View from the Top

Atlanta marked a career first for AJ and the No. 84 team - their first laps led in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series.

During a long caution on lap 233, crew chief Ricky Viers opted not to pit with the other lead lap cars and Allmendinger stayed out on the track to lead the first lap of his short Cup career, which garnered five additional bonus points. These points of course are very valuable for the teams outside the top-35 in points who are trying to end the season as high up in the points as possible. Of course, it also just felt nice to see the No. 84 on top of the board for the first time!

AJ's response? “Wow, can we get a picture of the pylon up there. That looks good!”

As you can see we did get a picture, AJ. His comments were met by lots of smiles and cheers from his pit.

Brian has already proven he can run up front by leading laps in several races this year - he has a total of 96 laps led for the season. And by the way AJ has been running the past few weeks, he isn't far behind. We hope this is forshadowing of things to come for Red Bull Racing in 2008.