Allmendinger all about road tests

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. — Three years ago, AJ Allmendinger didn’t want the second Sunday in August to end, so he lingered in Victory Lane at Watkins Glen International to soak in the atmosphere with his crew.

The victory on the road course stamped Allmendinger as a threat to win every time NASCAR’s Cup series visits the two twisting layouts on the schedule. With the playoffs looming, he’s 27th in points and needs a victory to qualify for the postseason as the series stops at The Glen, his best shot left to produce that needed result.

If there’s any added pressure, he says he doesn’t feel it.

“No pressure, man. Honestly,” said Allmendinger, who drives the No. 47 Chevrolet for JTG Daugherty Racing. “I think the outside world tries to put pressure on it. All we can do is go out there and give it our best effort. The racetrack will always be special, obviously, being my first win, reliving those memories.”

Allmendinger is an expert road racer from his days in open-wheel racing.

“But when it comes to pressure, it’s in every week,” he said. “We’ll see how it plays out.”

That victory in 2014 came in Allmendinger’s 213rd Cup start, and he did it by winning a twolap duel at the end with Marcos Ambrose, who had emerged as the driver to beat at Watkins Glen. Ambrose had been dominant in NASCAR’s top two series at The Glen, winning two straight Cup races and four straight events in the second-tier series.

The previous year Allmendinger also won on the road courses at Elkhart Lake and Mid-Ohio in NASCAR’s second-tier series, but success at the top level has been elusive. He finished fourth at Watkins Glen a year ago and never challenged winner Denny Hamlin. He qualified fifth but finished 35th at Sonoma in June and enters today’s race at The Glen riding a 107-race winless streak.

“This year, we’ve been a little off on speed kind of everywhere we’ve been to,” said Allmendinger, who has one top-five finish and four top-10s in 21 starts this year. “We’re working hard to try to get better as a race team.”

The I Love New York 355 at The Glen is the second straight Cup race with a condensed schedule. Teams didn’t practice until yesterday and qualifying was set for today at 12:05 p.m., three hours before the race.