When AJ Allmendinger Did The Unthinkable 

That was a ridiculously classy interview after the Portland win. Thanked his current team, thanked his old team, credited his old team mate. Class.

Sorry seeing Justin Wilson next to Dinger just cracks me up, Justin was one of the tallest drivers out there and AJ being a short king.

The funniest and almost most forgotten thing about AJ's 2006 season is that he was fired TWICE. Probably the most successful year for a driver fired by 2 different teams in 1 season . Gerry Forsythe was known to hold grudges. When ChampCar folded he was so butthurt about it that he refused to field a unified IndyCar entry and still refuses to this day. This to the point where he held Paul Tracy to his contract and paid him not to get another ride in IndyCar...which effectively ended Paul career outside of a couple spots a few years down the line where Paul says seeing Dan Wheldon's body in the hospital officially made him call it quits. But after 5 wins, few podiums and being 2nd in points AJ announces the NASCAR deal....and Forsythe immediately fires him and replaces him with Buddy Rice. AJ fully intended to finish the season but got fired cuz thats the kind of guy Forsythe is.

I'm grateful for this channel. Its almost impossible to find other interesting Indycar history videos.

AJ thrives when the team listens to him and has a competent Crew chief like Mike Cannon behind him!!!! AJ has won in every class he has entered along with leading laps for every Daytona 24 he has entered along with winning it!!!

4:42 Need this audio clip for my bedroom

SOOO MUCH respect for AJ to show appreciation for his pervious team and the opportunity they gave him! Such a humble guy!

I remember being really disappointed that AJ was leaving CHAMPCAR for NASCAR. That was the height of the IRL/CHAMPCAR exodus to NASCAR with AJ, Hornish, and Dario were all leaving. Robbed us of some great open wheel racing careers.

My brother was at the Cleveland race, but he worked for an audio company and was working, so he doesn't remember the race. What he does remember is that they used to hope for cloudy or rainy races. There was no shade at Burke Lakefront Airport.

Best looking race cars ever...

And AJ is still a winner, there's no stopping this guy.

And AJ still gets pumped up after wins to this day

Hey, nice job, once again, on a very insightful vid on the “Dinger”. Very talented road racer and quite versatile as well. Sliding into a “fender” car is no cake walk. He’s good…….really good! Keep em coming Demise 90. You have a real knack for this commentary gig! Lifetime subscriber 🏁

Love that series. Grew up watching it. Miss it

I always thought AJ could've been an Indycar champions had he stayed there. Or maybe won more races earlier if he didn't jump ship to NASCAR with Red Bull. Now that he race full time again this season, I believe he can score a win or two and entering the playoffs

Yay! Big Allmemdinger fan here and been waiting on u to cover him... Great upload Demise 🤘🏻

I grew up watching all these races, you're doing great work here highlighting some of the really awesome moments from the history of Indycar/CART/Champ Car

I have a lot of affection for Portland International Raceway (being my local track), its always nice to see it come up in these videos.

i wonder what wouldve happened had he stayed in champ/indycars

I had forgot about this. Thanks for covering this. Feels like this was 30 years ago considering how long the Dinger has been in NASCAR

what a crazy series of races, had no idea aj popped off like that in indycar, what a legend

Again, thanks for these. I didn’t watch these Champ Car years after CART, so I missed out on some great moments. Greg Moore’s death at Fontana really broke my heart, so I just stopped watching for a while. Thanks for allowing all of us to relive what some of us may have missed.

I attended the race in Toronto. A.J. autographed the Indeck team jersey. Didn’t realize he had won 3 in a row . Thanks for the heads up 🇨🇦👍

W vid and nice job on 4k ur getting popular

Pretty incredible what he accomplished. I’m a NASCAR fan so it’s cool to see him back in the Cup series. Class act all around.

AJ, Tyler McQuarrie, Rick McCormick, Johnny O'Connell, Tommy Kendall - all of them the pride of the Jim Russell Racing School when it was between Laguna and Sears. Otherworldly talents. I'm probably forgetting several others.

Loved Champ and those classic car designs.

My Brother raced with Dinger back in the mid 2000s on NR03 AJ’s easy to root for. 🤙🏻

I was a Marshall at Road America for a Nascar race. The entire day was one big accident. AJ won and on the cool down lap i noticed he didn't have a scratch on jis car

Good video as always

I watched him win his first in person at Portland!

AJ will always been one of the great "could-have-beens" had he not gone to NASCAR. This is a guy who had all the talent needed to run at the front of any Indycar field, and with Mike Cannon as his engineer, he absolute blossomed. And then he left and barely accomplished a thing for the rest of his career.

Such a satisfying revenge story. 😂

💯👍

something like this happened in f1 but the other way round

R.I.P Justin Wilson

Ii was super pissed when AJA went to Nasscar!

He left indycar as a winner, became an also-ran in tin tops. Guy could have been a legend.

The American open wheel split really robbed us of some possible Indycar legends. If nobody ever had listened to that little shit that was Tony George, we might talk about Sam Hornish jr as an all-time best, Tony Stewart as a multiple-time champion and maybe a team owner these days and AJ Allmendinger as a multi-time champion as well. Not to mention the numerous "what could have been"-scenarios out there. I'm talking Jeff Gordon jumping ship to Indycar, Greg Moore and Gonzalo Rodriguez not having their fatal crashes and Kenny Bräcks career going on longer than it eventually did.

What I remember of that time is Allmendinger, who often expressed his hatred of oval racing, getting all butt hurt about RuSport dropping him and getting an agent to get him into Nascar the next season, in the few days before Forsythe hired him.

I remember how pissed off I was when he bailed to NASCAR. But seeing where open wheel went he made the right decision 😄

I have never understood why Allmendinger didn`t stay in Indycar, racing or at least got back to Indycar after a few years in NASCAR. He would be a title contender in Indycar, while in NASCAR he fights for 20th place finishes.

The ultimate revenge for AJ

Always liked AJ. I totally forgot he drove an open wheel car.

Imagine if Red Bull would have kept him in CHAMP for a couple more years or shifted him to IRL. He was definitely a better open wheel racer than stock cars. We'll see if he can get a rhythm going in Cup this year.

The dinger has always been a wheelman

RuSPORT must’ve been kicking themselves after AJ won races for Forsythe

I still believe to this day that if AJ had stayed in Champ car in 07 he would have dethroned Sebastion as champ.

I never knew AJ ran open wheels

Respect to A.J. But as a Champcar fan, those years were unspeakably bad. The lineups were an absolute joke. Even in a spec series, Forsythe was absolutely dominant after all of the top teams went to the IRL.

#Bridgestone

Next for my request is Supercars Australia 2005 season at Bathrust 1000 where Greg Murphy and Marcos Ambrose brawl after Crash during Caution flag comes out.

Why would redbull pull him from champcar when he was doing so well!? Makes no sense.

i';ve followed almandigers fo

Loved him when he was in Indy Car, F k Nascar

Isn’t O.J. Almendinger like a serious alcoholic? He shouldn’t be allowed to drive.