AJ ALLMENDINGER
JTG DAUGHERTY RACING
ATLANTA MOTOR SPEEDWAY PREVIEW
RACE: Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500
DATE/TIME: Sunday, February 28th, 1 PM ET
TV/RADIO: FOX/PRN/SIRIUSXM
AJ ALLMENDINGER QUOTES:
Atlanta: “Atlanta is fun,” Allmendinger said. “I’ve always enjoyed it and it’s one of my most favorite mile-and-a-half tracks. I love that it is slick. I love that it is worn-out pavement. To me, it’s just a fun place to race our No. 47 Kroger/SCOTT Products Chevrolet SS. With the low downforce package, I think you are going to be just sliding around a lot more. It will be kind of based off of what tire Goodyear brings. If it’s a soft tire that’s got a lot of speed initially, it’s really going to wear off. If it’s a little bit harder, maybe it doesn’t fall off as much.”
Low-downforce aerodynamic rules package: “The low-downforce aero package is a shorter spoiler and a front leading splitter edge cut down that basically takes front downforce and rear downforce away from the car that causes the car to have less overall grip,” crew chief Randall Burnett said. “The idea is for the cars to slide around more putting it in the driver’s hands to navigate the car more – – easier passing and closer racing.”
Tire management: “You have got to be easy on the tires,” Allmendinger said. “You can change lanes, but it’s a flow of a race, you can be good in an early run and lose it at the end and vice versa.”
Slick track: “It’s Atlanta and no matter whether it is 40 degrees out or 100 degrees out, it’s going to be really slick,” Allmendinger said. “At the end of a run, you really have to pace yourself and figure out what lines you can work to make your car fast.”
Intermediate tracks: “We’ve been looking forward to the intermediate tracks,” Burnett said. “We have put a lot of effort into our intermediate program for this year. We are really trying to step that up this season.”
Learning from Atlanta: “I think you can learn from Atlanta a little bit for Vegas (Las Vegas Motor Speedway),” Allmendinger said. “If you get a good package and you feel like the car is turning well and it has good overall speed and has good downforce, it’s going to work at Vegas. Now, maybe setup-wise Atlanta is not as close as a Vegas. I always look at Texas (Motor Speedway) and Atlanta as probably being a little bit closer because they are so slick. I might compare a Vegas to maybe a Charlotte (Motor Speedway) because it has a little more grip to it. To me, Vegas is a place that I used to not like and then all the sudden we went there last year and had a solid run. I feel better about it.”
New cars: “We have brand new cars for the first five or six races to start with,” Allmendinger said. “The work ethic and the amount of want that my guys have is pretty cool is to see. They are way ahead of where we’ve ever been. Now, we won’t really know until we get to Atlanta how the car will handle, but I really like the direction this team is going and the effort they are putting into this program. I think we can have a great year.”
Team building: “We are ready to go to Atlanta and keep building on this,” team owner Tad Geschickter said. “At Daytona, I thought Randall and AJ communicated well. Going into this weekend, we have a whole new geometry, a whole new aero package and we are excited to see what it does.”
Last weekend: “We got out of Daytona (International Speedway) on Sunday with a 21st-place finish and we didn’t bury ourselves in points last weekend,” Burnett said. “We would have liked to have been better, but we accomplished a goal of getting out of there without burying ourselves in points.”
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FAST FACTS:
Career Starts: 264
Wins: 1
Top-fives: 7
Top-10s: 38
Pole Awards: 4
First Start: 3/25/2007 Bristol
First Pole: 4/10/2010 Phoenix
Last Pole: 8/8/15 Watkins Glen
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: Randall Burnett
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