Allmendinger excited about trip to Kentucky

When people ask me how I can watch cars drive in circles for hours on end on TV, I remind them that NASCAR, while awesome on TV for true fans of the sport, can seem mind-numbingly dull to non-fans.

Then I make my pitch: “You have to go to one, just one, just to see what it’s like.”

A.J. Allmendinger agrees.

“It’s awesome on TV,” he said. “I grew up watching NASCAR. I loved it on TV, but there is nothing like coming to the racetrack and experiencing it.”

Amen brother, amen.

And what Kentucky Speedway brings to the table that some other tracks do not is a hungry fanbase according to Allmendinger.

“It’s good to go to [newer tracks like Chicago and Texas] and a place like this where to me there’s a huge racing community, there’s a huge racing fanbase, but because there’s not a racetrack that’s really close at that point, maybe there’s fans that have never gotten the chance to come experience a race that will come here,” he said.

Allmendinger said it’s important for NASCAR to keep its traditional Southern roots, but moving into places like the Midwest is great to satiate the appetites of a growing fanbase.

“This is going to be a huge event,” he said. “To get new blood into NASCAR—a new racetrack—it’s something that the series has been lacking for a long time, so it’s going to be a great event and it’s one that’s going to be a staple on the series for years to come, especially with the fanbase.”

It’s a fanbase that has packed the formerly 67,000 seat, 1.5-mile tri-oval located 40 miles south and west of Cincinnati and 65 miles north and east of Louisville for the past ten years for a “standalone” Nationwide (nee Busch) Series race.

“Something for me that has me excited about the event is just in the past couple years with the Nationwide event coming here, you could see how big the crowd is, and how excited the fans are here,” Allmendinger commented. “For me as a driver, that’s something that knowing what just the standalone Nationwide race was compared to what the Sprint Cup event is going to be with over 100,000 people.

“[It] gets me pumped up to get in the racecar and drive it.”

For the past decade fans in Southwest Ohio and Northern Kentucky have traveled north to Michigan, east to Pocono, south to Bristol and west to Indianapolis. Now, fans have a racetrack with a Sprint Cup date in their backyard. Not to put down those four racetracks, but in the economic climate of $4/gallon for gasoline, it’s certainly a little less pricey to head to newest track on the circuit.

Although Allmendinger hasn’t turned a competitive lap at the speedway in Sparta, he has tested at Kentucky. Back in his first year in the Sprint Cup Series, when NASCAR still allowed teams to test, Allmendinger and the Red Bull Racing team came to Kentucky so that the former open-wheel star could get used to running with a roof over his head.

He described the differences between the open-wheel cars he used to drive and the stock cars he now pilots, before offering some keen insight into how Kentucky looked through the windshield of his car when he drove there four years ago.

“When I tested here, even by myself, it seemed like this track is really wide,” he said. “It may not be any wider but on the racetrack it seems like it’s a lot wider. So because of that I think there’s going to be great racing as the groove widens out throughout the weekend you’re going to have three and four-wide battles which is going to be great for the fans and great for the drivers.”

While Allmendinger has come close to winning a Sprint Cup race, (he was running third in the rain-shortened 2009 Daytona 500 when the skies opened up, officially cancelling the race) he’s never quite made it to the promised land of NASCAR: Victory Lane.

Can he do it at Kentucky? While we’re still 58 days away, Allmendinger’s chances are as good as anyone’s.

“I guess if somebody’s got to win the first one, I guess it should be me,” he said. “I don’t see why not. I’m excited to get here. Hopefully we’ll have a couple of wins before we get here but if not, we’ll make this one my first one.”

And 100,000-plus fans will be at the newest Sprint Cup track to root him on. Not on TV, but watching live and in person, just the way Allmendinger wants it.

“To me, to get a new fanbase here that might have never come to a Sprint Cup race because they couldn’t make it and it’s close to them now, is only good for the sport,” he said.

“There’s always a fine line but you have to have new things developing, new drivers, new racetracks, to always keep it exciting. That’s why I’m excited about this place.”