Looking up: Underdog Aric Almirola not conceding defeat in the Chase
Aric Almirola enters his first Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup as an overwhelming underdog to win the 2014 Sprint Cup Series championship.
If you look at his past two outings, however, a case can be made that Almirola and his No. 43 Richard Petty Motorsports team shouldn't exactly be taken lightly.
While Almirola fell into a bad slump after solidifying a Chase berth with a surprise win at Daytona in July, the Tampa, Fla., native finished the regular season on a strong note with top-10 finishes the past two weekends at Atlanta (ninth) and Richmond (10th).
Even though Almirola and fellow first-time Chase driver AJ Allmendinger are widely considered the main dark horses in a Chase grid headlined by the sport's elite drivers and teams, Almirola isn't conceding defeat.
Based on the past couple of events, he has more reason for optimism than several of his fellow Chase participants do -- including a number of veterans.
"We don't want to be just happy to be in the Chase," said Almirola, 30. "We got two good weeks under our belt with top-10 finishes and are going into the Chase with a lot of momentum, I feel like. I don't feel like we have a lot of pressure. I think we're major underdogs, so we're gonna let it all hang out for these next 10 weeks and see what happens."
Seeded 12th among the 16 championship contenders, Almirola is only nine points behind leader Brad Keselowski heading to Chicagoland Speedway for Sunday's first of 10 Chase races.
To be among the 12 drivers who advance out of the Chase "Challenger Round" -- which consists of the races at Chicagoland, New Hampshire and Dover -- Almirola believes his team must elevate its overall performance from the regular season.
In the first 26 races, Almirola recorded only six top-10 finishes, including just two top fives -- one of which was his victory at Daytona.
Almirola particularly struggled at the mile-and-a-half tracks, which make up exactly half of the 10-race Chase schedule.
"We don't have the raw speed in our cars that we need," Almirola, an alumnus of NASCAR's Drive for Diversity, told FOXSports.com. "We can work on the balance of our cars and make it tight or loose or drive pretty good, but even amongst all those things, we don't ever get the raw speed that we need at the really fast racetracks -- the mile-and-a-halves and 2-mile racetracks. So that's something that we've got to work on and be better at.
"I think our guys on our team do a really good job of executing with building the race cars and making sure everything's prepared really well, but the thing that we've got to figure out ... is how to just be faster. That's really what it comes down to -- we've just got to have faster race cars to be able to go up there and compete with those guys in the top five."
Almirola knows from the past two weekends, however, that his team has the ability to overcome adversity.
"This is what we need to do for the next 10 weeks," he said after rallying from a lap down at Richmond. "For the second week in a row, we struggled a bit to get the car handling how we needed to, but Trent (Owens, crew chief) and the guys made the right adjustments to get us a top-10 finish.
"Making the Chase feels really good. We've never been in this situation, so I am really excited and proud of Trent Owens and all my guys on this Smithfield team. We have a lot of work to do and need to run this good every week for the next 10 weeks. We have to be ultra-competitive and execute flawlessly, and that is what it will have to take the next 10 weeks. We're up to the challenge."
