Aric Almirola is off to a solid start to the 2019 season and looks to continue that trend in Sunday’s Ticket Guardian 500 at ISM Raceway where he has posted three straight top-10 finishes.
The Stewart-Haas Racing driver sits 11th in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series point standings heading into Sunday’s fourth race of the campaign. He scored his second straight top-10 finish of the season last week at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
“We still have a lot to learn as a team with this new rules package, but we certainly managed to build a fourth- to eighth-place car at Atlanta and Vegas,” Almirola said. “We still need a bit more to compete for wins every weekend and I’m thankful for the guys and girls at Stewart-Haas who have worked so hard during the offseason to make sure we start strong, and we have.”
In addition to his recent success in the Cup Series, the one-mile ISM Raceway has been a track where Almirola has excelled throughout his career. He’s made seven NASCAR Xfinity Series starts at Phoenix track, having captured the pole in November 2011 to go with 74 laps led and a pair of top-10 finishes. Earlier in his career, Almirola made three starts in the Gander Outdoors Truck Series at ISM Raceway. Two of those three starts resulted in top-five finishes, and he led a total of 52 laps.
There are some differences this weekend with the new rules package teams will employ but Almirola believes the bottom line will be the same kind of exciting racing ISM Raceway has been known for over the years.
“I think for Phoenix it’s going to be very similar to the short-track racing we’ve seen in the past,” Almirola said. “Short-track racing is really what NASCAR was built on. We’ve migrated to these mile-and-a-half racetracks and, over time, they’ve put on great races. But short-track racing is the heart and soul of NASCAR and I don’t think our new rule package is going to change that.
“We’re still going to see beating and banging and tempers flaring. This is your very typical short-track race. I think there’s going to be tight, side-by-side racing and the bump-and-run is going to come into play where we’re moving ourselves into position. It’s going to be the same, old, exciting short-track racing that we’ve always seen.”
Sunday’s race will be the second at the track since the start-finish line moved to what was the dog-leg on the backstretch. Almirola is certain that change will again produce a challenge for teams this weekend.
“You have to have everything at Phoenix,” he said. “You have to have downforce, grip in your car and good brakes. You have to make sure your car turns well across the center of turns one and two, which is a sharp, banked corner. And then you have turns three and four, which are really fast and sweeping and flat. You’ve got to have a car that’s versatile and is a good compromise for both corners.”
