Michigan II Preview

AJ ALLMENDINGER
No. 43 Insignia HDTV Ford Fusion

· AJ Allmendinger has made six NASCAR Sprint Cup Series starts at Michigan International Speedway
· Allmendinger scored his best finish (11th) on the 2.0-mile track in June
· The driver is currently 22nd in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver point standings

AJ Allmendinger on Michigan International Speedway: "We love racing in Ford's backyard. It gives us the chance to be able to thank them for everything they do for us and it means a lot to us to be able to do that for all of our partners. It would be pretty great to win my first race with everyone from Ford looking on.

"Until last weekend at Watkins Glen International, we felt like we hadn't run as well as we would have liked the past couple of weeks. We were pretty happy with our performance for a while and then we ran into a stretch of races where we just weren't as competitive as we needed to be. Mike Shiplett, the Insignia crew and I are working hard to figure out what we need to do differently and we're happy to be headed back to a track where we ran well earlier this year. We want to be one of the strongest Ford teams and we won't be happy until we get there. After that finish last weekend, we've got some momentum on our side. Hopefully we can continue that success this weekend on the oval in Michigan."

Crew Chief Mike Shiplett's Thoughts on Michigan International Speedway: "Michigan is a fast and wide track. It has multiple grooves and that helps if your car isn't handling the way you would like. At Michigan, the driver is able to move around a bit until he figures out what works best. We had some success at this track back in June and I think the opportunity to go back a second time around and to be able to utilize our notes and the notes of all of our teammates will really help us step up to the next level at this track this weekend. We struggled with a loose race car in the middle stages of the race, so we'll obviously concentrate on making sure that doesn't happen again, because we lost a lot of ground for a while. We hit on some things late in the race that helped, but we need to make sure the car stays consistent throughout the en-tire race and that AJ is happy with the way our Insignia HDTV handles throughout."

Chassis History: The No. 43 Richard Petty Motorsports team led by crew chief Mike Shiplett has prepared chassis No. 288 for this weekend's event at Michigan International Speedway. This car has been run on quite a few occasions this season. Most recently the No. 43 team utilized this car for the event at Chicagoland Speedway. It also saw action at the first Pocono (Pa.) Raceway event, Dover (Del.) International Raceway and at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway. Allmendinger finished inside the top 15 in three of those four events.

Notes: AJ Allmendinger posted the team's best finish of the season last weekend at Watkins Glen International. He also earned his best career result at Michigan International Speedway back in June when he crossed the finish line in 11th.

Credit - Richard Petty Motorsports PR