Richmond Race Recap

Shell-Pennzoil Dodge driver AJ Allmendinger started fourth in tonight’s Capital City 400 here at Richmond International Raceway and was a fixture running in the top 10 until the final 30 laps of the race. Dinger’s Dodge was “top-five capable” during shorter runs, but with only a total of five cautions for the entire 400 laps, he fell through the field at the end to finish 16th.

“Our Shell-Pennzoil Dodge was great, fast on the short runs,” said Dinger, who was still running in the top-five with only 64 laps remaining. “But on the long runs the tires went away so quickly. The car was like a light switch; it was great then immediately went bad. We couldn't keep from grinding the front tires.

“It was so bad one of the early runs we pitted early because it felt like I had a front tire going down,” AJ added. “We couldn’t seem to adjust for it. I tried driving differently and nothing seemed to work. Then, that second-to-last run was so long and the tires went away 35 laps into it. We started strong, but just kept falling back. So after running in the top-10 all day, we didn’t have a yellow fall when we needed it. So we have to take the 16th.

After starting fourth here tonight, Allmendinger was running seventh when the competition yellow flew on Lap 50. After Dinger had pointed out specific handling issues, crew chief Todd Gordon called for wedge and air pressure adjustments during the Lap 53 trip to pit road.

The team would continue to adjust on their Dodge throughout the race and eventually wound up where they started out on the wedge. Several times during the race, Dinger had the fastest lap times of all drivers.

At the 100-lap mark, he was running fifth. Contact with David Reutimann slowed Dinger’s run due to a slight fender-rub and an ensuing pit stop under the second yellow of the race on Lap 118.

Dinger was 12th on the Lap 122 restart and battled back up to eighth before the handling gave way to a tight condition. He had fallen to 11th on Lap 190. Thinking he might have a right-front tire going flat, he short-pitted on Lap 199. There was no problem with the tire, but the whole set was worn out.

When the stops cycled around on Lap 208, Dinger was running sixth and he held that position until the third caution flew on Lap 226 for debris. The final half-round of wedge was taken back out during the yellow-flag stop.

Dinger was seventh on the Lap 236 restart and climbed as far as fourth in the running order before the tire wear took its toll. He had fallen to eighth when he hit pit road under the green on Lap 305. Six laps later, the fourth caution of the race came out for debris left on the track from Jeff Burton’s contact with the wall.

Allmendinger was among the group of drivers staying out and taking the wave-around to return to the lead lap for the Lap 319 restart. When the inside lane bogged to a standstill on the first lap after the return to green, Dinger used the high lane to advance all the way up to third on Lap 322.

By Lap 350, Dinger had fallen to fifth. The car really went away after that and he had dropped to 14th on Lap 386, when the final caution flag of the race was displayed. Leader Tony Stewart had put Dinger down a lap four circuits earlier and had just gotten around Carl Edwards. Edwards received the “lucky dog” free pass back onto the lead lap and Dinger was forced to stay out and take another wave-around to return to the lead lap.

Allmendinger was 14th on the restart, but with worn tires and an ill-handling Dodge, he fell to 16th during the run to the checkers.

The final caution prevented a dominating Tony Stewart to cruise to the win. Instead, Kyle Busch jumped out to lead the field down to the wire and claimed a 1.095-second victory over runner-up Dale Earnhardt Jr. Stewart finished third, with Denny Hamlin fourth and Kasey Kahne fifth. Jimmie Johnson, Clint Bowyer, Mark Martin, Brad Keselowski and Edwards rounded out the top-10 finishers.

“We struggled in practice to start with,” Gordon offered. “First practice, we really kind of struggled to find rhythm around here and what we needed to work on. We thought we built decent balance in the race car there. We struggled when we got to the back half of the fuel run, struggled with losing some front grip. The long green-flag run there, coming to just about the whole fuel run, we short pitted about like everybody did other than Carl (Edwards) when the caution came out at lap 309. We were good to finish from there, but that forced us to take a wave-around and start at the back on scuffs. For all intents and purposes, that kind of bit us. We lost too much time there. That last run, we just lost the front end worse than we lost it all day and got ourselves down a lap.”

Allmendinger climbed two spots up to 21st after tonight’s finish. With 213 points, he trails leader Greg Biffle by 125 points. He is 65 points behind 10th-place Ryan Newman and 28 behind 15th-place Joey Logano. Penske Racing teammate Keselowski holds down the 13th spot with 252 points after nine races.

The NASCAR Sprint Cup tour now moves on to the longest track on the circuit, the massive 2.66-mile Talladega Superspeedway, for another round of restrictor-plate racing. This weekend’s schedule gets under way with Friday’s opening practice from 1:00 p.m. till 1:45 p.m. The final session of Sprint Cup practice is set to run on Friday from 2:30 p.m. till 3:30 p.m. Coors Light Pole Award qualifying to establish the starting grid for Sunday’s 43-car starting field is scheduled to begin at 11:10 a.m. on Saturday. Sunday’s Aaron’s 499 (188 laps, 500.08 miles) has a 12:00 noon CDT starting time and features live coverage by FOX-TV and MRN Radio (also on Sirius-XM NASCAR Channel 90 and streaming live at www.motorracingnetwork.com.

Credit - Penske Racing PR

Richmond Qualifying Report

Shell-Pennzoil Dodge driver AJ Allmendinger will start Saturday’s Capital City 400 from the fourth position after turning in a lap of 21.100 seconds (127.962 mph) in today’s qualifying session. Dinger, who won the pole last week at Kansas, is hoping that his hot streak in qualifying can lead to better results in Saturday night’s race here at Richmond International Raceway.

“Anything you can keep working on…it is better,” offered Dinger, seventh fastest in the opening practice and 39th in the afternoon’s qualifying order. “You know, we’ve had fast race cars; we just keep having bad luck. We keep working on it and we’ll get there. I feel like Todd (Gordon, crew chief) and I, we’ve just got to keep working together and this race team has got to keep getting better. We’re not where we want to be yet but we keep showing that we’ve got fast cars so if we can just keep doing that we’ll be okay.

“I’d say at times we have the speed to be a race-winning car,” Dinger added. “We’re just not doing it consistently and then on top of it you’ve got the bad luck. The problem is I’m kind of negative when I look at the points. I see 23rd and that’s what I see, a 23rd-place team. I know we’re better than that but you’ve got to have solid races without any trouble and hopefully that starts here tomorrow night.”

Mark Martin, fastest in the early practice, was the final driver to make his run against the clock. He was able to knock Carl Edwards off the Coors Light Pole by turning in a lap that was a mere six-thousandths of a second faster. Martin clocked in with a lap of 21.040 seconds (128.327 mph) and bettered Edwards’ 21.046-second (128.290 mph) lap.

Kevin Harvick claimed the third starting spot with a lap of 21.087 seconds (128.041 mph) and Kyle Busch (lap of 21.101 seconds/127.956 mph) rounded out the top-five qualifiers. Jeff Gordon, Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr., Kasey Kahne and Dale Earnhardt Jr. completed the top-10 speedsters. Penske Racing teammate Brad Keselowski starts the Miller Lite Dodge 16th here on Saturday night after turning in a lap of 21.261 seconds (126.993 mph).

Saturday’s Capital City 400 (400 laps, 300 miles) here on the .750-mile Richmond International Raceway has a 7:30 p.m. EDT starting time. The race features live coverage by FOX-TV and MRN Radio (also on Sirius-XM NASCAR Channel 90 and streaming live at www.motorracingnetwork.com.
Credit - Penske Racing PR

Richmond Race Preview

Shell-Pennzoil Dodge driver AJ Allmendinger is looking forward to getting back to short-track racing at Richmond International Raceway this weekend. Take a look at his recent record on the .750-mile D-shaped track and it’s easy to understand why.

Allmendinger has scored two top-10 finishes in his 10 career races at RIR and both of them came during the last three battles there. Dinger finished eighth in the fall race of 2010 and bounced back to finish seventh (his best finish to date on the track) in last year’s spring race. He was close to making it three consecutive top-10s last September, but had to settle with an 11th-place tally.

“Richmond is such a unique track,” said Dinger, who has an 11.3 average start and 10.8 average finish over the last two seasons at RIR. “We don’t really race anywhere else quite like it. It's fun because it’s such tight racing and you are always full on.

“It's also really cool to do Saturday night short track racing under the lights,” Dinger added. “The crowd is so awesome. It gets me really pumped up to race.”

Allmendinger and his Todd Gordon-led No. 22 Penske Racing Dodge Team are coming off a bittersweet weekend last Saturday and Sunday at Kansas Speedway. Dinger claimed his second career Coors Light Pole Award and first for Penske in Saturday’s qualifying session. In Sunday’s STP 400, he impressively led the first 44 laps. His potentially strong run and finish was derailed by “secondary linkage” issues. He finished 32nd, completing 257 of the 267 laps.

“It was actually the secondary throttle-body linkage that failed,” crew chief Gordon said on Monday night. “Just like a carburetor works, with two linkages – one that initiates the two-barrel function and a secondary that sets in the four-barrel – it was the secondary linkage that failed.

“We have such a precise check-list for our pre-race preparation here at Penske Racing that the (No.) 2 team (Paul Wolfe-led Brad Keselowski’s Miller Lite Dodge) actually replaced theirs before the race. So, it was definitely identified as something to look closely at. We had three of our guys give it their okay, so we have no doubt that it was a parts failure.

