Ford Racing Looks Back One Year with AJ

AJ ALLMENDINGER – No. 43 Best Buy Ford Fusion – WHAT’S YOUR RECOLLECTION OF HOW YOU GUYS WERE ABLE TO MAKE IT THROUGH LAST YEAR WITH ALL THE TURMOIL SURROUNDING THE ORGANIZATION? “I don’t want to remember it (laughing). It was a tough time and it was right about this time when everybody started feeling the pressure and hearing things about what was going on. Ultimately, some of it was selfish. I thought we had a good thing going and I didn’t want my guys to leave. All of these guys in here have a lot more at stake in a certain way. They have families and they work so hard. They’re gone from their families a lot and the way this sport is right now it’s a tough time and I didn’t want them without jobs more than anything, so I was trying to just focus on keeping them updated with what was going on and trying to keep them here if that was what was gonna happen and, if not, trying to let them know as soon as possible if not because they had the right to know and those guys are usually the last to know, so, at that point, it was just about trying to get us all together and when the time was right let them know the information I knew. Most of the credit goes to them because they could have easily just packed it in and said, ‘screw it,’ but they showed up to the race track and they jumped through hoops to get the race cars ready when they weren’t allowed in our own shop and out in parking lots of race tracks, so most of the credit went to them. They showed up. They’re racers. They knew all they could do was show up and try to run as good as possible and we did a good job. We were really fast every weekend and, at that point, luckily it worked out.”

DO YOU FEEL YOUR TEAM IS A TIGHTER-KNIT GROUP THIS YEAR BECAUSE OF WHAT YOU WENT THROUGH AT THE END OF THE YEAR? “I think so. We had a couple of minor changes on the race team from last year, but I felt that all of the core guys were really tight. We were really tight anyway. I try to do my best to let them know how much I appreciate them. Maybe I don’t do it enough, but I try to do everything I can to show them that. I feel like if they consider me a friend or somebody that’s close, maybe they’ll work just that little bit harder. There’s no secret that my life is in their hands whenever they want it to be, but I feel like we all get along pretty well. I think the team going down to two cars really helped the whole organization because I feel like everybody is a lot closer, so, overall, it was tough to go through but I think it did make us stronger.”

MARCOS AMBROSE – No. 9 Stanley Ford Fusion – HOW FAR HAS THIS ORGANIZATION COME IN A YEAR? “It’s been a fairytale year for RPM and all of us associated with the company. We didn’t know what the future held. It was completely out of most of our hands. We had to rely on good faith and judgment by people smarter than me and AJ and I’m just pleased it has all worked out so well. We’ve got a lot of momentum and a lot of good things to talk about. We’re competitive. I would say we’re the best two-car team right now and it means a lot to all of us. It’s a privilege to drive for the King and to have the King’s support and have him treat me like he did. He could have walked away. It’s not as if it’s his first season of racing and he’s got the blinkers on. He knows this sport and it can cost a lot of money when things go wrong, but he put his money where his mouth was and shored the team up. He found the investors to make it happen and we’ve come out the other side a lot stronger.”

DID YOUR WIN AT WATKINS GLEN VALIDATE YOUR DECISION TO MAKE THE MOVE TO RPM? “Yeah, definitely. You’ve got to take chances in life and I knew it was a gamble. I didn’t know how much trouble was going to happen when I signed the contract with RPM, but we had Stanley and DeWalt who were committed and they were happy for me to be their driver and we made it work. I’m really happy with it.”

IS THIS RACE TEAM STRONGER AS A RESULT OF WHAT HAPPENED? “No doubt. We’ve been through a lot together and racing is a tough sport because no one remembers what it took to get to where you are, they’re worried about the next race. None of us can rest easy saying, ‘Now we’ve made it. Here we are.’ We’ve got a lot more to strive to do and we’ve got more goals we need to reach. We’ve got a lot of coherency. We’re a great team. We get on well and communicate well and we perform well.”