Column: Allmendinger overcomes demons to play playoff spoiler in NASCAR win at Charlotte

Updated Oct. 9, 2023 6:02 p.m. ET

Associated Press

CONCORD, N.C. (AP) — AJ Allmendinger finds the pressure of racing at NASCAR’s top levels so intense that he once took a two-year mental health break.

“I struggle to believe in myself every day. It’s an ugly place sometimes,” Allmendinger said. “I always say I have the best life possible, and that’s why I’m miserable every day, because it’s wake up and, ‘What the hell are you going to do to be better today?’”

Those were Allmendinger's remarks on Sunday night after he played spoiler by winning NASCAR's playoff elimination race on The Roval at Charlotte Motor Speedway. He's not part of the playoff field, but he is a fantastic road racer and the hybrid road course/oval at Charlotte has suited Allmendinger since the course debuted in 2018.

Allmendinger qualified second that year and finished seventh in the Cup Series race — and then walked away from NASCAR at the end of the season.

It was Matt Kaulig, the former quarterback at the University of Akron turned entrepreneur, who lured Allmendinger back into racing. Kaulig wanted to build a NASCAR team and figured Allmendinger could help him do it as a designated trophy hunter.

Kaulig in 2019 entered Allmendinger in five road course races in the second-tier Xfinity Series and Allmendinger won in the final start — at The Roval. Kaulig bumped him to 11 Xfinity races in 2020 and Allmendinger again won at The Roval.

Now he had Allmendinger hooked. Kaulig persuaded Allmendinger to run for the 2021 Xfinity championship as well as five Cup races, where he'd once again be trophy hunting. The plan was genius and Allmendinger won five Xfinity races as well as on the road course at Indianapolis to give Kaulig his first career Cup Series victory as a team owner.

Kaulig became a full-time Cup team in 2022 and used Allmendinger in 18 races before bringing him back for a full season this year.

The results have been underwhelming. Kaulig launched at the same time as 23XI Racing and Trackhouse Racing but didn't get its first win until Sunday and has yet to make the playoffs; 23XI and Trackhouse have five Cup wins each, 23XI placed two drivers in the playoffs each of the last two years while Trackhouse was runner-up in the championship last year with Ross Chastain.

Allmendinger's win at Charlotte — his third career Cup victory spanning 16 seasons, and fifth on The Roval — eliminated both Chastain from this year's playoff field and Bubba Wallace of 23XI.

Allmendinger openly sobbed when he climbed from the car. He turns 42 in December and within the last month welcomed his first child, a son, with his wife, former Mrs. North Carolina Tara Allmendinger.

So he's not kidding when he says he has the best life possible. But as he's done his entire career, Allmendinger internalizes and can buckle under the unattainable expectations he sets for himself. He scored the job of his life in 2012 when Roger Penske gave him a Cup ride, but Allmendinger was barely holding it together 17 races into the season when he said he accepted a pill from a friend at a party in an effort to let loose.

Allmendinger failed a subsequent drug test and, although Penske fired him, it was Penske who helped Allmendinger land another job and even gave him a seat in the Indianapolis 500 the next year. When Allmendinger scored his first career Cup win in 2014 while driving for JTG-Daugherty Racing, and Penske and the Team Penske executives were among the first to victory lane.

That victory at Watkins Glen, followed by the win on Indy's road course and Sunday's victory put Allmendinger alongside Dan Gurney (1963-65, Riverside) as the only drivers to earn the first three wins of their Cup career on road courses. Gurney won Riverside four times in a row and five times overall — the only wins of his NASCAR career.

Gurney's numbers, like Allmendinger's, were modest. But Gurney was regarded among the best drivers in the world, underappreciated for skills that spanned several disciplines.

Allmendinger has always been considered versatile — he started in open wheel, won the Rolex 24 at Daytona and was leading the Indy 500 for Penske when he had to pit because his seatbelt had come undone — but he's always struggled with the weight he placed on results.

Justin Haley, an original Kaulig driver, said months ago he was leaving at the end of the season. Daniel Hemric is being promoted from Xfinity to Cup. The team knows what it is doing with Allmendinger but isn't ready to say if he will be in a car next year.

Allmendinger said he wanted to be in the Cup Series, but he eventually softened and said he'd do whatever is asked of him at Kaulig. It's all he's ever wanted since Kaulig and general manager Chris Rice entered his life during his self-imposed hiatus, and the desire to give back is what has made Allmendinger's future uncertain.

It seems a no-brainer that he'd be back in the Cup car next year but Kaulig acknowledged Sunday that Cup racing has been harder than he expected. It's possible Allmendinger returns to Xfinity for the good of the organization, and ultimately, himself.

“This organization over the last five years... they’ve saved my life,” Allmendinger said. "Not just living day-to-day, but the happiness of day-to-day. They’ve saved my happiness. Now if they wake up tomorrow and they’re like, ‘Hey, you’re old and you’re done,’ I can actually just be happy with everything that’s happened now in my career.”

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