“It was a big thrill to win the pole at Kansas last weekend, but like I told them there, we don’t need to get all wrapped up in that,” Gordon said. “It’s what you have accomplished at the end of the race day that really matters. The pole was nice, but seeing how strong we can be there at the beginning of the Kansas race is what I’m thrilled about. We led the entire first fuel run and AJ showed that he is ready to run up front. We just have to take it and build on it.”

Allmendinger has now led 99 laps after eight races have been put into the 2012 record book. That ranks him 12th in laps led this season among all drivers and is almost twice as many circuits on the point as he had during the entire 2011 season.

“This (weekend’s Richmond race) is a race that AJ and I have talked about quite a bit since getting together,” said Gordon. “He really likes Richmond and his record shows that he can certainly get around the track. We’re looking at Kansas as just a little bump in the road as far as the points go. It’s so tight that we can easily bounce back strong with a good run at Richmond on Saturday night.”

In 10 career starts at Richmond entering this weekend, Allmendinger is still looking for his first win and first top-five finish. He has posted two top-10s, with the most recent coming in the 2011 spring race. That seventh-place finish rates as AJ’s best result to date. He has an 18.2 average start and a 22.4 average finish at RIR. He has a 94.514 lap completion average (3,790 of 4,010 laps) with one DNF.

Allmendinger, Gordon and crew will be racing their “PRS-808” Shell-Pennzoil Dodge Charger this weekend at Richmond. The team raced the car earlier this season at Phoenix. In that race Dinger started 15th and was involved in an early-race incident that tore the entire back deck lid off the car. He was able to salvage an 18th-place finish out of the day. The “PRS-807” is the backup Dodge Charger for the “Double-Deuce” team. It was in the transporter serving as the backup at Phoenix, Bristol and Martinsville, but has never seen any track time to date.

This weekend’s Richmond action gets under way on Friday with the first practice scheduled from 12:00 noon till 2:00 p.m. The final practice is scheduled for Friday from 2:45 p.m. till 3:30 p.m. (live on SPEED-TV). Friday’s 5:35 p.m. single round of qualifying (live on SPEED-TV) will establish Saturday’s 43-car starting field. Saturday’s Capital City 400 Presented by Virginia is for Lovers Richmond 400 (400 laps, 300 miles) has a 7:30 p.m. EDT starting time and features live coverage by FOX-TV and MRN Radio (also on Sirius-XM NASCAR Channel 90 and streaming live at www.motorracingnetwork.com.

Credit - Penske Racing PR

Richmond Notes of Interest

--AJ Allmendinger and his Todd Gordon-led Penske Racing No. 22 Team will be racing their “PRS-808” Shell-Pennzoil Dodge Charger this weekend at Richmond. The team raced the car earlier this season at Phoenix. In that race Dinger started 15th and was involved in an early-race incident that tore the entire back deck lid off the car. He was able to salvage an 18th-place finish out of the day. The “PRS-807” is the backup Dodge Charger for the “Double-Deuce” team. It was in the transporter serving as the backup at Phoenix, Bristol and Martinsville, but has never seen any track time to date. “This will mark the first time this season that we’re not racing a new chassis,” offered crew chief Gordon. “But, with the great job our Penske guys do back in the fab shop, it’ll be just like a brand new car we’ll unload at Richmond.”

--Shell-Pennzoil Dodge crew chief Todd Gordon offers follow-up explanation on Sunday’s race at Kansas. Dinger started on the pole and led 44 laps before secondary throttle-body linkage issues took their toll. Here’s Todd’s update: “Just like a carburetor works, with two linkages – one that initiates the two-barrel function and a secondary that sets in the four-barrel – it was the secondary linkage that failed. We have such a precise check-list for our pre-race preparation here at Penske Racing that the (No.) 2 team (Paul Wolfe-led Brad Keselowski’s Miller Lite Dodge) actually replaced theirs before the race. So, it was definitely identified as something to look closely at. We had three of our guys give it their okay, so we have no doubt that it was a parts failure.”

--Shell-Pennzoil Dodge driver AJ Allmendinger is looking forward to getting back to short-track racing at Richmond International Raceway this weekend and that’s easily understood. Allmendinger has scored two top-10 finishes in his 10 career races at RIR and both of them came during the last three battles there. Dinger finished eighth in the fall race of 2010 and bounced back to finish seventh (his best finish to date on the track) in last year’s spring race. He was close to making it three consecutive top-10s last September, but had to settle with an 11th-place tally.

--Shell-Pennzoil Dodge driver AJ Allmendinger on racing at Richmond: “Richmond is such a unique track. We don’t really race anywhere else quite like it. It's fun because it’s such tight racing and you are always full on. It's also really cool to do Saturday night short track racing under the lights. The crowd is so awesome. It gets me really pumped up to race.”

--Shell-Pennzoil Dodge crew chief Todd Gordon won his first career Coors Light Pole Award as a NASCAR Sprint Cup crew chief last weekend at Kansas. His take: “It was a big thrill to win the pole at Kansas last weekend, but like I told them there, we don’t need to get all wrapped up in that,” Gordon said. “It’s what you have accomplished at the end of the race day that really matters. The pole was nice, but seeing how strong we can be there at the beginning of the Kansas race is what I’m thrilled about. We led the entire first fuel run and AJ showed that he is ready to run up front. We just have to take it and build on it.”

--Shell-Pennzoil Dodge driver AJ Allmendinger has now led 99 laps after eight races have been put into the 2012 record book. That ranks him 12th in laps led this season among all drivers and is almost twice as many circuits on the point as he had during the entire 2011 season.

--Shell-Pennzoil Dodge driver AJ Allmendinger dropped from 19th to 23rd in the NASCAR Sprint Cup points after Sunday’s 32nd-place finish at Kansas. He is currently 65 points out of 10th and 32 points out of 15th. He is two points out of 20th. “This (weekend’s Richmond race) is a race that AJ and I have talked about quite a bit since getting together,” said crew chief Todd Gordon. “He really likes Richmond and his record shows that he can certainly get around the track. We’re looking at Kansas as just a little bump in the road as far as the points go. It’s so tight that we can easily bounce back strong with a good run at Richmond on Saturday night.”

--AJ Allmendinger and his Todd Gordon-led Penske Racing No. 22 Team also have road course testing at Road Atlanta (May 15) and Virginia International Raceway (May 29) on tap. Test days are on the calendar for Michigan (June 14), as well as testing at the Milwaukee Mile (June 26).

--Shell-Pennzoil Dodge driver AJ Allmendinger is quick to say that the short tracks, the one-mile ovals and the road courses are his favorite races along the 36-race NASCAR Sprint Cup tour. Dinger was asked at a hospitality function last weekend at Kansas what kind of track he’d build if he could do so and add it to the Cup schedule. “It’d be a short track; a one-mile track or shorter,” he told the crowd gathered in the fan area behind the grandstands at the 1.5-mile intermediate facility. “I’d build another short track, that’s for sure. Maybe another Richmond…that’d be fun. Or another road course; I like the road courses.”

--In 10 career starts at Richmond entering this weekend, Shell-Pennzoil Dodge driver AJ Allmendinger is still looking for his first win and first top-five finish. He has posted two top-10s, with the most recent coming in the 2011 spring race. That seventh-place finish rates as AJ’s best result to date. He has an 18.2 average start and a 22.4 average finish at RIR. He has a 94.514 lap completion average (3,790 of 4,010 laps) with one DNF.

Credit - Penske Racing PR

Kansas Race Recap

AAA Dodge driver AJ Allmendinger started from the pole and led the first 44 laps of today’s STP 400 here at Kansas Speedway. What was shaping up to be another solid performance by Dinger and his Todd Gordon-led No. 22 Penske Team fell apart due to an unusual problem related to the fuel injection system. The issue was totally different from the “pumping” difficulties the Penske Dodges have encountered in other races this season.

Allmendinger claimed the Coors Light Pole Award in qualifying here yesterday with a fast lap of 30.683 seconds (175.993 mph). He took off from the drop of the green flag and was able to hold Kevin Harvick and Martin Truex Jr. at bay until after the first round of green-flag stops. Dinger was ordered to hit pit road the next time around after Lap 43 and started running out of fuel in Turns 1 and 2. He was totally out when he got around to his No. 1 pit box, closest to the pit exit.

The extra time spent saw Dinger fall to seventh in the running when the stops cycled around on Lap 48. Only four laps later, the first caution flag of the race fell for Clint Bowyer’s spin off of Turn 4.

None of the leaders pitted and Dinger was seventh for the Lap 56 restart. After reporting that his car had gone “wicked tight” on Lap 60, he radioed in five laps later that he thought the engine was blowing. He lost power and his lap times dropped 1.3 seconds per lap.

Crew chief Gordon coached him to continue logging laps in hopes of catching a yellow flag to address the situation under caution. Dinger finally fell one lap down on Lap 80. The team pitted under green on Lap 89, but elected not to check under the hood and lose additional laps.

Dinger, Gordon and crew finally got the break they were looking for on Lap 132, when the second yellow flag flew, this one for debris. Under this caution, the crew went to work under the hood, changing the ECU, the relay box and the coil pack. All of those changes didn’t solve the issue and it wasn’t until a pit stop on Lap 188 that the culprit was identified and repaired.

