The First Reid: Despite long odds, Allmendinger ready to make Chase noise

By Reid Spencer
NASCAR Wire Service

Are AJ Allmendinger and JTG/Daugherty Racing ready for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup?

Ready or not, they are qualified for NASCAR’s 10-race playoff after Sunday’s victory at Watkins Glen International, and the Chase is just four races away.

On Friday, before the win was reality, Allmendinger was conservative in his assessment of the team’s chances to contend for a championship and acknowledged that he would face an uphill battle in the Chase against teams with broader resources.

Now that the Chase is a reality, however, team owners Brad Daugherty and Tad and Jodi Geschickter are prepared to make a fight of it.

“When we go back to the mile and a halfs (intermediate speedways) and start competing, it’s going to be a little bit more difficult because of the simulation software for all these race teams, but with the ride heights and AJ’s ability, if we can qualify the car well, we’re going to race OK,” Daugherty said.

“I’m confident in (crew chief) Brian (Burns). I’m confident in my pit crew. I think that we have more in us. We go to racetracks like Atlanta, we go to places like Martinsville, Bristol—he (Allmendinger) is good at those race tracks. I think we’ve got a chance. If the dominos fall correctly, we’ve got a chance. So we’ve got to put all of our eggs in one basket. We don’t want to just be there as a backmarker. We want to make some noise.”