Aric Almirola describes roller coaster year and former mentor’s success

In February he was the driver of one of the most known numbers in all of NASCAR. He took the green at the Daytona 500 and finished 30th as one of the last cars on the lead lap. A lack of sponsorship caused his team owners to shut down his operations just before the Phoenix race in April.

It was a race that was won, ironically enough, by the guy who he shared that same ride with one season ago. Now, Aric Amirola is driving the #15 truck for owner Billy Ballew in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.

“I like to think of it as me and Billy are doing each other a favor,” he told me in his hauler in between practices. He stopped for a second and added, “Billy needed a driver to drive the truck and I was available so he called me up and asked me to race his truck and we’ve been doing it ever since.”

I expected Aric to be downtrodden about his rotten luck this year. After all, he had what seemed to be a dream ride lined up for him. For a season and a half he learned from Mark Martin at Dale Earnhardt Inc and when the 50-year old Cup vet left to go full-time at Hendrick Motorsports, Almirola inherited the #8 ride full-time.

But, a lack of sponsorship caused Teresa Earnhardt (and partner Chip Ganassi) to shut down the team that her step-son once made a marketing machine. The #8 that Almirola hoped would make him a Cup star was no more. So he turned his sights back to where he was three seasons ago, the Camping World Truck Series.

Aric Almirola will pilot the #15 Toyota in tomorrow's race at Kentucky Speedway. Certainly not where he'd have thought he would be at this juncture in his career

I walked over to Almirola’s team hauler after the first practice at Kentucky Speedway, a session that was paced by grizzled veteran Mike Skinner, and asked a few unassuming crew members if Aric was able to talk to me for a few minutes. They glanced at me, clad in an obscenely bright orange “MEDIA” vest and said, “Sure, we’ll see when he’s ready.”

It wasn’t but a minute later that Aric beckoned for me to walk into his hauler. I’m relatively new to being a member of the NASCAR media, so I awkwardly made my way into his hauler, ducking to fit inside. There is one disadvantage to being tall I guess, but it was a small price to pay to talk to Aric for a few minutes.

I asked him about his truck this weekend, which he replied, “With the track being so rough we’ve really fought hitting the racetrack really hard, so we’ve worked on that. If we get that worked out we’ll be fine.” He ran 16th fastest in the first practice session, just .879 seconds off of Skinner’s fastest lap. He was 20th in the second and final practice session later in the evening.

Almirola and crew chief Richie Wauters look at their truck after Almirola climbed from it. He ran 24 laps in the first practice session

It’s tough for Almirola to not look at what could have been this season, driving for Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing. EGR just lost driver Martin Truex Jr. to Michael Waltrip racing effective at the end of the season, so, could Almirola take over the #1 car?

“I wish I knew. If I knew I’d tell the whole world, but I really don’t know,” he said, looking at his feet. “You guys, the media, probably know just as much as I do.” I wish I could have told him I knew more than he did too, but it seems like we’ll have to wait to see where he might end up in 2010.

The SPEED crew--Phil Parsons (left), Ray Dunlap (in red) and Adam Alexander (with mouth gaping open) presumably discuss this weekend during Friday's Camping World Truck Series practice

If there’s one thing that I really wanted to ask Aric, it was about the time he spent under the tutelage of Mark Martin for the past year or two. After all, Aric was the backstretch spotter for Martin at last year’s debacle known as the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard. Aric must have learned so much from the guy that his #8 US Army team called, “The Ol’ Man.” And how thrilled is he to see Mark succeeding this year? He’s happy.

“I think it’s great for him. He’s a talented racecar driver and he’s obviously showing that his couple of years off didn’t hurt him any,” he said. Although he could have blown me off and stopped right there, he continued, “He’s jumped right back in there to going full time and he’s picked right up where he left off with his last year fulltime. He’s always been a great competitor and he’s always been a fast racecar driver and it’s not been different now.”

Mark Martin and Aric Almirola discuss racing at Indianapolis last year (IMS.com photos)

As both a fan of Mark Martin and a member of, “you guys, the media,” as Aric said I was nothing more than proud to have spent just a few brief moments chatting with the young kid that shared a ride with my hero. Now if he could only get a Cup ride.

Until then, he’ll, “Just go one race at a time and kinda play it by ear.”
-------------------------------------------
Even though he may never read this, I’d like to thank Aric Almirola for spending a few short moments with me inside his hauler this afternoon. I was afraid he was just going to blow me off and say he’d rather not talk to me, but he was nice enough not only to talk to me, but to do it inside his hauler, which was a new experience for me.

Tomorrow I’ll be trekking down to Kentucky Speedway once again to watch the “Built Ford Tough 225.” I’ll come back with a few more photos than the ones I took today, and hopefully some comments from the race winner.

Maybe before I leave tomorrow I’ll post some of Mike Skinner’s thoughts on the race from this afternoon. Oh, and the one rule he calls, “the worst thing ever on this planet of racing.” Stay tuned loyal readers, stay tuned.