(Photo: Josh Jones | The Podium Finish)
Last year, on a damp Sunday with darkness looming, Aric Almirola held off Christopher Bell to win at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in one of the bigger NASCAR Cup Series upsets in recent history.
364 days later, Almirola enters Sunday’s Ambetter hoping to do the exact same thing he did last July — punch his ticket to the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.
With seven races remaining in the regular season, Almirola is 12th in overall driver’s points but 18th in the playoff standings. At 42 points below the cutline, he could still point his way into the playoffs, but he feels his best bet is to win at a place like New Hampshire.
“I feel like [New Hampshire] is very much a driver’s race track,” Almirola said during a media conference on Saturday. “It takes a certain technique and acquired taste.
“There is just a really great atmosphere and it is a different feeling for me. Even when we pulled into the track last night. Pulling in and the Xfinity cars were on track for practice. I don’t know, I get giddy when I come here. I get excited. It is a really cool race track.”
With the victory last year, Almirola scored his third Cup Series win and his first outside of Daytona and Talladega.
“To do it here kind of cemented for me at least to where I feel like I got it done on a race track to where I needed to,” Almirola said. “To do it and to do it at a drivers-type race track, not to say my other wins weren’t, but to do it at Daytona and Talladega was nice but those places take a different style of driving.”
This season, Almirola has found success at other flat tracks similar to New Hampshire. In the spring, he finished 12th at Phoenix and eighth at Martinsville.
Most recently, Almirola finished fifth at Gateway, which is similar New Hampshire with long straightaways. Ford has also won the last four Cup races at “The Magic Mile.”
“It is a track that I always feel I will run good and have a shot to win if the car does what I need it to do,” Almirola said. “Running as good as we have run at Martinsville and Gateway and then coming here and having a lot of high expectations and a lot of confidence coming off the win last year. Loudon has always been a good track for me. I think statistically it is probably my best track.”
(Photo: Josh Jones | The Podium Finish)
Almirola is looking to record one more strong finish at New Hampshire Motor Speedway before he retires. Over the off-season, Almirola announced that 2022 would be his last full-time Cup season.
However, Almirola admitted he has considered coming back for one more season.
“I have given it thought but I don’t have anything new to say,” Almirola said. “I am 38 years old and have been doing this for a long time. I am not to the point where most of the other guys have retired. Most retire in their early to mid 40’s, but for me, I feel like I also had kids younger than most of those guys before me did.
“I want it to be something to where it is a family decision. Originally I made that decision based on my family and that won’t change going forward.”
Regardless, Almirola is hoping to get his No. 10 Smithfield Ford into victory lane for the second time with Stewart-Haas Racing. He said that he has local friends in attendance and he hopes to win in front of them.”
“I have some friends that live down in Hampstead and they travel up here,” Almirola said. “It is a change of pace when we come up here because it isn’t all about racing and being at the track. It is a little more like you are camping with your buddies and having fun. It feels different for us when we come up here because of that.”
Sunday’s race is scheduled for 3 p.m. ET on USA Network.
