A.J. Allmendinger making 500th NASCAR Cup Series start at Sonoma

A.J. Allmendinger will make his 500th NASCAR Cup Series start this week at Sonoma Raceway in the No. 16 Chevrolet for Kaulig Racing.

The 44-year-old from Los Gatos, Calif. will become the 48th driver to reach 500 starts and will get to do it at his home track and on a road course, his strong suit.

Allmendinger is one of the most well rounded drivers on the Cup grid, having experience in other platforms such as in IndyCar and IMSA. He has five wins in Champ Car (pre merger with Indy Racing League) which all came in 2006 and also won the 24 Hours of Daytona in 2012.

Allmendinger first came to NASCAR as part of the open wheel invasion from the mid to late 2000s. He made his cup debut for Red Bull Racing in the No. 84 Toyota at Bristol Motor Speedway in 2007. His stint with Red Bull didn’t go very well and left the team before the season of the season in 2008.

Allmendinger joined Richard Petty Motorsports in 2009, and drove for the team for three years. He would improve every year with the team coming in 24th in 2009, 19th in 2010, and 15th in 2011.

His road racing background was becoming more clear too as he never finished worse than 13th on the road courses in the cup series while with the team.

Allmendinger would then leave for Penske Racing for 2012 and came very close to scoring his first victory at Martinsville in the spring. He would finish second to Ryan Newman. Unfortunately he was suspended for violating NASCAR’s substance abuse policy and would later be released by Penske.

Allmendinger would later be reinstated and in 2013, drove a part time schedule between both IndyCar and NASCAR. He also would win his first two NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series races at Road America and Mid-Ohio.

After his part time schedule in Cup included starts for JTG Daugherty Racing, he was promoted to full time for the team beginning in 2014. He drove the #47 Chevrolet to not only his first cup victory but also the team’s first at Watkins Glen after a hard battle with Marcos Ambrose.

Allmendinger made the postseason for the first time in his career but was eliminated after the Round of 16.

Allmendinger remained with the No. 47 team until 2018 when he was released and replaced by Ryan Preece for 2019.

After not having a ride in 2019, Allmendinger would receive a part time ride in the O’Reilly Series with Kaulig Racing. He won multiple races in 2019 and 2020 during that part time slate in a career resurgence.

He then was promoted back to full time competition in 2021 in the O’Reilly Series and won five races in the No. 16 Chevrolet and scored a fourth place points result after making the final four.

Allmendinger would also make a return to the Cup Series in 2021 and ran five out of the seven road courses for Kaulig. He scored his second Cup win at the inaugural Indianapolis Road Course race, and for the second time gave a Cup team their first victory.

Allmendinger ran a larger part-time schedule in Cup in 2022 where he scored three Top-5 finishes, while also racing full time in O’Reilly again winning five races and finishing fifth in points.

In 2023, Allmendinger ran his first full time Cup schedule in five years for Kaulig and while he didn’t make the playoffs, he did win his third cup race at the Charlotte Roval in October.

However, he would return to O’Reilly full time in 2024 while running a part time schedule in Cup again. He didn’t score a win until Las Vegas in the fall but still finished third in points. Allmendinger returned to Cup again in 2025 and finished 26th in points with seven Top-10 finishes.

Currently, Allmendinger sits 20th in points and is only 21 points below the Chase cutoff. With no simulator time going into Coronado, he was able to pull off his first top five finish of the season, showing he’s still got what it takes to race on Sundays.

Allmendinger will also be sporting a new sponsor on the No. 16 this week from EchoPark Automotive. He will also be matched up against Chase Briscoe in the first round of the 2026 NASCAR In-Season Challenge.

On the current Cup grid, Allmendinger will join Michael McDowell, Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, and Denny Hamlin to reach 500 starts on Sunday.