Look to Tally Third Consecutive Top-15 Finish in No. 43 Smithfield Ford
Scoring two consecutive Top-15 finishes in the first two races of the season, the No. 43 Smithfield team looks to continue momentum as they head west to Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Fresh off his best Sprint Cup season in 2014, Aric Almirola is having a great start to the 2015 season sitting ninth in the Championship Point Standings.
Almirola has six Sprint Cup Series starts at the 1.5-mile track and scored his best finish of 16th in 2014. He hopes to improve on that and tally his third consecutive Top-15 finish this season. He also has four starts in the XFINITY and Truck Series where he scored three Top-10 and four Top-15 finishes.
Almirola will also experience race conditions in the XFINITY Series race with the No. 98 Carroll Shelby Engine Company Ford. The added track time under race conditions will give Almirola an advantage for Sunday’s 400-mile race.
Fans going to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway will have a chance to see Almirola and “The King” Richard Petty and have a competition of their own. Almirola and Petty will head out to the Smithfield display in the fan zone on Sunday at 9:30 a.m. to emcee fans competing in the Smithfield Pig Out Chase bacon eating contest. Fans can sign up to compete throughout the weekend at the Smithfield display. The winner will win a trip to Miami to compete for the grand prize.
“We’ll be able to apply some of what we did at Atlanta to Vegas. They are both rough tracks. Vegas has a lot more grip than Atlanta, so we’ll have to keep that in mind. We ran well at Atlanta, so I think we can take our notes and apply them to Vegas to get a good finish. Vegas is widening out over the years because the bumps get less as you go higher up the race track. I wouldn’t be surprised if we run from top to bottom on the track this year.
“I’m really proud of our start to the season. We have two Top-15 finishes and are ninth in points. We just need to keep up this consistency, and we’ll be in a good spot. Last year, we started in a bit of a hole, and it was tough to climb out of that. I think it’s really important to get a good start and work to get good finishes throughout the season.”
No. 43 Smithfield Ford
A performance and marketing driven company, Richard Petty Motorsports, co-owned by
NASCAR Hall of Famer Richard Petty and successful business entrepreneur Andrew Murstein, is one of the most recognized brands in all of motorsports. With a history of over 200 wins and business partnerships with national and global leaders, today the race operation fields two teams in competition in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Aric Almirola pilots the famous No. 43 Ford Fusion with primary partners Smithfield Foods, U.S. Air Force, STP, Strike Ten Entertainment and Fresh From Florida, and Sam Hornish Jr. drives the No. 9 machine with primary partners Medallion Bank and Twisted Tea. In addition, Dakoda Armstrong wheels the No. 43 WinField Ford Mustang full-time in the NASCAR XFINITY Series. The team is headquartered in Mooresville, N.C.
