The red and yellow colors of Love's Travel Stops will be back on a Front Row Motorsports Ford this week - this time under the lights at the always-fast Texas Motor Speedway with David Ragan and the No. 34 team. Saturday night's event will be a "home game" for team partner Love's, which is based in nearby Oklahoma City, Okla.
Allmendinger made improvements in 2008 but it was more of the same finishing 36th in the points and he only scored two top tens. Allmendinger had by far his best finish in the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup season, taking 24th. Allmendinger also showed he can still wheel it around a road course, scoring a seventh place, in 2009 at Infineon Raceway, near his hometown of Los Gatos.
Although Daytona was Allmendinger's only top five in 2009, he would have three more top tens, Martinsville ninth, Dover seventh, and Infineon seventh. For the last three races Allmendinger's team switched to a Yates Racing prepared Ford, under the Richard Petty Motorsports banner. Allmendinger felt comfortable immediately switching from the Dodge and showed his fellow teammates he could compete at the highest level in racing comm.
Back in 2004 Kasey Kahne merchandise was flying off the shelves, and with good reason. In that year NASCAR racing Kahne finished in the top five times. Five of those top five finishes were in second place. He won 4 pole positions and also took home the Rookie of the Year award.
The path for Allmendinger to NASCAR Sprint Cup, was through open wheel, racing in the now defunct CART Series. Allmendinger contended for a championship in the 2006 CART Series and at one time, rattled off three consecutive wins. At the conclusion of the 2006 season, Team Red Bull approached Allmendinger to race in NASCAR Sprint Cup with their new Toyota team.
"Bill France Sr. and Bill France Jr. (feature coming this weekend) had the vision and passion to build NASCAR from its humble beginnings in 1948 to the sport it is today," Darlington Raceway President Chris Browning said.
The schedule will be hectic and may have an effect on her success. While the amount of ARCA races is undetermined, she will still drive the seventeen races series with the Andretti Green Indy race team. ARCA races will be either before or after her other race commitments. She will be teaming up with another new driver Kelly Bires who is joining JR Motorsports. Skeptics believe she will not be able to handle the "rough and tumble" nature of NASCAR and even if the others drivers cut her some slack, she still is going to have to be able to adapt to door to door style of NASCAR and the inevitable accidents that happen in every race. Time will tell if she gives up and goes back to the Indy league.
