a transcript in part from Wednesday’s Penske Racing media teleconference with AJ Allmendinger, new driver of the #22 Shell-Pennzoil Dodge, and Tim Cindric, Penske Racing President. No terms were made public in the announcement that A.J. Allmendinger was named the new driver of Penske Racing’s #22 Shell=Pennzoil Dodge for 2012, the question was asked in the teleconference:
MERRILL CAIN: Good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining us on this special Penske Racing media teleconference. I’m Merrill Cain with Penske Racing, and we were excited to make the announcement earlier today that AJ Allmendinger has joined Penske Racing and he will take over as driver of the #22 Shell-Pennzoil Dodge Charger in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series in 2012. It’s certainly an exciting announcement for AJ and for Penske Racing, and we’re happy to be joined today by AJ as well as Penske Racing President, Tim Cindric.
Q. You guys have made a couple references to how quick this all happened. Can you detail exactly how quick it did happen as far as when was the first time you talked or made contact or anything like that?
TIM CINDRIC: “I’d have to go back and try and understand the past 48 hours to give you a detailed minute by minute. From A.J.’s perspective, it’s certainly been a situation in which he knew that a lot of things were really centered around whether or not his existing team could put a program together. You know, as far as putting a deal together, that’s all transpired in the last 24 hours at the most. The rest of it was just the same noise that you guys have heard and him really trying to find out what their direction was within the 43 program. All that happened in a very short period of time.”
Q. And then I understand this is a one-year deal. What are the expectations as far as whether the relationship would continue? Does AJ need to make the Chase or need to win races or anything like that that you feel you need to see from him to keep going in 2013?
TIM CINDRIC: “I’m not sure where you heard it was a one-year deal or who said that. But from our perspective, any of these programs as we look at them â this is a performance business. Within every organization I think you set up gates and different areas that you have to get through from a performance perspective. As AJ said, there’s a lot of things that really weigh into that decision, and for us we want nothing more than to go forward on a long-term basis and have the two guys we have drive for us for a long time. We’re not going to get into exactly what all those gates are, but his program is certainly set up for the long-term, and if we realize our potential, I think he’ll be our driver for more than one year. We just need to continue to build on the successes we had before and ensure that we can give he and Brad the kind of equipment that they need to run up front, and I think the rest of it will take care of itself.(Penske Racing, see full transcript at dingerworld.com)(12-22-2011)
