AJ Allmendinger blasts away the nerves with heavy metal

AJ Allmendinger is just like the rest of us: he’s trying his best to stay hydrated and not be too hard on himself. But it’s not easy.

Allmendinger is, as he admits, in the late stages of his career. He’s 42 years old, with 17 years and 400-plus NASCAR races under his belt (plus time in Champ Car, IndyCar, IMSA, and WEC). He’s had highs (including 20 NASCAR wins) and lows. And through it all, one thing’s remained consistent—and relatable: self-imposed pressure.

“It’s not probably the best mental health thing, the way I challenge myself,” says Allmendinger. “You can win a race and you wake up the next day, like, Yeah, you’re still not good enough. Go do it again.”

Right now he’s got a few reasons to feel good. Most immediately, he and the No. 16 Camaro are about to enter the Xfinity playoffs, which kick off in a couple weeks. And Allmendinger has a big 2025 on the horizon: it was recently announced that he’ll be returning full time to the Cup Series next year with Kaulig Racing and main sponsor Celsius, after he ran a part-time schedule this season.

Just a couple days before Allmendinger heads to the site of his first-ever NASCAR win, Watkins Glen — where he’ll to run the Xfinity race on Saturday and the Cup race on Sunday — he talked to Motorsport.com about where his head’s at on the eve of the playoffs, the hauler-shaking music he cranks up to block out nerves, and reclaiming his road course mojo.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

First off, congrats on next year. You and Kaulig going back full time in the Cup Series — I imagine that’s got to feel good, knowing how your 2025 is going to look already.

Allmendinger: It’s good to get the news out. You know, for me, when stuff like this gets announced, I kind of laugh because everybody is like, “Oh, congrats!” and I’m like, yeah, I’ve already known. And there was never a question on whether, probably [here near] the end of my career, what the car name is going to say. It’s always going to be Kaulig Racing — whether it’s the Xfinity series or the Cup series. [Driving with Kaulig] is the way I want to finish my full-time life in racing.

Does knowing that 2025 is a Cup season change anything for, here in the tail end of the season, and how you approach a race?

Not really. I mean the ultimate goal is still to go out there and try to win the Xfinity Championship. We’ve had a really up-and-down year. Some bad luck. Some stuff that, you know, I probably brought on myself.
The first half of the year was spent just trying to figure out, where are we lacking? Why don’t we have enough speed at a lot of these places?

And over the last, I’d say, two months, we’ve probably gotten more speed in the race cars. We’ve been close to winning some races. It’s just, it hasn’t happened. But we definitely run up front, leading laps now. The way this playoff format works [in Xfinity], you just gotta get hot. If you’re hot at the right time, you still have a shot to win the championship.

We’ve been on the other end of it, the last two years of me being full-time in Xfinity, where we’ve won races, we’ve had all these bonus points…and then we get in the playoffs and we don’t have enough speed, and we’re basically hanging on to try to make the final four.

This year we’re not going to have the playoff points, but hopefully we’ve got the speed to run up front and win some races while we’re in the playoffs.

Photo by: David Rosenblum / NKP / Motorsport Images

Like you said, you haven’t notched a win yet this season, but you’ve got a lot of good momentum going into the playoffs. Is it a better feeling than last year, where, like you said, you were able to get a few wins but that end-of-season run got a little bit tougher for you?

I mean, of course, don’t get me wrong — we’d love to have a lot of wins right now. But we went into [the 2023] playoffs, and whether we wanted to admit it to each other or not, we were looking [at each other] like, We don’t have enough speed right now. We’re just going to have to manage every race.

The last couple of weeks [of this season], not so much. We had a good run in Atlanta, but even the couple of weeks prior, at Daytona, we had a shot to win the race. I felt like it was probably the best race car I’ve had at Darlington, and was for sure going to finish top-five. You know, those types of races where you’re like, OK, we didn’t get the finish, but we’re running up front. I’ll take those races any day over, like, Yeah, we didn’t run very well, but somehow we lucked our way into a 5th place finish.

We’re working hard, and I’d say there’s a small amount of confidence as we’re getting ready for the playoffs. We have some speed now. We’re not the fastest car yet, but we have speed. So we can make some noise once we get to the playoffs.

Does that feeling of having a car you can count on to perform change your mental situation going into a race?More than anything it’s the hard work that everybody’s doing, because — even when you’re struggling — it’s definitely not lack of effort. Everybody’s trying. I’m doing everything I can in the race car to get everything out of it, but sometimes you get on the plane and you just go, God, we’re just hoping we’re hoping and praying right now that, for some reason, we unload the race car and there’s speed in it. And if there is, we probably don’t know why. There’s weekends where you’re just like, Please let it be fast.

Right now we’re getting on the plane and getting to the racetrack like, OK, we think we got some speed in here. We feel good about it, and it’s showing.

You know, I think the biggest thing is the way these playoffs work. Just because we don’t have any wins and we’re 9th in points when it comes to the playoff picture doesn’t mean that we can’t go win the championship. We have that confidence in ourselves that we can still go do this.

You’re 42 years old. I’m 42 years old. It’s become acutely clear to me in the last couple of years what my body’s okay with — and it’s not the things that it used to be happy doing. Has age crept up on you in that way, from a physical sense? Whether it’s being in the car and getting through a race, or what you’ve got to do in a week to make sure you’re in the right place physically?

