AJ ALLMENDINGER NO. 47 GLAD® CHEVROLET SS
PHOENIX INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY PREVIEW
Track: Phoenix International Raceway
Event: Quicken Loans Race For Heroes 500
Race Date / Time: Sunday, November 9th / 3 PM ET
TV / Radio: ESPN / MRN / SiriusXM
TEAM QUOTES:
Phoenix International Raceway:
“When we first arrive at Phoenix International Raceway, the track has a lot of dirt on it,” Allmendinger said. “We spend the first-half, maybe three-quarters of practice just cleaning off the track. It is a track that has a lot of grip especially if it is a little cooler there. So, you spend a couple practice sessions with a lot of grip. Then by Sunday morning, if it gets a little warmer with the sun is sitting on the race track and just that desert air, all that grit and grime gets on the track. When they drop the green, it’s really dirty. It’s just trying to keep up with the track conditions and usually what happens with the track is that it starts to widen out a little bit, but if you get offline it’s really dirty. So, you can easily make a mistake and kind of get up in the dirt and maybe into the fence. More importantly, you can just lose a lot of track position by doing that.”
All about the turns: “When it comes to the track, it’s important to get Turns 3 and 4 right, just because it is so flat and because of its long duration,” Allmendinger said. “You spend a lot more time in there than you do in Turns 1 and 2. So, during qualifying it’s really important to get through that corner. In the race, getting off of Turn 4 is important just for that passing spot down the front-straight into Turn 1 to get that track position, to get that position on the driver ahead of you. Turns 3 and 4 get really tough because you have got to get the car to turn so you try to free it up and you get too loose in and then you tighten it up and you get too tight in the center. It’s just a tough corner to try to get right.”
Glad: “We have Glad® trash bags on our No. 47 Chevrolet SS this weekend at Phoenix International Raceway,” Allmendinger said. “We’ve all used Glad® trash bags from the yard to the kitchen for some of the toughest jobs. I like the ForceFlex® bags that prevent rips and tears, or Glad with Febreze bags that neutralize strong odors. It’s a great brand and we’re proud to have them on board at Phoenix.”
Breakthrough year: “Well, for 20 years we have been building an organization and heading towards a goal,” JTG Daugherty Racing co-owner Tad Geschickter said. “A large part of achieving goals is knowing you can, believing you can and knowing the steps to take. At the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series level, we hadn’t achieved the highest level of winning races and being with the elite teams in the Chase. Now, we have done that and competed at a high level against those guys. Now, we know we can do it and we know the steps it took to do that. I believe this season can springboard us to the next level just having achieved some of our goals.”
Goal-oriented: “You set goals and you stretch goals,” Geschickter said. “As I look at this year in points with a couple races left, we have achieved our stretch objectives. That gives us a whole new mindset as we set our goals for next year in structure and come up with budgets for things that were not even on the radar a year ago. We had more foundational things that we needed to be working on. I feel like now that we have achieved it we can look for bigger and better things and it’s not a stretch.”
Last season at Phoenix: “Last year, I think Phoenix was one of our better tracks and I expect to compete at the highest level there,” Geschickter said.
The season finale: “Last year before we broke a part, we were running well up in the top-10 to the top-five at Homestead-Miami Speedway,” Geschickter said. “We ran very well there. I would like to see us come home with another win – – all top-10s from here to the end of the year at the very least and it’s well within our reach. And, we want to have that real positive momentum carry us into the winter with all the work we are going to do to prepare for next year.”
Six points out of the top-10: “We were 10th in the points going into Texas Motor Speedway and slipped outside,” Allmendinger said. “We are only six points out of it. Our goal is to finish in the top-10 in the points standings.”
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FAST FACTS:
Career Starts: 225
Wins: 1
Top-fives: 7
Top-10s: 35
Pole Awards: 2
First Start: 3/25/2007 Bristol
First Pole: 4/10/2010 Phoenix
Last Pole: 4/22/2012 Kansas
Best Start: 1 – 4/10/2010 Phoenix
Best Finish: 1 – 8/10/2014 Watkins Glen
Driver DOB: 12/16/1981
Hometown: San Jose, Calif.
Crew Chief: Brian Burns
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FAN OF THE WEEK:
RACING TO THE CHECKERED FLAG
This week we selected Larry Sewell as our #47FanOfTheWeek and he will have his photo ride along on AJ Allmendinger’s GLAD car at Phoenix International Raceway this weekend.
Now we are looking for our final #47FanOfTheWeek of the season and the person who wants to have their photo placed on AJ’s Hungry Jack® car for the season ending race in Homestead-Miami next weekend!
So tell us, why are you a fan of NASCAR racing?
Visit the JTG Daugherty Racing Facebook page or the @NASCAR47 Twitter page and send us your entry. The person submitting our favorite answer will be selected as our Fan Of The Week.
Good Luck!
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AJ’S WHEREABOUTS:
Sunday, November 9th
10:30 AM JTG Daugherty Racing Meet & Greets