“They were not fuel delivery system issues that bit us today,” Gordon explained after the race. “The first run, I thought that our AAA Dodge was pretty good. We needed a little bit of turn mid-corner to get the nose pointed. It’s a learning curve with these EFI systems. The best that we can say it is that with the ambient temperature being so much cooler that air quality was so good, the EFI was dumping more fuel. Our mileage backed up almost a half-mile per gallon. That’s more than anything that we’ve seen at a mile-and-a-half track. We actually ran out of fuel coming to the first stop.

“That set us back a bit,” Gordon said. “Halfway through the second run, the motor started to lay down. I give our team credit. We were pulling on a bunch of things trying to figure it out. We changed ECU’s, coil packs, relay box and the guys were thinking about what was going on with mileage with what we were seeing with more data. We decided to look at the throttle body and we discovered that the secondary linkage came off. We were basically running a two-barrel EFI system instead of a four-barrel. We swapped that out and that brought the motor back to life. Fortunately, it wasn’t an internal issue. Unfortunately, it cost us a bunch of laps to identify it and get fixed.”

“Man, it’s just starting to feel like 'Ground Hog's Day,’” Allmendinger said when he looked back on the day. “I wish I had something totally different to say. I know I'm not the only one here that’s frustrated. We all are. We were off to such a great start. We had pole, the 22 AAA Dodge Charger was so good that first run. Our car was fast out front and then the gremlins hit us.

“Not sure how to explain it other than you’re on the pole one minute riding around leading laps and then next thing you know your car isn’t right,” Dinger said. “We ran out of fuel coming to pit road on our first stop, but managed to get back out in seventh. But it went downhill quickly from there. It felt like the engine was blowing, them I have to give Todd (Gordon) and all the guys a lot of credit for rolling up their sleeves and figuring out the cause of the problem. I thought for sure that the motor was gone because how flat it got, but that wasn’t the case. Todd told me over the radio that it was a secondary throttle linkage and I just couldn’t believe it. That’s about as rare as it gets. Like I said, ‘Ground Hogs Day.’”

Allmendinger came across the finish line in the 32nd position, completing 257 of the 267 laps.

Up front, it was Denny Hamlin passing Truex (very dominant until then, leading 173 laps) for the lead after the final pitting sequence. Hamlin led the final 31 circuit to score the victory by 0.700 seconds over Truex. Jimmie Johnson finished third, with Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle rounding out the top five. Harvick, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kasey Kahne, Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch completed the top-10 finishers. Brad Keselowski (finished 11th), Juan Pablo Montoya and Tony Stewart were the final three of the 13 drivers who completed all 267 laps. Penske Racing teammate Sam Hornish Jr. finished 19th, running one lap down to the leaders.

Allmendinger fell to 23rd in the NASCAR Sprint Cup point standings. With 185 points, he trails leader Biffle by 127 and is 65 behind 10th-place Ryan Newman. Dinger trails 15th-place Keselowski (217 points) by 32 points and is two points out of 20th (three-way tie between Marcos Ambrose, Aric Almirola and Regan Smith).

The NASCAR Sprint Cup tour now heads to Richmond International Raceway for another short-track battle. This weekend’s action at RIR gets under way on Friday with the first practice scheduled from 12:00 noon till 2:00 p.m. The final practice is scheduled for Friday from 2:45 p.m. till 3:30 p.m (live on SPEED-TV). Friday’s 5:35 p.m. single round of qualifying (live on SPEED-TV) will establish Saturday’s 43-car starting field. Saturday’s Richmond 400 (400 laps, 300 miles) has a 7:30 p.m. EDT starting time and features live coverage by FOX-TV and MRN Radio (also on Sirius-XM NASCAR Channel 90 and streaming live at www.motorracingnetwork.com.
Credit - Penske Racing PR

Kansas Qualifying Report

AAA Dodge Charger driver AJ Allmendinger will start on the pole for Sunday’s STP 400 here at Kansas Speedway after claiming the Coors Light Pole Award in today’s qualifying session. Allmendinger turned in the day’s fast lap of 30.683 seconds (175.993 mph) around this 1.5-mile tri-oval track.

“Every step we’re getting closer,” Allmendinger said after claiming the second pole position of his career. “Todd Gordon and I are gelling together as driver-crew chief. The whole team is gelling. More than anything, I just love being a part of this race team. I put a lot of pressure on my shoulders to go out there and win races, win poles for these guys, because they’re so use to it. I put a lot of that on me. To get a pole like this and get in the Shootout and just keep building the momentum, it’s a big deal today. The important day is tomorrow, but today we’re the best. That’s all that matters.”

Kevin Harvick starts on the outside pole here on Sunday after turning in a lap of 30.726 seconds (175.747 mph). Joey Logano, the first driver to make his run, clocked in with a lap of 30.730 seconds (175.724 mph) to claim the third starting spot. Denny Hamlin (lap of 30.740 seconds/175.667 mph) will start fourth and Mark Martin (30.772 seconds/175.484 mph) starts fifth.

Martin Truex Jr., Dale Earnhardt Jr., Clint Bowyer, Kasey Kahne and Penske Racing’s Sam Hornish Jr. (laps of 30.842 seconds/175.086 mph) rounded out the top-10 qualifiers. Penske teammate Brad Keselowski will start 11th after turning in a lap of 30.846 seconds (175.086 mph).

“I definitely think that anytime that you do something together, especially when it’s our first-time thing, it’s really important,” Dinger said of the impact winning the pole can have on his team. “Like I said, we still have to go out tomorrow. If we go out tomorrow and struggle, it’s not going to mean as much. Ultimately, to get a pole together, we were close at Bristol and to get one here because it was actually a little bit surprising for myself, it’s always a good thing.

“It takes little things to build momentum. It’s not one giant thing. It’s just little things at a time. Hopefully, a top-10 run tomorrow. Hopefully, we get the chance to win the race. Just a solid day tomorrow, just little things to keep building on. We’re getting closer. We’re definitely not where we all want to be right now, running up front every weekend.

“We’re getting closer,” Dinger said. “We just need to get faster throughout a whole race. We’re still working together and I think that’s what people don’t really understand. It’s tough to be a brand new crew chief in the Cup Series along with a driver coming to a race team for the first time. To figure out what we need together and things like that. The good thing is that the Penske organization builds fast racecars. Dodge is a huge supporter or ours. We know when we do figure it out, we have the potential to win a lot of races. It’s just tough getting to that point. I put all the pressure on my shoulders to be there now. The great thing is that Mr. (Roger) Penske and everybody in the organization is patient. They’re like, ‘It takes time.’ It’s just because these guys deserve it. They’re use to running up front. We’ll get there. It’s a lot of work. We’re not quite there yet. But when we do get there, we’ll have the chance to win a lot of races.”

Allmendinger will be making his sixth career start here at Kansas Speedway on Sunday. His best starting spot entering today was 14th (in 2008). His best finish to date here is ninth (also in 2008).

Sunday’s STP 400 (267 Laps, 400.5 miles) has a scheduled 12:00 noon CDT (1:00 p.m. EDT) starting time and features live coverage by FOX-TV and MRN Radio.

Credit - Penske Racing PR

Kansas Race Preview

AAA Dodge driver AJ Allmendinger is quick to tell you that the 1.5-mile “intermediate” tracks along the NASCAR Sprint Cup tour are not at the top of the list of his favorites. But, knowing that they make up nearly half of the schedule, “Dinger” certainly recognizes their importance as far as the big picture goes.

“I’ve always said that the short tracks, the one-mile tracks and the road courses rate as my personal favorites,” offered Allmendinger, coming off a 15th-place finish at Texas last Saturday night that moved him up to 19th in the current point standings. “But with us running so many races on the intermediate tracks, you have to accept the fact that you have to get all you can out of each of those races.

“It was Texas last weekend and we’re headed into another race on those tracks at Kansas this weekend,” Dinger said of Sunday’s STP 400 on the 1.5-mile Kansas Speedway. “We’ve had some pretty strong runs there – a couple of top-10s – and have a decent record there. We’re coming in hoping to put together a solid weekend with a good qualifying effort on Saturday and a really competitive run on Sunday.”

Entering Sunday’s race at Kansas, the final event before the facility gets a full repaving, Dinger has an average start of 21.4 and average finish of 17.6 in five career starts. His ninth-place finish in 2008 rates as his best result to date. His 27th in this race last season is his worst finish at Kansas. He has been running at the finish in all five races and has an amazing 99.776 percent lap completion average (1,337 of 1,340 laps…only three unfinished laps). a

The Kansas track ranks fourth among the intermediate tracks as for Allmendinger’s average finish (behind Homestead’s 10.2, Atlanta’s 14.4 and Chicagoland’s 16.8).

“Kansas is another track where we are looking for our first top-five finish,” said Dinger. “As always, the goal is to win it. If that’s not possible, then you shoot for a top-five or a top-10. But, just like at all these races, it’s so key to come out of there with everything that you can get. It’s so important to take a day where things aren’t going as well as you’d like and maximizing those days.”

Crew chief Todd Gordon also knows the importance of establishing a strong and consistent program on the intermediate tracks. He points to last weekend’s race at Texas as a prime example of just how important those races are.

