Dinger Wins Autosport Award

[TedN]

Link

Monday December 6, 2004
US Champ Car star voted in by autosport.com users

AJ Allmendinger has been voted the autosport.com rookie of the year. The 23-year-old American ended the season sixth overall in the Champ Car World Series standings with two podiums and finished top rookie.

Allmendinger was voted by you ahead of new Ru-Sport team-mate Justin Wilson, IRL star Darren Manning, F1's Christian Klien, Nextel Cup ace Kasey Kahne and BTCC Seat driver Rob Huff.

"It's been great for me," said Allmendinger. "I've had a lot of success but I've had a lot of good people behind me. Paul Tracy has been a good influence.

"Carl Russo has spent a lot of money on me and I have cost him a lot on damage! But it has been a great year and a lot of great things happened. Champ Cars is a great series right now with a lot of people in it that want to spend a lot of money.

Allmendinger said he is looking forward to the challenge of having Wilson as a team-mate in 2005: "He is going to tower over me, but hopefully not on-track," joked Allmendinger. "I had a great time racing with him this year. He is going to try and steal my thunder but I don't want to let him."

[StickShift]

He went up against a pretty weak group in his category... even then, I think Kahne should've won.

[Kicking-back]

I don't think Huff and Kahne represent a weak group.

Huff in particular was mightily impressive this season.

[BootsOntheSide]

Interesting that they've defined Manning as a rookie, when the IRl doesn't due to his CART experience.

I think AJ was probably the right winner here. Considering that his whole team moved up, I think he acheived more than Kahne. Although Huff was impressive, his results were slightly flattered by the BTCC's reverse-grid system, and his sole victory was a tad fortunate. I'm not sure whether he was better than Wilson, as Conquest was underfunded and seemed to run short by the end of the season, but I guess he probably was - 2005 might answer that one. Congratulations to AJ - he proabbly doesn't fully appreciate what a greatly prestigous honour this is.

[Snrub]

I paid zero attention to Nascar this year (normally I have at least a clue what's going on) so I can't really comment on Kahne, but I have a hard time believing anyone had a leg up on AJ.

In Manning's case the term "rookie" isn't fair, but he did seem to need to learn a few things before getting comfortable. The IRL's always defined people as rookies who didn't deserve it. Recall back when drivers started crossing over to do Indy, a number of CC drivers have been refered to as rookies when clearly they were more experience and had more ability than their competition. ABC would play it up too, "how will rookie Montoya fare against this competition?!!?" No one could have guessed at that outcome.

[BootsOntheSide]

Being a rookie for the IRL is dependant on your overall racing experience, irrespective of whether that was in the IRL. Being a rookie for the Indy 500 is completely seperate, and purely depends on whether you've started the Indy 500 before. For Snrub's benefit I'll reiterate that for the IRL, a driver with a year or more of CART experience doesn't count as a rookie.

[Amar7605]

Congrats to AJ! May this recognition bring forth great things in the future

Having said that, Casey Kahne could have won this as well. I am not a NASCAR fan, but he did show a lot of promise. He will be the next star. And I will go out on a limb by saying that if Kahne had won a race this year (or more races in case he did win one... I am not sure), he would've won this award.

[Kicking-back]

Bear in mind this was voted on by Autosport readers, who're mostly in the UK - it's very unlikely a NASCAR driver would win it.

[N I Tram]

Precisely KB - ultimately these people gave the International Driver of the year award to Jenson Button (zero wins) as opposed to Michael Schumacher or Tony Kanaan.

As for the rookie award, I think AJ was the right winner. I'd be amazed if he doesn't win races in 2005.

[rustyfan]

Some info on Kasey Kahne - In 36 races he had 15 top-five starts (including four poles) and 13 top-five finishes (including five second-place finishes). What the stats doesn't show are the numerous races when he had, by far, the strongest car and was well on his way for a win when a flat tire or some other mechanical gremlin robbed him.

I fully expect Kahne to win races next year.

[Snrub]

That's interesting about autosport. When I read about Button I was quiet surprised. He had a solid season, but why him? That said I definately wouldn't have voted for MS or Kannan.