AJ Allmendinger places patient third-place run at Daytona into perspective

AJ Allmendinger knew he didn’t have the speed in his No. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing Chevrolet to match the fastest cars in Sunday’s Daytona 500.

So he knew he needed to do all he could to stay out of trouble and bide his time, waiting for the opportunity to get toward the front at the end of the wreck-filled three-stage race.

The strategy paid off when he was able to survive a spate of wrecks early in Stage 3, keep his car clean, and then surge all the way up to a third-place finish by the end.

“We had a great‑handling car the whole time here,” Allmendinger said. “We just didn't have a lot of outright speed. I kept seeing (second-place finisher) Ryan (Blaney) and Joey (Logano) keep making moves. I just knew my car wasn't very good on the bottom.”

So he waited until what he figured was the last possible moment before making his move to the front.

“I knew my best effort was going to be kind of the last 10, 12 laps, when I kind of got up to wherever I was, running seventh or eighth, to be up top,” he said. “I started saving fuel. I knew everybody was close. I knew my best chance to have a good result was to sit there and try to run half throttle. Stay in line and not let anybody kind of slide up.

“Every time Ryan and Joey would make a move, I tried to keep the gap close. I was just kind of holding half-throttle there. And knowing this would probably come down to fuel or if somebody tried to check up in front of us, who could miss (the next big wreck).”

So on the final lap, Allmendinger took his car all the way to the top and finally cut loose with all he had.

“I said to myself, ‘All right, I'm going to ride it out up top there, see what happens,’ “ Allmendinger said.

It worked out about as well as he possibly could have hoped, short of winning NASCAR’s biggest race. Allmendinger is well aware how fickle restrictor-plate racing at the 2.5-mile Daytona superspeedway can be.

His finish Sunday matched his career-best finish of third in the very first Daytona 500 he ran in 2009 while driving for Richard Petty Motorsports. But in between the third-place runs that came eight years apart, he’s had only one other top-10 finish – a 10th in 2011 also while driving for RPM.

So he’s taking this latest strong finish in stride, trying to keep it in perspective.

“These races are hard to get great finishes in. Any time you get one, you take it. It helps a ton,” said Allmendinger, who finished 19th in points last season. “The Daytona 500, it's the biggest. It's at least a kickstart into (the next race at) Atlanta for our team, knowing we don't have to do anything crazy. We just keep doing what our jobs are and see where we fall into place, see where that is.”