It was bad enough that AJ Allmendinger’s No. 22 Penske Dodge was swept up in an accident in the third corner of the first lap. Worse was the hit he took when his car slammed the Turn 2 wall on Lap 65, after blowing a tire.
Worse than the impact, which Allmendinger described as one of the hardest hits of his career, was yet another day of wretched luck. Allmendinger finished 31st and dropped two spots to 25th in the standings, hardly the way he imagined his first season with team owner Roger Penske.
“There are no words to explain it,” Allmendinger said after the wreck. “In my worst nightmare, I didn’t think the season would go this bad. You’ve got two options: you quit, or you keep working harder.
“I’ve been six years in this. I’ve experienced bad stuff before in NASCAR, so I ain’t going to quit. We’ll just keep working harder. We’ve got to figure out how to turn it around.”