“We finished 15th at Texas and advanced (up to 19th in points),” said Gordon. “The important thing is that we persevered through less than ideal conditions and we advanced. We started off tight, knowing that the track would turn more toward the loose side when the sun went down and it cooled off.

“We did the best job we could with our adjustments, but the car had such incredible mood swings from tight to loose and back to tight again. The most important thing was that we hung on and made a decent night out of a frustrating race. With only two cautions during the entire race, it was a huge challenge. AJ was able to keep logging those laps with an ill-handling car and keep on our pit schedule and we got all we could out of it there on Saturday night.

“That’s the common trait about all the top teams in our sport,” said Gordon. “When you are having a bad night, you are still able to salvage a decent finish out of it. That was definitely the case for our 22 team out there last weekend.”

So, what are the prospects for the upcoming weekend at Kansas from Gordon’s view?

“AJ said at the beginning of the year that he felt like this kind of track was not one of his strong points,” said Gordon. “It’s been strange in that we’ve been able to run surprisingly well on those types of tracks this season and we’re hoping that trend continues this weekend at Kansas.

“Unlike at Texas, all of our practice comes in the daylight and the race is on Sunday afternoon, so it won’t be as much of a guessing game. The winds we were fighting there probably were as bad as we’ll see all year long. I am really looking forward to it.

“As for me personally, I love racing at Kansas,” Gordon offered. “This will be my first race there in Cup, but we sure had a great weekend there last fall in the Nationwide Series.” (Gordon served as Brad Keselowski’s crew chief in last October’s Kansas Lottery 300. In that race, Keselowski started second and led 173 of 200 laps en route to the victory. It ranked as possibly the most dominating performance during the entire season.)

“We just need to continue to build forward,” said Gordon. “That’s what we’ve been doing in recent races and definitely what we did at Texas. That’s what we have to continue to do at Kansas this week and on down the line.”

Allmendinger, Gordon and crew will be racing their new “PRS-823” AAA Dodge Charger this weekend at Kansas. The “PRS-814” is the backup Dodge Charger for the “Double-Deuce” team. It was in the transporter serving as the backup at Las Vegas, Fontana and last weekend at Texas, but has never seen any track time.

This weekend’s schedule at Kansas Speedway begins on Friday with practices from 12:30 p.m. till 1:50 p.m. (CDT) and from 3:30 p.m. till 5:00 p.m. Saturday’s 11:10 a.m. single round of qualifying will set Sunday’s 43-car starting field. Sunday’s STP 400 (267 Laps, 400.5 miles) has a scheduled 12:00 noon CDT (1:00 p.m. EDT) starting time and features live coverage by FOX-TV and MRN Radio.

Credit - Penske Racing PR

Kansas Notes of Interest

--AJ Allmendinger and his Todd Gordon-led Penske Racing No. 22 Team will be racing their new “PRS-823” AAA Dodge Charger this weekend at Kansas. The “PRS-814” is the backup Dodge Charger for the “Double-Deuce” team. It was in the transporter serving as the backup at Las Vegas, Fontana and last weekend at Texas, but has never seen any track time.

--With almost half the 2012 NASCAR Spring Cup schedule being contested on the 1.5-mile oval tracks, AAA Dodge driver AJ Allmendinger certainly recognizes those races’ importance as far as the big picture goes. “I’ve always said that the short tracks, the one-mile tracks and the road courses rate as my personal favorites,” Dinger offered. “But with us running so many races on the intermediate tracks, you have to accept the fact that you have to get all you can out of each of those races. It was Texas last weekend and we’re headed into another race on those tracks at Kansas this weekend.”

--AAA Dodge driver AJ Allmendinger on this weekend’s STP 400 at Kansas Speedway: “We’ve had some pretty strong runs there – a couple of top-10s – and have a decent record there. We’re coming in hoping to put together a solid weekend with a good qualifying effort on Saturday and a really competitive run on Sunday. (Kansas is) another track where we are looking for our first top-five finish. As always, the goal is to win it. If that’s not possible, then you shoot for a top-five or a top-10. But, just like at all these races, it’s so key to come out of there with everything that you can get. It’s so important to take a day where things aren’t going as well as you’d like and maximizing those days.”

--AAA Dodge crew chief Todd Gordon said last weekend’s 15th-place finish at Texas was an indication of his team “building forward.” “We finished 15th at Texas and advanced (up to 19th in points),” said Gordon. “The important thing is that we persevered through less than ideal conditions and we advanced. We started off tight, knowing that the track would turn more toward the loose side when the sun went down and it cooled off. We did the best job we could with our adjustments, but the car had such incredible mood swings from tight to loose and back to tight again. The most important thing was that we hung on and made a decent night out of a frustrating race. With only two cautions during the entire race, it was a huge challenge. AJ was able to keep logging those laps with an ill-handling car and keep on our pit schedule and we got all we could out of it there on Saturday night. That’s the common trait about all the top teams in our sport. When you are having a bad night, you are still able to salvage a decent finish out of it. That was definitely the case for our 22 team out there last weekend.”

--AAA Dodge crew chief Todd Gordon weighs in on the prospects for the upcoming weekend at Kansas: “AJ said at the beginning of the year that he felt like this kind of track was not one of his strong points. It’s been strange in that we’ve been able to run surprisingly well on those types of tracks this season and we’re hoping that trend continues this weekend at Kansas. Unlike at Texas, all of our practice comes in the daylight and the race is on Sunday afternoon, so it won’t be as much of a guessing game. The winds we were fighting there probably were as bad as we’ll see all year long. I am really looking forward to it. As for me personally, I love racing at Kansas. This will be my first race there in Cup, but we sure had a great weekend there last fall in the Nationwide Series.” (Gordon served as Brad Keselowski’s crew chief in last October’s Kansas Lottery 300. In that race, Keselowski started second and led 173 of 200 laps en route to the victory. It ranked as possibly the most dominating performance during the entire season.) We just need to continue to build forward. That’s what we’ve been doing in recent races and definitely what we did at Texas. That’s what we have to continue to do at Kansas this week and on down the line.”

--In five career starts at Kansas, AAA Dodge driver AJ Allmendinger is still looking for his first win and top-five finish. He has scored two top-10s. Dinger has an average start of 21.4 and average finish of 17.6 at Kansas. He has completed 99.8 percent of possible laps (1,337 of 1,340…only three unfinished laps). Dinger is still looking to lead his first lap at Kansas.

--AJ Allmendinger and his Todd Gordon-led No. 22 Penske Racing Dodge Team will be incredibly busy between races for the next few months. On the schedule is a tire test at Dover today and Wednesday (April 17-18), along with road course testing at Road Atlanta (May 15) and Virginia International Raceway (May 29). Test days are on the calendar for Pocono (June 6-7) and Michigan (June 14), as well as testing at the Milwaukee Mile (June 26).

Credit - Penske Racing PR

Texas Race Recap

Shell-Pennzoil Dodge driver AJ Allmendinger persevered in fighting an ill-handling race car and limited time to adjust to finish 15th in tonight’s Samsung Mobile 500 here at Texas Motor Speedway. His third top-15 finish in as many races moved him up to 19th in the NASCAR Sprint Cup points after seven races have been put into the 2012 record book.

“Frustrating,” Allmendinger said of the situation here tonight. “We had a fast Shell-Pennzoil Dodge and just didn’t make it happen tonight. We started off in a hole. We just can’t start races that far off. The car was just way too tight, something that we hadn’t fought all weekend. I think we need to work on making small changes before the race and that’s something that Todd (Gordon) and I will learn together.

“The first three changes that we made during the race were good,” Dinger added, “I thought that we were making good progress and after that, we just lost the race track. We fought tight and tried to free it up. Then we went massive loose and tight, the last three runs were just not good. On top of it, there were only two cautions all night. You just don’t have the chance to make the adjustments to the car that you need. We know that we need to be better than that.”

Allmendinger started 12th in tonight’s 334-lap battle. Only two cautions slowed the torrid pace all race long and the final 234 laps were run caution-free.

Dinger ran as high as eighth and fell back as far as 19th during the race. His Dodge Charger started out extremely tight, and then went too far to the loose side. The crew adjusted with air pressure changes, wedge adjustments – and even removed and then replaced spring rubbers.

Several times during the race, the No. 22 Dodge was so ill-handling that Dinger did a tremendous job (coached on by crew chief Gordon and spotter Chris Osborne) just to hang on and make it to the next scheduled pit stop.

If handling conditions were not enough to fight here tonight, wind gusts of 40 mph were common throughout the race.

“It did a bunch, but (it) affected everyone else as well,” Dinger said of the windy conditions. “You could really feel the car move between (Turns) 3 and 4; you’d get a big push. But guys that were fast adjusted to it, so we can’t use it as an excuse.

“For us, we all know that we need to be better. The team has to be better. I have to be better. We were running ninth at the 200-lap mark and we just didn’t run the last 120, 130 laps like we needed to. The car had big mood swings all night. When you’re car isn’t perfect in these tough conditions, it makes it difficult on everyone.”

