43!! With the 'Dinger' at the wheel!

  AJ, on the Phoenix pole, for Richard Petty and Jack Roush (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net
 
   PHOENIX
   Hey, how about that 43!
   Talk about a weird Friday at the race track, Richard Petty's legendary number finally came up again, with the pole for Saturday night's Subway 600K, with AJ Allmendinger at the wheel.
   It was the first time a Petty 43 has been on a NASCAR pole since John Andretti did it here in 1999.
   And this was a first for Allmendinger, one of the sport's newcomers, with just 87 races under his belt.
   Now granted the precise ownership stake of this 43 is still a bit murky. George Gillett merged the Ray Evernham operation, after buying that, with Petty Enterprises a year or so ago, and renamed that Richard Petty Motorsports, with Petty as the front-man and spokesman, if not majority owner. And over the winter Gillett and Petty jumped from Dodge to Ford and merged again, this time with the Jack Roush-Doug Yates Ford conglomerate.
    Complicated?
    Uh, yes.
    And apparently Rapid Richard wasn't here to see it.
    It was that kind of Friday.
    -- So, now, two weeks later, have Jeff Gordon and Matt Kenseth patched things up?
   Well, apparently not really.
  And what was that flare-up at Martinsville all about?
  The two men talked about their last-lap run-in two weeks ago, on a surprising Friday at Phoenix International Raceway: Allmendinger, Scott Speed and Sam Hornish went 1-2-3 in qualifying for Saturday night's 600K.
    "I think the odds on this....." Hornish said with a laugh about the 43-82-77 trifecta...and the numerous drivers, typically strong, stuck back in the pack.
    Chevy drivers, especially from the Hendrick camp, may be Saturday's race favorites, but the top three for the 7:45 p.m. EDT start (4:45 p.m. PDT) are Ford-Toyota-Dodge.
    The crowd to expect? A good one, according to track boss Bryan Sperber. It may not be a sellout, but only a few seats are still available. And of course there is traditional hillside seating. However the seating here is only about 55,000; in 2008 the official seating was 76,000, but since then a section of backstretch seats have been removed and frontstretch seating has been remarked from 18 inches wide to 22 inches wide. That apparently makes this the smallest NASCAR stadium grandstand setting for any oval on the Cup tour.
    Friday was unusual in a number of ways, and Allmendinger – of the Richard Petty-George Gillett operation, now merged with Jack Roush's Ford racing operation – was just one of the surprises.
    The Petty-Gillett-Roush group has been hot all season, and the merger has been a good one from the technical side. In fact at times the 'new' Ford guys have been upstaging the 'old' Ford guys at times, though the synergies appear to be good overall.
       "This year we've been missing just a little on qualifying, and that's been killing us in track position on the starts," Allmendinger – new to Ford this season – said. "This is just a small victory, but in this sport it's all about confidence.
    "We've been building on things this season. We had good races at Atlanta and Bristol, and got some momentum back. But then at Martinsville....
    "It's been difficult to be 26th in the points. We know we're a solid top-15 team.
    "Hey, it's my first pole. It's just so nerve-wracking in qualifying. you make one little mistake and you drop 20 spots. We're 26th in points and we need to get higher; this is a key six-week stretch for us. If we can do well, then we can go into the All-star breaking figuring we have a shot at making the chase.
   "I told my guys I was either going to run a 26.70 or a 29-flat because I was going to barrel it down in there."
   And Allmendinger said he was more than a little pleased to beat his former team – Red Bull – for the pole.
   "This track was tough today," he said. "Everybody was sliding about."
   No kidding. When Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch all spin out in practice, you know something is going on.
   Brian Vickers said it was the tires and suggested Goodyear – which he did praise for generally very good tires over the past 18 months – come up with another tire combination for this flat one-mile before the tour returns. This setup is apparently the same used last November.
   That could all make for a rough-and-tumble Saturday night, with the race now 375 laps, up from traditional 312, which should carry it on for at least 3-1/2 hours.  
   Which makes a quick review of the Gordon-Kenseth thing worthwhile.
    Gordon's take on his crashing Kenseth at Martinsville:  "When it's a shootout like that, in the closing laps, especially on a short track, you can expect there to be more contact.
    "I try to look at every situation separately; I don't try to go back and rehash old past history. I just know that they dropped the green, I went through the gears, I went into turn one, and I got hit. And I was upset about it.
     "I had an opportunity to get back to him, and I did.
     "I think it stinks for Matt, because he finished pretty far back (18th). But I felt at the moment it stunk for me too, because it took our chance of winning that race away.
     "What goes on further than that, I have no idea.
     "I like Matt a lot; I love racing with him.
      "I talked to him Sunday night after the race...and I think those conversations really don't do much good, but I was glad that we talked about it anyway.
      "I definitely want him to know I don't have anything against him. And I don't.
      "It was pretty plain and simple: If you hit me, I'm going to hit you back. That's where I leave it.
      "I'm certainly not thinking anything about it. But if he chooses to do something, that's up to him...That's just part of racing."
      Curious approach for a four-time champion in dealing with another NASCAR champion.
     And it's not the first run-in between the two, who would seem the most unlikely antagonists.
    Kenseth: "The Martinsville thing, I saw a chance to go for a win...and I barely got into Jeff, and it was at Martinsville at 40 mph.
    "I thought for him to say that he was going to make sure he ruined my day -- which he did – because I barely bumped into the back of him was a little bit harsh and unreasonable.
    "But that is my view, and I am sure his is different.
    "Whenever I have a chance, I am going to go for a win.
     "But I am not going to go down there and spin someone out for the win. I just won't do that, no matter who it is. I am going to race them as hard as I can, and as fair as I can."
    So what's the deal here between these two?
   "I don't know...and I always seem to come out on the short end of the stick for some reason too," Kenseth said. 
    "I don't know if it is coincidence or not. After the third or fourth time, you start to think it isn't coincidence though.
     "I have talked to him at length, and I don't know if he has a problem with me in particular or what."
    And if Saturday's 600 boils down to a similar situation, which it very well could, what to expect?
    "This track is a lot different from Martinsville," Kenseth said. "There are two or three grooves down there in one and two, and no matter if they throw three green-white-checkereds, there should be enough room for everyone to get through."
    Uh, maybe so....but maybe not.

       The starting line-up for Saturday's Subway 600-K at Phoenix International Raceway

   

   
   
   
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