When he transitioned from a successful career in open-wheel racing to a seat behind the wheel of Red Bull Racing’s NASCAR Cup Series car in 2006, AJ Allmendinger couldn’t have contemplated a career that would bring him to his 500th start in NASCAR’s top division.
Allmendinger’s first foray into stock car racing couldn’t have been more inauspicious. He failed to qualify for the two races he attempted in 2006. A year later, he failed to make the field for more races than he ran—19 vs. 17.
Despite the early struggles, however, Allmendinger persisted. He has three Cup Series victories to his credit, all at road courses, and on Sunday he’ll make his 500th start in the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway (3:30 p.m. ET on TNT, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
“You think 500 starts, immediately my mind goes, ‘Well, damn, I wish I had won more,’” Allmendinger said. “Yeah, I wish in these 500 starts, there’d be more ups. But if you’d ask 2007 A.J. as I was missing most of the races on a brand new race team like, ‘Hey, by the way, 19 years later, you’re going to be at start 500 at Sonoma,’ I would have been like there’s not a chance in hell. I’m literally just trying to get to the next one.”
Allmendinger is the 48th driver in Cup Series history to reach the 500-start milestone.
“I give myself credit that I’ve tricked a lot of owners to keep me in their race cars still,” Allmendinger said with a laugh.
“I’ll be honest, the fact that I’m the 48th person, I just thought there were more people that have done it, so I didn’t think much of it. That kind of shocked me that I’m the 48th driver to reach that milestone. I think it’s something I’ll look back when I’m done and, you know, kind of go through the fun times.
“Getting to have Aero (Allmendinger’s son) at a lot of these races now and how just super excited he is. He just loves it. I’m going to have to do more because racing is not cheap. I keep trying to get a golf club in his hands, and he just keeps screaming at me about race cars, so I think I’m going to be here for a little bit longer.”
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