It hurts a lot more, I’m not gonna lie. I don’t let my body rest very much between golf and racing. And constantly just having to move. But in the race car, I feel better than I ever have. I think maybe it’s just knowing how much I’ve got to hydrate. Especially a weekend like this on Saturday, after the Xfinity race — whether I feel great or not, I’ve still got to do the right things to make sure I’m good for Sunday.

I had to laugh at Nashville [Ed note: the race went through five overtimes]. I got out of the race car and all the young guys looked like they were dying while trying to get out of the race car. I was like, Man, I feel good. In that sense, I feel like I’m the best that I’ve been. But yeah, definitely during the week it hurts a lot.

What’s your race-day prep like? What are you eating and drinking in the morning, and is that different after the race?

I don’t actually change it much on a race day compared to the week. You can’t just get to the race track on Friday and go OK, I got to start drinking water. Sometimes it depends on if it’s a night race, [where you] sit around for a while. You just sit there, like, OK, I don’t want to overeat — but you’re getting a little anxious, a little nervous.

Take Watkins Glen. We’re going to have a lot of sponsor stuff between the Xfinity and the Cup race, which is kind of good, because it doesn’t give you time to just sit there and think about it. You’re constantly moving. I don’t try to eat a lot on race days just cause I don’t want a huge gut of food sitting there. You’re in a race car for 3-and-a-half hours. Drink some water and I’ll mix the Celsius in there because I need flavor. I just can’t drink water all day and feel OK.

Same with music, depending on what mood I’m in. It’s Five Finger Death Punch or some rock. If I’m in Vegas, I gotta go club music. Like, you just have to it’s Vegas.

So you’re trying to get amped up, not chill. There are some athletes who try to get very Zen before going into action. But you’re like, crank the volume. Let’s go.

Oh yeah, it is hardcore. Whatever music it is, it’s blasting in the hauler. If I really want to get that rage built up to really go mess with everybody, I’ll definitely start playing hard rock: Five Finger Death Punch, Godsmack, Metallica. Sometimes I’ll play a little club music or a little hip hop just to change it up. There is definitely no calmness. My head…there’s a lot happening up here. So there’s no reason to make the rest of my body calm.

Is it the same thing that’s been swirling in your head for your entire career, or is it different now that you’re 400-something races and 17 years deep into it? What’s roiling around in there?

It’s everything. It hasn’t changed from when I was go-kart racing till now. I’m nervous. I do this because I want to win. I do this to challenge myself. It’s what it’s always been about. It’s challenging myself to go out there and compete against the best in the world.

It’s not probably the best mental health thing, the way I challenge myself. You can win a race and you wake up the next day, like, Yeah, you’re still not good enough. Go do it again. It’s that daily push to wake up and try to be better every day. Mentally, that’s how I’ve always been. It may sound crazy to people, but it’s: If you don’t wake up to be better today, then why wake up?

I’ve always said the day that I wake up and before the race, I’m like, Nah, I’m not nervous. I don’t care…that’s the day I’ll probably stop.

But it’s nowhere close to that yet. It’s still that stomach tightness, feel-like-I’m-going-to-throw-up nerves. I want to go out there because I want to win. I want to win for myself. I want to win especially for my team and the sponsors, because they’re the ones putting their belief in me. So I put that on my shoulders.

That’s a lot to carry.

It’s good mental health and bad mental health all at the same time.

Sounds like it’s the thing that drives you, but also breaks you a little bit, too.

Yeah, I always tell people that we have the best life in the world, and it’s probably why I’m miserable every day, because it’s not good enough. I always say to people, life is great. I’ve never said life’s not great. I just don’t believe it’s good enough. I want to be better everyday.

You’re going to the Glen this weekend. You got your first Cup series win there in 2014. You’ve had a lot of success on road courses. You’ve also got a guy on your team who’s been insanely good at road courses, too, in Shane van Gisbergen. What’s it like when you’ve had that success, but also you look over in the garage and there’s a guy who’s kicking ass at these things lately?

Yeah, SVG no doubt has been phenomenal on road courses, and it’s making me try to step my game up on the Xfinity side of it. It’s been really strange this year in the sense that I just haven’t been comfortable. I haven’t found what I need on the road courses in general.

It’d be different if I finished second to SVG in all these races and I could be like, OK, it’s just he’s a little bit better, right? But if he wasn’t in the race, I still wouldn’t be winning because I’ve just struggled.

What he does in the race cars, especially with the heel-toe and how he uses the clutch, I think it helps on the Xfinity side. On the Cup side of it, don’t get me wrong, he’s really good, too. But with the sequential gearbox, it doesn’t make that big of a difference. With the Xfinity car, he’s definitely got a comfort level.

And I’ve been off. I’d love to tell you right now I know what exactly it is. I’ve definitely been trying to find stuff in my driving style [by] looking at what he does and looking at what I do, trying to make it better, but I 100% can’t honestly tell you I know exactly what it is. I’ve just been very loose — in the sense that the rear of the car just hasn’t been under me.

I imagine that’s one of those moments where you’re looking over and trying not to compare yourself — just trying to figure out your own system.

Yeah, but it does help that he can go win with the race cars. It shows the cars are there. He’s doing it. It’s just, I gotta figure it out. And that’s being real.