AJ Allmendinger gets season-best finish at one of his best tracks

MARTINSVILLE, Va. – AJ Allmendinger couldn’t run with the contenders in Monday’s STP 500, but at least he could see them through his windshield.

Allmendinger hadn’t sniffed a top 10 since running 10th in the Daytona 500, but in the snow-delayed race, he had a strong enough No. 37 JTG Daugherty Chevrolet to fight his way toward the front, even after losing spots to comparable cars on pit road.

Allmendinger, who has two runner-up finishes at the .526-mile short track, once again demonstrated he has a knack for the tricky paper-clip-shaped circuit. He finished eighth, second-best among Chevrolet drivers.

On the final green-flag run, Allmendinger complained that his car was bouncing, but he persevered.

“We still got a top 10 out it, ran in the top 10 all day and were able to start 25th and pass a lot of cars,” Allmendinger. “Solid day, what we needed at one of our better racetracks.

“These are the places we know that we have a better chance at, and we have to take advantage of it. So I would say I’m OK with eighth. I wish we could have got a little bit more at the end of the race there, but a solid day all around.”

Greg Engle
About Greg Engle 7421 Articles
Greg is a published award winning sportswriter who spent 23 years combined active and active reserve military service, much of that in and around the Special Operations community. Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.