Greg Biffle chased down Jimmie Johnson and made the pass for the lead with 31 laps to go. He emerged with a 3.235-second win over Johnson at the checkers. Mark Martin, Jeff Gordon and Matt Kenseth rounded out the top-five finishers, with Martin Truex Jr., Kasey Kahne, Carl Edwards, Kevin Harvick and Dale Earnhardt Jr. completing the top 10. Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin were the other two drivers who managed to run the distance without going a lap down.

“AJ did just a tremendous job behind the wheel here tonight,” Gordon offered. “When you struggle like we did and can pull a top-15 finish out of it, you’ve had a pretty decent day at the track. We’ll all learn from it and improve as we go on to Kansas for another race on the intermediate tracks.”

Allmendinger moved up to 19th in the Sprint Cup point standings. He trails leader Biffle by 101 points and is 77 behind fifth-place Harvick. He trails 10th-place Clint Bowyer by 42 points.

Penske Racing teammate Brad Keselowski had a potential top-five run here tonight ended by fueling system issues. He finished 36th, completing 312 of the 334 laps. Keselowski now stands 15th in the standings and trails leader Biffle by 90 points.

The NASCAR Sprint Cup tour now moves on to the 1.5-mile Kansas Speedway for next weekend’s running of the STP 400. The schedule at Kansas begins on Friday with practices from 12:30 p.m. till 1:50 p.m. (CDT) and from 3:30 p.m. till 5:00 p.m. Saturday’s 11:10 a.m. single round of qualifying will set Sunday’s 43-car starting field. Sunday’s STP 400 (267 Laps, 400.5 miles) has a scheduled 12:00 noon CDT (1:00 p.m. EDT) starting time and features live coverage by FOX-TV and MRN Radio.

Credit - Penske Racing PR

Texas Qualifying Report

Shell-Pennzoil Dodge driver AJ Allmendinger will start Saturday’s Samsung Mobile 500 from the 12th spot after turning in a lap of 28.568 seconds (189.023 mph) in today’s qualifying session here at Texas Motor Speedway.

“I’m bummed to tell you the truth,” Dinger said of his qualifying effort. “I took the green flag and the Shell-Pennzoil Dodge felt great. It screamed through Turns 1 and 2, but I just got a bit tentative in (Turns) 3 and 4. We’ve fought being loose all day and I just didn’t want to ruin the lap in the last two corners.

“The wind was really tricky, a push through 3 and 4 that makes the car loose,” Dinger added. “Some guys were good through 3 and 4; some guys were on the edge like us. We were good in qualifying trim in practice and just didn’t get the lap that we needed when it counted.”

Was the wind that big of a factor?

“Yes and no,” Dinger offered. “When you’re fighting loose all day the wind will add to your dilemma. Guys that could get through 3 and 4 with a good car had no issues. I’d like to see what the run looks like on ‘Dartfish’ and check the data of the run. Our Shell-Pennzoil Dodge is fast. We’ll start 12th but it could have been better than that. We’ll take it. I’m just bummed at the driver.”

Martin Truex Jr. claimed the Coors Light Pole Award today with his fast lap of 28.366 seconds (190.369 mph). Matt Kenseth will start second after posting a lap of 28.399 seconds (190.148 mph), with Greg Biffle (lap of 28.403 seconds/190.121 mph) third, Mark Martin (28.418 seconds/190.020 mph) fourth and Kasey Kahne (28.476 seconds/189.633 mph) fifth.

Penske Racing teammate Brad Keselowski will start the Miller Lite Dodge from the eighth spot after clocking in with a lap of 28.514 seconds (189.381 mph).

“We have really strong Shell-Pennzoil Dodge here this weekend,” crew chief Todd Gordon added. “We’re looking for another solid run here on Saturday night.”

Saturday’s Samsung Mobile 500 (334 laps, 501 miles) has a scheduled 6:30 p.m. local starting time on the 1.5-mile Dallas/Fort Worth Area speed plant. FOX-TV and PRN Radio will provide live coverage of all the action.
Credit - Penske Racing PR

Texas Q&A Transcript

AJ Allmendinger (No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Dodge Charger R/T)
 “For me, I’ve always liked Texas. You know it’s kind of been hit or miss for me. There have been times I’ve been really fast here and there are other times that I’ve kind of struggled a little bit, but look forward to it. I felt like at Las Vegas, we had a fast race car until we had the fuel pump issues. Coming here, kind of coming with the same ideas and the same setups. After Martinsville, I think it was just good to have an overall good race. I mean the finish itself was good. We weren’t a second-place car, but we were kind of a top-five to a top-eight car all day. We just kind of finally had a solid day. We put everything together. More than anything, that was something I was excited about. Every weekend, for myself and (crew chief) Todd Gordon, it’s about building team chemistry and moving forward. Hopefully, the momentum that we got from Martinsville is something that we can carry. We’ve had fast racecars all year, so I feel coming to Texas that we should be pretty good throughout the whole weekend.”

DID YOU LIKE HAVING THE WEEK OFF AFTER YOUR GREAT FINISH AT MARTINSVILLE? “No, I mean, I think it was the right time to kind of take a break to just kind of look back over the first six races and see where our strengths are, where are weaknesses are, give the whole shop, the whole race team, time to kind of regroup. For me, I’m excited to come here. I was excited during the off weekend just thinking about it, but I felt overall it was a good time for us to just kind of look back. And as I said, I think every weekend it’s myself and Todd Gordon, we’re trying to find that right thing that I look for in a race car. I feel like we’re getting closer and closer to it. Martinsville was a weekend that we struggled all weekend and kind of made some big changes before the race, kind of the direction that I’ve gone in the past and it worked. We weren’t perfect by any means, but we had been a lot better than we had been all weekend. I think we carried that same idea coming here and just keep working on building it. So it was just good for us to have that time to think about it.”

WHAT DO YOU ENJOY ABOUT RACING AT NIGHT AND WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES THAT YOU FACE? “I always enjoy the night races and I think that NASCAR has got a good mix of day races and night races. Texas is always a fun race to come to at night. You get a big crowd here and there’s always a lot of energy. To me it’s a fun race to really have as our first real night race of the season.

“The challenges, I think the biggest thing is practicing during the day and then going into race conditions that you haven’t really experienced all weekend. That’s something that’s a challenge.

“You look at the schedule this weekend which is kind of a strange schedule. You’ve got one practice today. More than anything, you kind of focus on a little bit of race trim, but the problem is the track is pretty clean. You know nobody’s run on it yet, so this is a place that really gets rubbered up throughout the course of a weekend. And you look at tomorrow’s practice, that’s going to be a challenge because you’re not working on anything that’s going to be similar to race conditions. So I think that’s the biggest thing, just trying to keep up with the racetrack through the weekend and then at night, once you start the race, just how much the track changes from the start of the race to the end of the race.”

215 MPH AT MICHIGAN, THAT’S FAST EVEN FOR A GUY LIKE YOU? “It’s going to be interesting. It’s going to be, obviously, the guys that tested at Michigan and saw how fast that place is; Pocono is going to be the same way. I mean I think we saw just how much speed it added down the straightaway when they just added that patch in Turn 3. So I’m looking forward to it. I’m excited about getting there and being able to do the tire test; we’re going to be a part of that. It’ll definitely be a fast racetrack. It’ll be interesting to see how smooth it is because that was something that Pocono, especially the last couple of years, it seemed like Turn 1 was really bumpy, Turn 2 was getting bumpy. The only thing that made Turn 3 bumpy was the patch that they had put across the corner. I’m looking forward to getting there just seeing what the track looks like.”

DO YOU NEED TO SLOW THE CARS DOWN? “We’re race car drivers. Why would we want to slow down, you know? I mean, that’s what it’s all about. The speeds are what they are. To me, if the corner has grip, obviously, it’s no different than it was before. If there’s a problem at the end of the straightaway like Jeff Gordon had several years ago, it’s going to be a big hit. Ultimately, speeds are fine. It’s just a matter of whether it’s going to be good racing; whether you have multiple grooves that allows for side-by-side racing. I think that’s what we’re most focused on.”

BEING WE’RE IN TEXAS, HAVE YOU EVER HAD A DESIRE TO ROPE A COW OR GO ON A MECHANICAL BULL? ? “It was a few years ago when I was in Champ Car, they did the first year at Reliant Stadium around the stadium, they did the street course there. They brought us all in early to promote the race. The Rodeo was in town. I remember they put us next to a live bull. That thing was in a cage and ready to go. I want no part of that. Those guys are crazy. The bull riders, they make race car drivers look like sissies, really, when it comes to it. I have no desire to be on it. The closest I’ve got to one is a mechanical bull. I look good on it, but I don’t want to ride a real one, I can tell you that right now.”

YOU WERE IN HOUSTON RECENTLY; WOULD YOU WANT TO COMPETE IN THE IRL EVENT IN HOUSTON AGAIN? “I’m kind of busy with my regular job. You know, to me it’s no different than any other race. If there’s an opportunity, I’d love to race it, but I think my schedule kind of gets in the way of that. But it’s cool for them to come back. It was a big race when I was there and to have IndyCar bring that race back is going to be really cool.”


