After six seasons and more than 180 starts, JTG Daugherty Racing announced Tuesday it would part ways with AJ Allmendinger at season’s end.
It’s the latest development in a Silly Season with many aspects waiting to play out.
Co-owner Brad Daugherty addressed the decision Tuesday to part ways with the driver who earned the team its only Cup win in 2014 (Watkins Glen).
Simply, the two-car team - which includes Chris Buescher in the No. 37 Chevrolet - had become stagnant.
“I’m a huge AJ Allmendinger fan,” Daugherty said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio’s “The Late Shift.” “For us at this point, as well as him, we’ve tried so many things and we continue to try to get better each week with our race team. We’re trying to do all the right things, put all the right pieces and parts together. And the past several seasons for us, the reality of it is we just haven’t been very good.”
Entering this weekend’s race on the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course, Allmendinger and the No. 47 Chevrolet are 24th in the standings. Through 28 races Allmendinger has one top five (Daytona in July) and three top 10s. Since winning at Watkins Glen in 2014, Allmendinger has four top fives.
“It’s been very, very hard,” Daugherty said. “At the end of the day, for AJ, it could just be the fact we can’t get our cars to go any faster. But we worked really, really hard. We tried. We tried this, we tried that. We came up with multiple concepts outside our alliance with Hendrick. ... At the end of the day, it didn’t get any better. You look at the big picture of our race company, a lot of people look and think, ‘Well, you’re 23rd, 24th, whatever a lot of weeks.’ All of us that race back there, we don’t want to be there. We’re not just there to be markers in the field.
“We want to get better so we’re trying everything. And we may not be successful at it. But we’re going to darn sure try to overturn every stone to try to get better. ... It’s by no fault of AJ. It’s just kind of run its course, for him and for us. ... It’s amicable, I think, on both sides that we’ll part ways.”
Co-owner of @JTGRacing, @BradDaugherty43 talks about the team's announcement today about the team parting ways with @AJDinger at the end of the season... pic.twitter.com/Sl8FUFVrdF
— SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Ch. 90) (@SiriusXMNASCAR) September 25, 2018