Dover II Preview

AJ ALLMENDINGER
No. 43 Insignia HDTV Ford Fusion

*AJ Allmendinger has made seven NASCAR Sprint Cup Series starts at Dover International Speedway
*Allmendinger scored a 14th-place finish at the track in the race there in May
*After 27 races, Allmendinger holds down 21st place in the driver point standings

AJ Allmendinger on the Dover: “Dover is a challenging track, but it’s really fun to race on and I’m excited to be headed there this weekend. We’ve got a lot of stuff going on, including a trip to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and an appearance at the Dover Air Force base. It’s nice to have the opportunity to do those kinds of things when the schedule allows. We also have a special guest [Travis Pierson] coming this weekend. He is a Best Buy employee and is getting ready to be deployed to Afghanistan so we’re going to go all out and show him a good time. Best place for fun at the race track is victory lane, so we’ll try to get our Insignia Ford Fusion there so he can celebrate with us.

“We ran well at Dover in the spring, but we had some issues on pit road and that cost us. We were able to recover from an early problem on pit road and made it back up to 10th, but we got caught speeding on pit road and that pretty much ruined any chance we had for a top-five finish. Still, I was encouraged by the way we ran throughout the race and I’m looking forward to getting back to that track.”

Crew Chief Mike Shiplett’s Thoughts on Dover: “It seems like about halfway through the race the car starts getting loose into the corner so being able to have an adjustment built into the car to help that loose in is important. When the track starts rubbering up the car gets really loose in. The rubber gets built up on the track and the right front really grips and cuts really good and brings the back of the car around. So you have to be able to keep good grip getting into the corner.

“You’re going to be a little tight in the middle but you can run a lot of different lanes in Dover. You can run all the way at the bottom and all the way up against the wall. There are three lanes that the drivers can run. You don’t forget about the middle, but you know you’re going to be a little bit tight in the middle so you work on your drive off and you can beat people up off the corner. If someone can only run the top side and you can run the bottom, you can pass them coming up off the corner.”

Chassis History: The No. 43 RPM team led by crew chief Mike Shiplett has prepared chassis No. 288 for this weekend’s event at Dover International Speedway. This chassis has been utilized on quite a few other occasions this season including the first race at Dover in the spring. In addition, it was run in at Michigan International Speedway several weeks ago, at Chicagoland Speedway, Pocono Raceway and the first event at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway.

Notes: AJ Allmendinger will spend several hours this Thursday joining several of his fellow NASCAR competitors in a visit to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC) is the United States Army's flagship medical center. Located on 113 acres in Washington, D.C., it serves more than 150,000 active and retired personnel from all branches of the military. The center is named after Major Walter Reed (1851–1902), an army physician who led the team that confirmed that yellow fever is transmitted by mosquitoes rather than direct contact.

Allmendinger and Richard Petty Motorsports will host a special guest this weekend in Dover. Travis Pierson, an employee of Best Buy, member of the U.S. Army and huge NASCAR fan will be deployed to Afghanistan on January 2, 2011 for a 14-month tour of duty. Pierson, a n Information Systems Administrator with the 407th Civil Affairs Battalion Company C, US Army Reserves, will be named an honorary crew member for the No. 43 team and will have the chance to wave the green flag for Allmendinger’s qualifying run on Friday afternoon. He will also be introduced during driver introductions, ride in the truck with Allmendinger following introductions and attend the driver/crew chief meeting where he will be introduced to all in attendance.

Credit - Richard Petty Motorsports PR