In the past two seasons, the NASCAR community has been solely focused on Shane van Gisbergen and Connor Zilisch during road course races. They’re labeled as the ‘drivers to beat’, while their accomplishments are highlighted, and their prospects amplified. But before them, AJ Allmendinger’s name carried that weight.
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Allmendinger, 44, built his Cup Series record on left and right turns, with all three of his career Cup wins coming on road layouts. Most of his Xfinity Series wins followed the same path.
However, his last road-course win came in 2023, when he won at Circuit of The Americas in the NASCAR Xfinity Series (now O’Reilly Auto Parts Series) and later won the Charlotte Roval race in the Cup Series. Since then, he has struggled.
With the season running at COTA this weekend, Allmendinger was asked whether the current narrative around SVG and Zilisch fuels him or bogs him down. After all, SVG and Zilisch are framed as the benchmark, and the rest are cast as chasers.
“I mean, the way we change that narrative is you go beat them, right? But for the most part, we didn’t do that at most of the road courses last year,” Allmendinger said, stopping short of blaming outside noise.
“It’s not frustrating to me. I think, for me, the most frustrating thing was just, in general, we didn’t run great at the road courses last year. I put a lot of that on my shoulders,” clarified Allmendinger.
“I think as Goodyear softens the tire, it gives the advantage to a guy like SVG that really knows how to save the tires. It’s something that, whether it was setup-based or my own doing, I struggled with it last year of trying to be good on long runs,” he added.
Interestingly, the Kaulig Racing driver refused to obsess over Van Gisbergen’s dominance in the way fans or media might. He drew a clear hypothetical line: If he were consistently finishing second to SVG and just couldn’t find a way past him, that would wear him down. That would create the kind of rivalry-driven frustration drivers talk about.
But that’s not what has happened. Allmendinger wasn’t regularly knocking on the door. He was further back. So instead of framing it as ‘I can’t beat that guy,’ he framed it as ‘I wasn’t good enough.’
Allmendinger added that if SVG and Zilisch are that good, then it’s worth studying what makes those standout drivers effective, not resenting them. Instead of treating top performers as obstacles, Allmendinger chose to treat them like case studies. Watch what they do, understand why it works, then adapt.
That’s a racer’s way of processing dominance, because one can’t argue with speed. The driver has to dissect it, that’s all. If there is frustration, it is directed at his own performance.
On Saturday at COTA, Allmendinger qualified in seventh. Meanwhile, SVG posted the 13th-fastest time.