HAS THERE EVER BEEN A POINT IN YOUR CAREER THAT THE ENTIRE PACKAGE…CAR, RACE TEAM, INFRASTRUCTURE, ETC., THAT YOU’VE EVER FELT SO CAPABLE? “There are moments that I felt like okay, we’re close and then the next week, you feel that you’re not that close. I think here now at the Penske organization, the stuff is there. The package is there. We’ve just got to keep working to get to that point. You know, when you come with a brand new team and just everybody around me is brand new, compared with what I know, and Todd Gordon is brand new to the Cup series, it just takes time. It’s hard for me to try to remember, but we’ve had fast race cars every weekend. So you know I think we’ve got to keep putting ourselves in position. You look at Martinsville and you know, we weren’t a race-winning car all day. We were a good car. I felt like on long runs, we were a top-five car. Nobody was as good as the Hendrick cars, but that’s what these races are all about, putting yourself in position to have something lucky happen, to have a chance to win the race. We’ve just got to do that more and more – keep having fast cars and keep learning together.

“Obviously Brad (Keselowski) and Paul Wolfe have shown they’re capable every weekend. Todd and I have just got to get there. We’re getting closer every weekend. After six races, you know, I look at if we wouldn’t have had the problems that we’ve had, we could be right there in points. But heck, a lot of people could say that. The biggest thing that I know is that the stuff is there. I just got to keep getting there. As a team, together, we have to keep getting there. The equipment is there and once we do, we’ll be there for a long time.”

Texas Race Preview

Shell-Pennzoil Dodge driver AJ Allmendinger used the rare off weekend along the NASCAR Sprint Cup tour very wisely. He used the time off to get over the illness that hit him Martinsville race weekend and get rested up for the return to action this weekend. Allmendinger scored his best career result at Martinsville, a second-place finish, and is hoping to carry that level of strength into Saturday’s Samsung Mobile 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.

“There at Martinsville on Friday and Saturday, we weren’t that good,” Dinger offered. “But I think working with Todd Gordon, we found a direction that we can go with to help us in the future. That’s what we’ve been trying to do over these first six weeks -- just trying to learn each other. “

So, was what Allmendinger, Gordon and crew found “direction-wise” during the Martinsville weekend something they can take to Texas and on down the road?

“We certainly hope so,” Dinger said. “We won’t know till we get there, but we hope so. You know at Vegas we were really fast and I feel like at Texas we should be pretty good anyway. I hope that what we learned at Martinsville gives us what we need.

“That’s something that Todd and I have talked about in trying to learn each other,” he continued. “We’ve been trying to get going in the best direction with the front end. Honestly, the Penske cars are a little bit different from what I’d been used to. We kind of went back in the direction that I had been running the last few years and I think that really helped.

“Our car wasn’t perfect at Martinsville. It seemed like the only cars that were nearly perfect there were the Hendrick cars. I feel like we at least have something now to go to Texas and try. The good thing is that coming up we have the Dover tire test we’re going to do (on April 17). We have a Pocono test on the schedule (June 6-7).

“Those are days at the race tracks we’re going to be racing on. That will give us opportunities to try some stuff and hopefully continue to improve.”

The April 1 Martinsville battle marked the first race for the Penske Racing Dodge Chargers to utilize SRT Motorsports’ newly updated R6P8 racing engines. The new “closed deck” engine block is expected to help improve head gasket life and future capability for power increases. Weight improvements come along with the base block material changing to "compacted graphite iron" similar to the other manufacturers.

“It was really hard to tell at a track like Martinsville,” Allmendinger said of feeling any difference between the old engine and the new one introduced in the most-recent race. “It’s all about trying to get the pieces lighter and the weight lower on the race car. It’s something the Penske guys have been working hard on for really the last year trying to get the thing going. It’s more about the center of gravity. Obviously, you want more horsepower and more torque. Martinsville is pretty hard to see where you stand on that. Our engine ran great there all weekend and hopefully it’s a sign of good things to come. We’ll know more about it after the race at Texas.”

Crew chief Gordon is eager to get to Texas and is optimistic that his Penske Racing “Double-Deuce” team is on a positive roll.

“The communication between AJ, the engineers and me remains on a steady course and gets stronger every time we’re on the race track,” said Gordon, who will be serving as Allmendinger’s team leader for only the seventh race on Saturday night at Texas. “It has been a continuing learning procedure for us all and I am very pleased with the progress we have made in such a short period of working together as a team.

“At Martinsville, we took what we were hearing from AJ as for his description of how he felt his car was handling and headed in the direction we thought was appropriate. Essentially what we did was give him a more stable platform to work with. Looking at his background and listening to his comments, we went with a more rigid setup for the front end and it gave him the feel he wanted and the stability he needed.

“That was the direction we headed in at Martinsville and it was a solid day from the beginning all the way till the end of the race,” said Gordon. “We’re hoping for a lot more solid races like that and are getting a really good grasp on what AJ needs to take our Shell-Pennzoil Dodge Charger to the front.”

In eight career starts at Texas, Allmendinger is still looking for his first win and top-five finish. He has scored two top-10s, including the 10th in the most-recent visit to TMS for last November’s AAA 500. Dinger has an average start of 18.8 and average finish of 20.6 at Texas. He has completed 92.7 percent of possible laps (2,477 of 2,672) and is still looking to lead his first lap at TMS.

Allmendinger, Gordon and crew will be racing their new “PRS-821” Shell-Pennzoil Dodge Charger this weekend at Texas. The “PRS-814” is the backup Dodge Charger for the “Double-Deuce” team. It was in the transporter serving as the backup at Las Vegas and at Fontana, but has never seen any track time.

Thursday’s practice from 4:30 p.m. till 6:30 p.m. kicks off this weekend’s action at Texas Motor Speedway. Friday’s final practice is set from 2:00 p.m. till 3:30 p.m. Qualifying for the Coors Light Pole Award and to establish the starting grid for Saturday night’s battle is set for Friday at 5:40 p.m. local (live on SPEED). Saturday’s Samsung Mobile 500 (334 laps, 501 miles) has a scheduled 6:30 p.m. local starting time on the 1.5-mile Dallas/Fort Worth Area speed plant. FOX-TV and PRN Radio will provide live coverage of all the action.

Credit - Penske Racing PR

Texas Notes of Interest

--NOTE: Shell-Pennzoil Dodge driver AJ Allmendinger is set for media availability Thursday at 3:00 p.m. CDT in the Texas Motor Speedway infield media center.

--AJ Allmendinger and his Todd Gordon-led Penske Racing No. 22 Team will be racing their new “PRS-821” Shell-Pennzoil Dodge Charger this weekend at Texas. The “PRS-814” is the backup Dodge Charger for the “Double-Deuce” team. It was in the transporter serving as the backup at Las Vegas and at Fontana, but has never seen any track time.

--Shell-Pennzoil Dodge driver AJ Allmendinger is coming off his best career finish (second two weeks ago at Martinsville Speedway) entering this weekend’s return to Texas Motor Speedway. Dinger is hopeful that his Todd Gordon-led team learned greatly during the Martinsville weekend. “There at Martinsville on Friday and Saturday, we weren’t that good,” Dinger offered. “But I think working with Todd Gordon, we found a direction that we can go with to help us in the future. That’s what we’ve been trying to do over these first six weeks -- just trying to learn each other. We’ve been trying to get going in the best direction with the front end. Honestly, the Penske cars are a little bit different from what I’d been used to. We kind of went back in the direction that I had been running the last few years and I think that really helped.”

--Saturday’s Samsung Mobile 500 at Texas will mark the second race for the Penske Racing Dodge Chargers to utilize SRT Motorsports’ newly updated R6P8 racing engines. Dinger weighed in on the situation: “It was really hard to tell at a track like Martinsville. It’s all about trying to get the pieces lighter and the weight lower on the race car. It’s something the Penske guys have been working hard on for really the last year trying to get the thing going. It’s more about the center of gravity. Obviously, you want more horsepower and more torque. Martinsville is pretty hard to see where you stand on that. Our engine ran great there all weekend and hopefully it’s a sign of good things to come. We’ll know more about it after the race at Texas.”

--Shell-Pennzoil Dodge driver AJ Allmendinger started 15th and finished 19th in last spring’s Samsung 500. He started 26th and finished 10th in last November’s AAA 500. “We just fought a loose race car for the entire race last spring at Texas,” Dinger recalled. “We had a great car there last fall. We charged up through the field and ran in the top-10 for most of the race. We went with a two-tire stop late in the race and could have probably finished better than 10th had we gone with four tires instead.”

--Shell-Pennzoil Dodge driver AJ Allmendinger reviewed his most-recent race day…the April 1 Goody’s 500 at Martinsville Speedway…where he posted his best career finish of second:

“I just felt terrible there on Sunday morning. I wound up going to see the nurse actually looking for something for AFTER the race. She said, ‘We’ll give you a shot’ and I said…oh, okay. I started rolling up my sleeve and they said…wait, no, this is going to be in the “glute”…I’d never had a shot in the glute…I said, man it can’t be that bad.

