathan Solomon contributed to this article on site from Watkins Glen International in Watkins Glen, New York.
