My overall impressions of AJ Allmendinger

I was chatting with a friend yesterday and he asked me, “Did you actually get to talk to A.J. Allmendinger?”

I said, “Yeah, it was pretty cool.”

He said, “Can you use him to get to Mark Martin?”

I said, “I’ve gotten to talk to Mark a few times before.”

Then it hit me. People don’t realize just how awesome this job is that I have. Sometimes, neither do I.

Right off the bat, A.J. Allmendinger made an awesome impression on me.

“I guess if somebody’s got to win the first one, I guess it should be me,” he said of the inaugural Sprint Cup race at Kentucky Speedway. “I don’t see why not.”

Allmendinger was funny and quite candid. When I asked him about the Kevin Harvick-Kyle Busch incident from Darlington during the Southern 500, he was quite hilarious.

“I think it’s awesome,” he said. “As long as they keep running into each other and trying to punch each other out, it makes it a lot easier on the rest of us.”

To close out he said, “[It] makes for good TV. I love turning on SportsCenter and seeing them fighting. It’s good times. I love it.”

When A.J. was asked whether or not it was good to introduce “new blood” into the sport, he gave the greatest answer I’ve heard about NASCAR. As I blogged last week, I always tell people, ‘You’ve just got to go to a NASCAR race. It’s awesome.’ Allmendinger agreed.

“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.”

After that, someone asked Allmendinger, “Do you like track position tracks or tracks where you can pass easily? What’s more important?”

Allmendinger’s response was comical.

“Uh, being out front,” he said, and everyone laughed. “It’s still a lot easier to run out here when you’re leading the race.”

However he did give a great answer to the question after giving all of us a laugh. “If you have options to where as the tires get a little bit older you can move around and you can make passes and you don’t have to play follow the leader, that’s a good thing,” he said.

Allmendinger also had another funny moment when he recalled his first laps in a Cup car at Texas.

He said, “I remember my first lap—at speed—at Texas, in practice and I’d actually just come from [Kentucky] testing, it was in an ARCA car and I thought to myself, ‘Man, I got this. This is easy.’ Guys are pumping me up, ‘Man you’re the fastest guy I’ve ever seen.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, I know, you’re right. It’s true, I’m going to own these guys, they’re not that good.’ And I remember Dale Jr. went by me and it was like a scene from Talladega Nights. I was like, ‘What was that? Was that another car?’ I was like, ‘How far am I off?’ They’re like, ‘Three seconds.’ I’m like, ‘What?’ I thought I was wide open.”

It was too funny to hear great stories from A.J. Allmendinger, but he said he has one of the greatest owners in the world: Richard Petty.

“There’s so many stories I get to hear between himself and Dale Inman that fans, and just the general public, would love to hear and never get to hear,” he said. “And I get to hear that on a daily basis. It’s pretty cool to me. I feel fortunate that I get to wake up and be a part of that each weekend.”

Driving The King’s No. 43 is a dream come true for the former open-wheel star. The next goal for Allmendinger and his team are to win a race.

And they were having a darn good race yesterday until his engine expired midway through the 400-lap race.

But as a Mark Martin fan I wanted to hear A.J.’s thoughts on working with Mark Martin during the Daytona 500 in February.

He gave me a great response, and one that I feel is yet another reason why I love being a fan of Mark Martin.

“I respect Mark so much and he’s just been so kind to me since I came into the sport,” said Allmendinger. “I kind of had to laugh because my first truck race was at Loudon in ’06 and I remember I came up to him we were talking a little bit and I introduced myself and it surprised me because he’s like, ‘Yeah man, you just won the Champ Car race last week. I’ve been watching you ever since you came up through Toyota Atlantics.’ I was like, ‘What are talking about? You’re Mark Martin!’”

“Mark’s always been probably the nicest guy out there to me and I respect him so much so anytime Mark Martin wants to work with me I’m down for it,” he said. “It was pretty cool at Daytona to be able to work with him the whole time.”

It should be entertaining to keep following A.J. Allmendinger’s career path as he makes a run for the Chase this season. He certainly made a great impression on me, and was absolutely hilarious during his time in front of cameras.

Anytime A.J. Allmendinger wants to work with Mark Martin is cool, and any time A.J. wants to sit down with me for an interview, I’m all in.