"They hit me with that and…wow what pain! They said it’ll make you feel better. Now I know why…you’ll forget about your cold because your rear end hurts so bad…it dropped me to my knees…I was limping to driver intros…everyone asking me what is wrong…I said I just didn’t want to talk about it…

"It worked…I actually was feeling better when I got in the car and by Monday, I was feeling much better… What really helped was that we had a great race car from the very start…it was about Lap 350 or so…about three-quarters of the way when we had a yellow…I felt kinda worn down, but when you have a good race car, it really helps…

"I was happy about our day and very glad for the finish, but I was really excited about how we ran. We started 27th and slowly worked our way up through the field. We ran strong, kept ourselves in the lead lap and got the lucky dog when we needed it at the end of the long green-flag run…

"We had a top-10 car all day and before the yellow came out, I was going to be happy with an eighth-place. On long runs, we were really good. I felt like we had a fifth or sixth-place car. The short runs, we were tight and had maybe a 12th or `13th-place car.

"I was going to be happy with where we were and obviously got lucky when everybody else started wrecking.

"It was weird and I really didn’t have much time to think about it (the final restart). NASCAR is trying to sort things out and my spotter is saying, okay it looks like you’re gonna be fifth here when we get going again…then he said, no, you’re going to be fourth…then no, you’re third…no, you’re gonna be second…

"I said, wow…I knew it was going to be tough to beat Ryan. We were on four (tires) and he was on two and I knew that was going to be our best shot. As I said, we’d been tight all day on new tires. With him on the inside, I knew it was going to be tough to roll the outside and get the drive off to beat him for two laps. If it’d been like a seven, eight or nine-lap shootout, I think we’d had a really good shot at it.

"To his credit, he raced me clean. He gave me the chance to beat him on the outside. If he’d roughed me up, I would have come back at him and moved him out of the way. But, he raced me clean. I’ve always lived by the theory of you race people like you get raced. Ryan and I have had some good battles. We’ve had some tough battles.

"I didn’t want to be the guy who just came in there and slammed everybody out of the way. I didn’t want to slam the leader out of the way to get my first win. I didn’t want to be the guy to have that kind of controversy over you. Like I said, though, if he’d gone down into Turn 3 with me outside him. If he’d used me up there in the middle of the corner, then to me that’d been fair game and it might have been okay for me to go back on down into Turn 1 and knock him out of the way and go on to the win.

"But he raced me clean and gave me the chance to win. If we’d had a good enough car to beat him on the outside, he gave me the opportunity to do that. We just weren’t rolling the center good enough on new tires to be able to beat him. With that said, I was happy with our day. The Shell-Pennzoil Dodge had a good day and a great finish.”

--In eight career starts at Texas Motor Speedway, Shell-Pennzoil Dodge driver AJ Allmendinger is still looking for his first win and top-five finish. He has scored two top-10s, including the 10th in the most-recent visit to TMS for last November’s AAA 500. Dinger has an average start of 18.8 and average finish of 20.6 at Texas. He has completed 92.7 percent of possible laps (2,477 of 2,672) and is still looking to lead his first lap at TMS.

--Testing we will go…AJ Allmendinger and his Todd Gordon-led Shell-Pennzoil Dodge Team will be incredibly busy between races for the next few months. On the schedule is a tire test at Dover on April 17-18, along with road course testing at Road Atlanta (May 15) and Virginia International Raceway (May 29). Test days are on the calendar for Pocono (June 6-7) and Michigan (June 14), as well as testing at the Milwaukee Mile (June 26).

Credit - Penske Racing PR

Martinsville Post-Race Quotes

AJ Allmendinger (No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Dodge Charger R/T)
Finished 2nd
HOW DID YOU FINISH SECOND? “The medical nurses to begin with, because I felt horrible this morning, just been sick. Just a hard fight. Todd Gordon (crew chief) is doing a good job trying to learn these places and learn them together. I just kept fighting. I don’t know if I had a second-place Charger, but you’ve got to put yourself in position to do that. Everybody on the Shell/Pennzoil Dodge is working hard. They’re behind me. I’m trying really hard and I’d like to have got it (win), but it was a good day.”

ON THE LAST RESTART WITH RYAN NEWMAN, WERE YOU A VICTIM OF STARTING ON THE OUTSIDE? “We were just tight. We were good on the long run; we were just tight in the beginning and especially being on the outside. If I had him on the outside, I might have been able to get him, but being on the outside and being as tight as we were, it was going to be tough.”

WHAT DOES THIS FINISH MEAN FOR THE TEAM? “We’re just getting better together. I mean it’s frustrating at times. I want to be up there every weekend, just like these guys do. They deserve to be up there every weekend. Hopefully this will give us an idea and we can keep working on it.”

HOW MUCH IMPROVEMENT DID YOU MAKE TO YOUR CAR FROM FRIDAY? “We got it better. It still wasn’t perfect. It was really good on long runs. We had really good forward drive off; we just couldn’t get it to turn. We’ll keep working on it, but it was way better than what we had.”

YOU WERE UNDER THE WEATHER TODAY BUT YOU MUST FEEL GOOD ABOUT THE RESULT. “Yeah, I think maybe I need to go to the nurse’s office every week and take a shot (smiles). I didn’t feel very good this morning, but you know these guys work hard, everybody on the Shell/Pennzoil Dodge, they deserve to run up front, they’re used to running up front. I’m trying my butt off, trying everything I can to get these guys up front. Todd Gordon and all these guys, the Penske organization, they’re behind me. It feels good to have an organization behind you even when you feel like you’re struggling a little bit. This is a great race. I don’t know if we had a second-place car, but with the way these races play out, you know, I feel like you’ve got to put yourself in position. We weren’t very good all weekend and Todd Gordon kept working hard and all the guys on the team and ultimately got the car better. It was definitely a top-10 car. We were actually better in a really long run. We had good forward drive off and we’d struggle on new tires getting it to turn. Ryan (Newman), I knew it was going to be tough to get around him on the outside, but he ran me clean. He didn’t run me up the racetrack. He ran me as clean as could be. I thank him for that and congratulate him on that. Hopefully, this gives us some confidence going into the off-weekend.”

“I’m obviously excited about the second-place finish, but happy the way we ran all day. We had a solid top-10 car all day. We had a really good car on the long run. In the short run, we were just too tight. Once we got going and everybody’s rear tires started going off, we were actually pretty good. I knew on that restart to hang on the outside of Ryan but he ran me really clean and I thank him for that. Congrats on the win for him. These guys deserve to run up front. They’re used to it and I’m going to do everything I can to get us there.”

HOW DOES THE WEEKEND OFF HELP WITH THE LEARNING CURVE WITH TODD GORDON? “I think we all need a rest. I need to get healthy. I’ve been traveling so much doing a lot of fun things for Shell/Pennzoil and for AAA, but I’ve been worn out. I think this is the right time to get a weekend off, take some notes that we learned from this weekend and go to Texas and be ready to go. We were fast at Vegas, so I’m excited about Texas.”

WAS THE HARD RACING TODAY FUN FOR YOU AS A DRIVER? “It was fun. We had a good car all day. The Shell/Pennzoil Dodge struggled at the beginning of the weekend. It wasn’t a good feeling around here. I was kind of lost. I’m working so hard, I’m putting a lot of pressure on myself because these guys are used to running up front and deserve to run up front. I’m trying to learn as quickly as I can just like Todd Gordon is. We’re trying to learn together. I’m really thrilled with the finish, but I’m happy with how we ran all day. We had a good long run car. The short run, we just didn’t turn very well so that restart I knew it was going to take a miracle to get around Ryan. But he ran me really clean and he gave me a chance to get around him. I’m happy overall. It’s a solid finish. Right time for an off weekend and see if we can kind of build all these notes up and be ready for Texas.”

HOW SMALL DOES THIS TRACK GET AT THE END OF THE RACE? “When the caution came out, I was happy to finish eighth. I was like ‘Okay, eighth is going to be good.’ I’d like to say that was all skill getting through Turns 1 and 2. I’ll take some credit, but ultimately it was just a lot of luck, guys bouncing off of me and got clear. Obviously, starting second there we had a chance to get around Ryan but it’s tight. It’s a battle. I knew the racing went too smooth. There were not a lot of yellows. I knew that green-white-checkered was going to get ugly.”

***

Todd Gordon (Crew Chief, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Dodge Charger R/T)
“I think we preserved all day, had a decent race car and put him in a position. A.J. did a really good job there with the last two restarts, to take advantage of the situation. We just worked real hard on the Shell/Pennzoil Dodge all weekend and came out with something today.”

DID YOU GET YOUR CHARGER BETTER WITH EVERY STOP TODAY? “I think overnight we made some pretty big changes because we didn’t like our race car. I think we really fired off with something that was close and we just kind of worked on air pressure to try to make sure that we don’t do too much.”

HOW BIG IS A GOOD DAY FOR YOUR TEAM? “It’s big. It’s big for both A.J. and myself. I mean obviously this 22 car is known for winning races. This kind of gives us a step in the right direction to having the success that we both know we can have.”

WHAT DID YOU LEARN THIS WEEKEND THAT WILL HELP YOU AT OTHER FLAT TRACKS AND WHEN YOU COME BACK HERE IN THE FALL? “Stability for him. He’s different than Brad (Keselowski) obviously. They can both go fast. It’s the two of us getting on the same page of what he needs in a race car, giving enough stability so we can hustle the race car.”
Brad Keselowski (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger R/T) Finished 9th“First off, go back to the yellow with the 10 car (David Reutimann) stopped on the track. That was really, really uncalled for and ruined the day for a lot of people, Jeff (Gordon), Jimmie (Johnson) and myself, from having a lot better finishes. I think we’re all really, really frustrated with that guy. We came in and got tires and definitely had a shot at the race (win), at least a top four or five finish for sure. Then the question comes, what’s the lineup for that last restart? That’s hard to tell. I don’t have all the info, whether they went by a loop, where the yellow came out or whether it was video review. My gut says we should have been a lot further ahead of where we were allowed to restart. I don’t have all the info, so it was one of those deals. I’m proud of my team. We had a really fast Miller Lite Dodge. We’ve got a lot of good momentum. That stuff is going to go good or bad. You’ll get the good ones and you’ll get the bad ones. Today, we got the bad side of it. If we keep having runs like that, we’ll get more wins.”

