No. 43 Team Has Shown Speed at Intermediate Tracks
The No. 43 team worked hard on their mile-and-a-half program and showed significant improvement throughout the season. Aric Almirola’s best intermediate track finish this year was an eighth-place finish at Kansas earlier in the year. The team also showed speed in the past few intermediate track races but don’t have the finishes to show for it. This weekend, Almirola hopes to rebound with a good finish in the No. 43 Farmland Ford.
Almirola has seven Sprint Cup Series starts at the 1.5-mile track where he scored a best finish of seventh in 2013. This spring, the No. 43 team finished 12th after starting from the 17th position.
Almirola will join Richard Petty to judge a Smithfield Bacon Eating Contest Sunday at 11 a.m. at the Smithfield display in the Fan Area. Fans can stop by the display all weekend to sign up for the contest.
“Texas looks a lot like Charlotte and Atlanta, but I’d say it is a really good blend of the two. It has more grip than Atlanta and not as bumpy. The groove usually moves all around, up by the fence and down by the white lines, so it’s fun to race there. One of the things we focus on during practice is trying to get our car driving well. Sometimes you have a fast racecar and it doesn’t drive well, and it will show up in the race. Other times, if you get your car driving well and maybe it’s not as fast, and that will show up and pay dividends in the race. We had a decent car in the spring. We really worked on our intermediate program this year, and I think it is much better. I think we’ll have a shot at a Top-10 finish this weekend.”
No. 43 Farmland Ford
A performance and marketing driven company, Richard Petty Motorsports, co-owned by NASCAR Hall of Famer Richard Petty and successful business entrepreneurs Andrew Murstein and Douglas Bergeron, 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. Aric Almirola pilots the famous No. 43 Ford Fusion with primary partners Smithfield Foods, U.S. Air Force, STP, Strike Ten Entertainment and Fresh From Florida, and Marcos Ambrose drives the No. 9 machine with primary partners STANLEY, DEWALT, Mac Tools and Twisted Tea. In addition, Dakoda Armstrong wheels the No. 43 WinField Ford Mustang full-time in the NASCAR Nationwide Series. The team is headquartered in Concord, N.C.
