Allmendinger talks about Regan Smith's win

When I asked A.J. Allmendinger about Regan Smith’s surprising win in the Southern 500 on Saturday night, he laughed a little and said, “I’m not really excited for Regan actually, to be honest with you.”

He was kidding, of course.

While Allmendinger has never visited Victory Lane in NASCAR, he has come close. Allmendinger’s three career top-5 finishes include a career best 3rd in the 2009 Daytona 500.

Just don’t remind him of it.

“It hurts when a guy gets his first win and it makes me think about wanting mine that bad but Regan is a great racecar driver,” he said. “More importantly I think it’s for the sport to get a new race team, a single car race team, when it comes to that, relative to the rest of the race teams, to go out there and win the race and get exposure.”
Allmendinger went through some tribulations as a member of Richard Petty Motorsports at the tail end of last year. RPM almost didn’t make the final two events of the season. After the November race at Texas, the haulers sat outside Texas Motor Speedway and didn’t move until Wednesday, when they hauled out for Phoenix.

“It was tough but I think with everything we went through, to fight hard and to show just not myself, but the whole race team, it was more credit to my crew chief Mike Shiplett and all the guys who were working hard,” Allmendinger said. “They had to jump through a lot of hoops to make sure the cars just got to the racetrack.”

And now that RPM is on firm financial ground, the car that bears The King’s iconic No. 43 sits 11th in Sprint Cup points.
The guy nicknamed “The Dinger,” already has two top tens this season and had a stout run at Martinsville, where, although he led six laps, he finished one lap down in 14th.

“Each race, for me, is a new opportunity for us to get better as a race team. There’s certain areas we’ve got to work in to make us better and there’s certain areas that I think we’re already strong in,” Allmedinger said.

So strong that it wouldn’t surprise many who follow NASCAR to see the former open-wheel star in stock car’s Victory Lane before this season is out.

Although Allmendinger doesn’t have a win to his name, like Regan Smith now does, he appreciated what Smith’s victory meant for NASCAR.

“It’s really cool, not just for Regan but for a race team like Furniture Row who struggled a lot over the past few years,” he said. “To have a single-car team to go out there and take down the big race teams is pretty cool to see.”
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Much, much more A.J. Allmendinger coverage (so much more that you’ll think I’ve switched allegiances from Mark Martin to A.J. Allmendinger!) from Kentucky Speedway’s press conference Wednesday will be here on the blog all week and into the weekend. AJ gave us enough info to write a novel with, so I’ll be writing and sharing the stories he shared with us today.

Also, photos of Kentucky Speedway and the ongoing facelift that the 1.5-mile track in Sparta is undergoing. Thanks for joining me here, and I hope to see you back as the weeks roll closer to the “Quaker State 400” at Kentucky.