No. 43 Driver will Make his First Start at Charlotte this Season
Aric Almirola and the No. 43 Smithfield Ford team headed to Charlotte Motor Speedway in May unsure of when he would be back in the car after an injury in Kansas sidelined him. Almirola watched Regan Smith pilot the “Petty Blue” Ford from his couch. The team started 25th and finished 22nd in the season’s longest race. This weekend, they will work on a setup for daytime racing at the 1.5-mile track.
Almirola has 10 Monster Energy Series starts at Charlotte Motor Speedway where he scored a pole in 2012, one Top-10 and three Top-15 finishes. In his eight XFINITY and two Camping World Truck Series starts, he tallied one Top-Five, a fourth in the XFINITY race in 2007, and five Top-10 finishes.
At the end of the 1964 season, NASCAR made the decision to ban the Plymouth Hemi engine from competition in 1965. “The King” Richard Petty, Maurice Petty and Dale Inman had a choice to make. They stood with Plymouth and the Hemi and went drag racing across the country. The Year Without A King chronicles the events leading up to the ban, the decision by Plymouth and Petty to go drag racing and the return of the Petty team to victory lane in the 1966 Daytona 500.
When: Wednesday, October 4, 6:00 p.m.
Where: FS1 NASCAR Race Hub
Almirola will stop by Mooresville Ford to meet with fans and sign autographs.
When: Thursday, October 5, 5:30 p.m.
Where: Mooresville Ford, 151 East Plaza Drive, Mooresville, NC 28115
“It’s hard to think back to the race in Charlotte in May. My injury was so fresh. I look forward to working with Drew (Blickensderfer) and the guys to get up to speed and ready for the race this weekend. Racing in the daytime throws another challenge on us. With the race being moved to a Sunday start, we’ll have to look at our notes from early in the Coca-Cola 600 to get the best setup we can for this weekend. I’m excited to race in our backyard and hope we get a good finish with all of our friends and family watching.”
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 one team in competition in the NASCAR premier series with driver Aric Almirola. Almirola wheels the iconic No. 43 Ford with partners Smithfield Foods, STP, United States Air Force and Fresh From Florida. The team is headquartered in Mooresville, N.C.
