It took A.J. Allmendinger eight years to arrive in victory lane after a Sprint Cup race.
His first career Cup start with Red Bull Racing came at Bristol on March 25, 2007. Between that and his win at Watkins Glen for JTG-Daugherty Racing last week, it took 213 races, eight teams, 24 failed qualifying attempts and 19 DNFs.
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Yes, he won before, with two wins in the Nationwide Series in 2013 for Penske Racing coming seven years after five CART wins in 2006.
But Sunday’s win was different.
It came after a positive drug test 17 races into the 2012 season that led to Allmendinger losing his ride at Penske. After a stint in NASCAR’s Road to Recovery program, during which he missed 13 races, he found safe harbor in James Finch and Phoenix Racing before landing with the Cup team he took to victory lane last Sunday.
“Nothing compares to today," Allmendinger said at Watkins Glen, "because I have went through hell in this series, absolute hell, whether it was missing 19 races my first year, wanting to slit my wrists on a weekly basis thinking about ‘what am I doing here?' To feel like I had it figured out and to lose my job with Red Bull and to be so close a couple of times with (Richard Petty Motorsports) and then obviously to go through what I went through with (Penske). It's what I am happy about one day and so hard on myself about the next day.
“I don't have to hear any more, ‘A.J. might be that next first-time winner.’ I'm tired of that, so I don't have to hear about it anymore.”
Allmendinger’s path is far from the norm, but it’s not uncommon for first career wins at NASCAR’s highest level to be memorable, dramatic finishes or not.
“Once I came off the last corner, I looked in my mirrors and saw [his competitors] side-by-side and it was like the most perfect sight I had ever seen in my life,” Allmendinger said. “Just a dream come true.”
The flip side of a dramatic win was what Aric Almirola did in July, when the seventh-year driver got his first win at Daytona International Speedway in the Coke Zero 400.
Instead of flashbulbs and cheers greeting him at the finish line, the veteran of 125 races was crowned the winner on Sunday afternoon in a race stopped by rain after 112 laps. It also gave Richard Petty Motorsports and the No. 43 car its first win at Daytona since 1984.
“To get this 43 car back to victory lane, that was a challenge that I kind of put out in front of myself and said, OK, if I'm going to go drive that 43 car, I don't want to hear about the last win being John Andretti at Martinsville in 1999,” Almirola said. “I want people to remember the last time the 43 car won was whenever we win."
Three years ago marked a bountiful season for first-time winners, as Trevor Bayne, Paul Menard, David Ragan, Regan Smith and Marcos Ambrose all took home their first Cup trophies.
Bayne’s win was first and the most surprising. Then a 20-year-old rookie, Bayne led the final six laps to win the Daytona 500 for the Wood Brothers in his second career start. In his wake were veterans Bobby Labonte and Carl Edwards.
“We got to Turn Four and we were still leading the band,” Bayne said afterward. “Somebody’s going to pass us, you know, [that’s] what’s going to happen here.
“Then nobody ever did."
Since then Bayne has won twice in the Nationwide Series in the three years. He will race full time for Roush Fenway Racing beginning in 2015.
Menard, driving for Richard Childress Racing, gambled on pit strategy and led 11 of the final 16 laps of the 2011 Brickyard 400, outrunning four-time winner Jeff Gordon for his first, and so far only, Sprint Cup win. It was also the first time Paul’s father, John, was able to celebrate a win at the historic track after trying for years to win the Indianapolis 500 as an owner.
“I saw my dad as soon as we pulled into victory lane,” Menard said after the win. “He came up to the window, [I] said something like, ‘35 years of trying here, here we go, this one’s for you.’ He’s been trying to put a lot of time and energy into winning at Indy. It’s just a big deal.”
Of those 2011 first-timers, only Ragan and Ambrose have made return visits to victory lane, proving how difficult it is to win in the Sprint Cup Series, let alone winning your first.
It seemed easy for Jamie McMurray in 2002.
Driving in relief of an injured Sterling Marlin, McMurray was a Bayne prototype. He drove Ganassi Racing’s No. 40 Dodge in the fall race at Charlotte Motor Speedway and edged out Labonte to win in his second career start.
Charlotte is a common track for first-time winners. The Coca-Cola 600 was the stage for Jeff Gordon in 1994, Labonte a year later, Matt Kenseth in 2000 and Casey Mears in 2007. When Labonte won, his brother Terry came in second, 15 years after his first win in 1980 at Darlington.
Gordon might have summed up the feelings of most first-time winners when he said, “This is the greatest day of my life. I don’t know what to say."
Charlotte’s sister tracks, Texas and Atlanta, also christened driver’s careers. Texas started it with its inaugural race in 1997, when Jeff Burton won the Interstate Batteries 500, and three years later when Dale Earnhardt Jr. won his first of 22 Cup races.
Jimmie Johnson won his first Cup race with relative ease, winning in 2002 at Auto Club Speedway in his 13th career start. But he made Edwards earn his first backflip at Atlanta in 2005 as Edwards won in a 0.028-second photo finish.
Six years later, it was Ambrose, the driver Allmendinger had to fend off for his first win, who shared what many drivers have gone through to get that first win, whether it’s in their first Cup race or their 105th, which was when Ambrose got his win at Watkins Glen in 2011.
“The sacrifices you make, we all make to get here, (crew chief) Todd (Parrott) and all the team, the Petty family, my family to get here, to be a contender in the Cup series, to finally get to victory lane, it just is a dream come true for me,” the native of Tasmania Australia said. “I’ve traveled halfway around the world and dragged my kids and my wife with me, and I kept telling them I was good, but until you can win in the Cup Series you can’t really put a stamp on it.”