No. 43 Smithfield Ford Sits 22nd in Championship Point Standings
After an engine failure caused by a rare part malfunction left Aric Almirola and the No. 43 team with a 40th-place finish leaving Martinsville, the team is looking to make strides this weekend in the Lone Star State. Almirola will have a full weekend of racing as he competes in both Friday night’s XFINITY race and Saturday night’s main event.
He will pilot the No. 98 Carroll Shelby Foundation Ford for Biagi-DenBeste Racing during the XFINITY race. This will be Almirola’s fourth outing in the Ford Mustang for Biagi-DenBeste in the 2016 season. The extra on-track time in the XFINITY car will be used to Almriola’s advantage when it comes time to jump into his No. 43 Smithfield Ford on Saturday night for the Duck Commander 500.
Almirola made 10 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series starts at Texas Motor Speedway. His best finish came during the 2013 spring race when he crossed the finish line in seventh position. Having only made three starts at the Fort Worth, Texas track in the XFINITY series, Almirola has a best finish of 12th and has never finished outside of the Top-20.
Almirola and “The King” Richard Petty will be giving back to the Dallas-Fort Worth community on Friday morning at a local Market Street. As part of Smithfield’s Helping Hungry Homes program, Petty and Almirola will join with representatives from Market Street to donate 25,000 pounds of protein to the Tarrant Area Food Bank. Fans are invited to come and watch the presentation that will take place in front of the store.
When: Friday, April 8, 10:00 – 10:30 AM
Where: Market Street – 5605 Colleyville Blvd., Colleyville, TX 76034
Fans can get in the car with Almirola by listening to his live in-car radio feed on SiriusXM Radio Channel 135 during the Duck Commander 500.
“Having been to Atlanta and Las Vegas already this year, I think there’s a lot that we learned from both of those tracks that we’ll take with us to Texas. There are a lot of similarities between them. We ran well in Atlanta but were caught up in a wreck on the last lap that hurt our finish. And, we got behind a little bit in Las Vegas and were stuck one lap down, but we were running with the leaders and gathering lots of information that we can use throughout the year at all of the intermediate tracks that we go to. Texas is a track that I usually run fairly decent, but as a competitor, I’m always looking to improve finishing positions and running in the XFINITY race on Friday night will definitely be a big advantage for us on Saturday. You can do all of the engineering and simulation that you want ahead of the race, but nothing is ever as valuable on-track experience. So I’ll take all of the extra track time that I can get this weekend and hopefully get back some of the points we lost last week.”
No. 43 Smithfield Ford
A performance and marketing driven company, Richard Petty Motorsports, co-owned by NASCAR Hall of Famer Richard Petty and successful business entrepreneur Andrew Murstein, is one of the most recognized brands in all of motorsports. With a history of over 200 wins and business partnerships with national and global leaders, today the race operation fields two teams in competition in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series with drivers Aric Almirola and Brian Scott. Almirola will return to the iconic No. 43 Ford with partners Smithfield Foods, STP, United States Air Force and the “Fresh From Florida” campaign. Scott will make his debut with the team and drive the Petty Family No. 44 Ford. Albertsons Companies, Shore Lodge, Twisted Tea and GoBowling.com will join Scott as he competes for Rookie of the Year in his first full-time season in the Sprint Cup Series. Richard Petty Motorsports will also field the No. 43 J. Streicher Ford Mustang in the NASCAR XFINITY Series with driver Jeb Burton. The team is headquartered in Mooresville, N.C.