***

Travis Geisler (Director of Competition, Penske Racing)
“To come out of here with two top 10s is really good. It’s disappointing what happened with the 2 car there; we felt like they could contend for the win today. We had the issue with the pit road speeding penalty, recovered from that, but couldn’t recover from the lack of judgment I guess on that restart. It ruined the day for a lot of teams that ran up front all race. That’s the way it goes. Two top 10s. A great finish for A.J. (Allmendinger) and the 22 team, a career best finish for him. We’re really happy to be a part of that. We think there’s a lot more to come from that team.”

Credit - Dodge Racing

Martinsville Race Recap

Shell-Pennzoil Dodge driver AJ Allmendinger scored the best finish of his NASCAR Sprint Cup career – a hard-earned second – in today’s Goody’s Fast Relief 500 here at Martinsville Speedway. The fifth top-five finish of his career shot Dinger up six positions to 20th in the series’ point standings after six races have been placed into the 2012 record book.

“We’re just getting better together,” Allmendinger said of his weekend’s effort here at Martinsville with the Todd Gordon-led No. 22 Penske Racing team. “I mean it’s frustrating at times. I want to be up there every weekend, just like these guys do. They deserve to be up there every weekend. Hopefully this will give us an idea and we can keep working on it.”

Allmendinger had been “under the weather” since the teams arrived here on Thursday night. Only 15 minutes prior to today’s drivers’ introductions, he could be found in the infield medical center getting needed attention. He was still able to make light of the situation after climbing from his car when the grueling race concluded and he was facing a throng of media members.

“Yeah, I think maybe I need to go to the nurse’s office every week and take a shot,” Dinger said with a chuckle. “I didn’t feel very good this morning, but you know these guys work hard, everybody on the Shell-Pennzoil Dodge, they deserve to run up front, they’re used to running up front. I’m trying my butt off, trying everything I can to get these guys up front. Todd Gordon and all these guys, the Penske organization, they’re behind me. It feels good to have an organization behind you even when you feel like you’re struggling a little bit. This is a great race. I don’t know if we had a second-place car, but with the way these races play out, you know, I feel like you’ve got to put yourself in position.

“We weren’t very good all weekend and Todd kept working hard and all the guys on the team and ultimately got the car better,” AJ continued. “It was definitely a top-10 car. We were actually better in a really long run. We had good forward drive off and we’d struggle on new tires getting it to turn. Ryan (Newman), I knew it was going to be tough to get around him on the outside, but he ran me clean. He didn’t run me up the racetrack. He ran me as clean as could be. I thank him for that and congratulate him on that. Hopefully, this gives us some confidence going into the off-weekend.

“I’m obviously excited about the second-place finish, but happy the way we ran all day,” Dinger added. “We had a solid top-10 car all day. We had a really good car on the long run. In the short run, we were just too tight. Once we got going and everybody’s rear tires started going off, we were actually pretty good. I knew on that restart to hang on the outside of Ryan but he ran me really clean and I thank him for that. Congrats on the win for him. These guys deserve to run up front. They’re used to it and I’m going to do everything I can to get us there.”

Allmendinger started 27th on the grid here this afternoon and was up to 18th when the first yellow flag of the race flew on Lap 97. The pit stop for four tires and fuel included air pressure adjustments and had Dinger 18th for the Lap 104 restart.

Dinger was fighting to get his Dodge to turn in the corner, but the team’s setup seemed to work well on the long runs when the fuel load had burned off. He had climbed all the way up to 13th when green-flag stops started on Lap 220.

Gordon called AJ down pit road on Lap 229 for four tires, fuel and additional air pressure adjustments. The stops cycled around on Lap 240 with the No. 22 car running 12th. He had just been lapped by leader Jeff Gordon when Dave Blaney got into the wall to bring out the second caution of the race on Lap 244. Dinger was able to pick up the “lucky dog” free pass and returned to the lead lap.

Starting 12th on the Lap 254 return to green-flag action, Dinger was up to ninth on Lap 314, when Kasey Kahne blew an engine to bring out the fourth yellow flag of the race. Dinger was still ninth on the ensuing restart, but was still struggling. “I just can’t finish off the corners,” he said on the team radio as Ryan Newman got underneath for the ninth spot.

Dinger fell back as far as 12th on Lap 387, before making another charge toward the front. He passed Tony Stewart for 11th on Lap 396 and got around Greg Biffle for 10th on Lap 411. He cleared Martin Truex Jr. for ninth on Lap 470 and passed Denny Hamlin for eighth with 16 laps remaining.

Dinger later admitted that he was pretty pleased with being up to eighth with less than 20 laps remaining (his best Martinsville finish to date was ninth entering today’s race). But he was ready to capitalize on an opportunity if it came his way.

When David Reutimann stalled on Lap 497, it interrupted an incredible battle between Hendrick Racing teammates Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson for the lead as the sixth caution flag of the race flew. The Hendrick duo opted to stay out, while all the other lead lap teams hit pit road for fresh tires and a splash of fuel.

The ensuing first attempt at a green-white-checkered finish was a wild one as Gordon and Johnson both wound up spinning up on the high side of the track. Keen driving by Dinger (and coaching by spotter Chris Osborne) saw the No. 22 car hug the inside and advance all the way up to third when another yellow flag flew.

Ryan Newman, Dinger, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Martin Truex Jr. and Matt Kenseth lined up as the top-five for the final green-white-checkers restart after 513 laps. Dinger attempted to hang on and make the outside line work through the first few turns, but was wise and fell to the inside behind Newman as the cars came around to take the white flag.

At the finish line, it was Newman taking the win by 0.342 seconds over Dinger. Earnhardt finished third, with Kenseth fourth and Truex fifth. Hamlin, Stewart, Aric Almirola, Penske Racing teammate Brad Keselowski and Clint Bowyer rounded out today’s top-10 finishers.

“I think we persevered, had a decent race car and put him in a position,” said crew chief Gordon. “AJ did a really good job there with the last two restarts, to take advantage of the situation. We just worked real hard on the Shell-Pennzoil Dodge all weekend and came out with something today. It’s big. It’s big for both AJ and myself. I mean obviously this 22 car is known for winning races. This kind of gives us a step in the right direction to having the success that we both know we can have.”

After six races have been completed, Dinger is up to 20th in the point standings. With 143 points, he trails leader Biffle by 83 points. He is 46 points behind 10th-place Johnson and 32 points behind 12th-place Keselowski.

After a much-deserved weekend off next week, the Sprint Cup Series returns to action in two weeks at Texas Motor Speedway. Thursday’s practice from 4:30 p.m. till 6:30 p.m. kicks off the action at TMS. Friday’s final practice is set from 2:00 p.m. till 3:30 p.m. Qualifying for the Coors Light Pole Award and to establish the starting grid for Saturday night’s battle is set for Friday at 5:40 p.m. local (live on SPEED). Saturday’s Samsung Mobile 500 (334 laps, 501 miles) has a scheduled 6:30 p.m. local starting time on the 1.5-mile Dallas/Fort Worth Area speed plant. FOX-TV and PRN Radio will provide live coverage of all the action.

Credit - Penske Racing PR

Martinsville Qualifying Report

AJ Allmendinger will start the Shell-Pennzoil Dodge 27th in Sunday’s Goody’s Fast Relief 500 here at Martinsville Speedway after turning in a lap of 19.779 seconds (95.738 mph) in Saturday’s qualifying session.

“We’re going back and forth,” said Allmendinger, who was the 20th driver out to make his run in the weather-delayed time trial session. “We’re going to keep fighting it and keep learning, that’s all we can do. It’s definitely not where we want to be. It’s kind of weird. It’s like all these places I thought I was good at, I kind of suck at right now. All these places I suck at, I’m actually good at. It’s flip-flopped and that’s weird.”

Allmendinger and his Todd Gordon-led No. 22 Penske Racing team is running a brand new Dodge Charger here this weekend – the “PRS-819” chassis. When the team struggled here in practice yesterday, they opted to make “a few big changes…not a lot of small adjustments.” Allmendinger was asked if he could pinpoint one area of his car’s handling where he is struggling the most.

“No, it’s everything,” Dinger said. “There’s not one thing. We’ve got to fix everything. We just kind of go back and forth. There’s no happy medium right now. I guess that’s a good thing because we can swing the bar back and forth, so we’re not just stuck in a box where we’re fighting one thing and can’t fix it. We just can’t fix everything at once. All we can do is just keep going to work and keep fighting and figure out what we need to do to be better. This is one of those racetracks where if you can be clean, be smart, you can still get a good finish out of it. We’ve got to keep digging. It’s not where we want to be.”

Credit - Penske Racing PR