A.J. Allmendinger opens up on inner doubts as he reaches 500th NASCAR Cup start

There is no driver in the Cup garage with a career trajectory quite like A.J. Allmendinger. And that’s just looking at the NASCAR side of it, without including how he had a five-win season in CART, won the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona overall in 2012 after an epic battle, or the fact that he nearly won the Indy 500 in his one and only start.

Allmendinger’s NASCAR Cup career has been interrupted multiple times over the years, but at 44, he’s still here, and still competing at a high level. He just earned a top five finish at San Diego one week ago, and is just outside the Chase with a team that has nowhere near the resources of those around them.

And at Sonoma Raceway, he will start eighth for his 500th career NASCAR Cup starts. This is a driver who failed to qualify 19 different times during his rookie season with Red Bull Racing, but here he is, a three-time race winner at the Cup level with a further 18 trophies in the NASCAR O’Reilly Series.

An introspective answer ahead of 500th career start

AJ Allmendinger, Kaulig Racing

“Yeah, I mean, it’s funny,” said Allmendinger when asked about the milestone this weekend in a press conference. “I didn’t even think about the 500th start until our race team started posting about it. You know, I think there’s two ways to think about it and it’s the way I am mentally about myself. You think 500 starts, immediately my mind goes, ‘well, damn, I wish I had won more.’ 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.

“I guess it’s good and bad because it’s what pushes me. But, you know, I spent so many years early on just trying to make one fast lap in practice, make the race, show some sort of speed or put together just one good race. But people still wanted me to drive their racecars, and I guess it’s probably, unfortunately and fortunately, the way my mentality is still of I’m always out there trying to prove it to myself that I still belong here. It’s what drives me insane sometimes. It’s also what pushes me to want to be at my best every second of the day, to prove it to myself. Matt (Kaulig), Chris (Rice) and Trent (Owens), everybody on this race team is always like you got nothing to prove. You’ve done everything. And I’m like, no, I still have to wake up tomorrow and prove it to myself.

“To be able to do it here (at Sonoma Raceway) especially, is pretty amazing. It would be one hell of a victory lane. There would be a lot of wine, mixed with Celsius, mixed with some other stuff probably. You might have to carry me out of victory lane, so hopefully that happens.”

Allmendinger was also ‘shocked’ to learn that only 47 other driver in history have ever started at least 500 Cup races. However, it’s also something he can’t truly let himself appreciate right now, while he remains hyper-focused on the task at hand.

“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,” said Allmendinger. “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 (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.

“But yeah, for me, I just always want to be better. So I think maybe at the end of it, I’ll look back and be like, ‘hey, that’s pretty amazing that I’ve gotten to do so many of them’. But right now, I just want to be better.”

“I owe the happiness of my career to (Kaulig)”

Race winner A.J. Allmendinger, Kaulig Racing Chevrolet

Allmendinger also credited Kaulig Racing for his career resurgence, as he went from spending most of his time working in TV with one-off IMSA starts to suddenly running 50+ NASCAR races per year. With being given another chance at Kaulig, Allmendinger believes he would have ended his career ‘miserable.’

“This is my home,” said Allmendinger. “Sometimes it can be a dysfunctional home on all ends. I’m the first one to admit it… I’m a little crazy, you hear it on the radio. But we love each other and we will fight to the death for each other. When I thought I retired the first time, I had two O’Reilly wins and one Cup win. And now, we have like 21 wins together. I’ve gotten to kiss the bricks at Indianapolis. I got to win at Charlotte. I got to win on ovals. I got one of the coolest finishes ever at Bristol. I owe the happiness of my career to them. Whether it’s good enough in my mind, which like I’ve said, I wish I’ve done more. But if I would have retired the first time, I would have been kind of miserable about not doing enough. We’ve done some pretty damn cool things, and hopefully we’ve got more to go. I owe the happiness of my career when I’m done to Matt and Chris.”