The Wide World of Dirt

Something I’ve seen come up a couple times in recent years is the discussion of what makes a NASCAR Hall of Famer.

Suffice to say, it’s a polarizing topic.

There were people that were ardently opposed to Dale Earnhardt Jr being a first-ballot Hall of Famer this past year.

Let’s briefly look at his resume:

He’s tied with HOFer Fred Lorenzen for 32nd all-time in Cup Series wins with 26. He finished top-10 in points 7 times in his ~18-year career, including four finishes of 5th or better.

He won two Daytona 500s, which only 11 other drivers have done. Ten of his wins came on superspeedways, putting him in elite company with his dad in the category.

Junior also claimed a victory in the Bristol night race and two victories at the Firecracker 400 in his career, and that’s just the Cup Series.

In Xfinity, Junior is a two-time champion and tied for 10th all-time in the series in wins at 24, but his lasting contribution to the sport has been as a talent scout.

Though he never claimed a Cup Series title as a driver, his two Xfinity Series teams, Chance 2 Motorsports and JR Motorsports, have brought forth a bevy of Cup talent.

Among them are Cup champions Martin Truex Jr, Brad Keselowski, and Chase Elliott while also hosting other talented drivers such as Tyler Reddick, William Byron, and the topic of this piece, Aric Almirola.

In my personal opinion, the positive influence you leave on the sport is just as important as your results, and though Dale Jr is a HOFer on just his results alone, he became a first-ballot HOFer because of his immense influence on the industry.

With that said, let’s turn our attention to Aric.

Aric’s statistics aren’t exactly breathtaking, but they are rather respectable when put into proper context.

In his over 400 Cup Series starts, Almirola has racked up 3 wins, 28 top-5s, and 91 top-10s with a career average finish of 19th.

Almirola’s Cup career got off to a rocky start with a faltering Dale Earnhardt Inc. where he shared a ride with veteran Mark Martin and fellow newcomer Regan Smith.

After a merger with Ganassi in 2009, Almirola’s team lost funding, and he was out of a ride. He managed to scrape and claw his way back to Cup after a successful stint with Billy Ballew Motorsports in the Truck Series.

Almirola’s only full-time Truck season with Ballew in 2010 was flush with success, winning two races and finishing the season second in points.

That took him to Dale Jr’s Xfinity team in 2011 where he put up respectable numbers, and after a limited schedule with Richard Petty Motorsports in 2010 proved fruitful, the King gave Aric a ring to run the famous #43 for 2012.

Almirola held the hallowed seat for six seasons and put up impressive results in the equipment he was given. Despite a carousel of different teammates, Almirola remained the lone constant, only finishing outside the top-20 in points twice.

In the first year of the Playoff format, Almirola claimed his first victory at the rain-shortened 2014 Firecracker 400 in Daytona while giving the 43 its 199th win.

Though they fell out in the first round after a blown engine at Chicago and a bad run at Dover, the team was able to carry that momentum into the next season, earning the best average finish since teaming up and finishing 17th in points.

2016 was a down year for RPM as a whole, with Almirola and teammate Brian Scott only registering one top-10 each all year.

Despite a hot start in 2017, a terrifying back injury held Almirola out for seven races and put him out of Playoff contention.

Almirola saw the writing on the wall with RPM and sought out a better ride for 2018, and he found a home with Ford powerhouse Stewart-Haas Racing.

Replacing the retiring Danica Patrick, Almirola and sponsor Smithfield took on the #10 team, and after a consistent regular season performance, they locked themselves into the Playoffs on points.

Almirola and the #10 team cranked it up a notch in the postseason, finishing worse than 13th only once on the way to a career-best 5th-place points finish.

The Playoff run included doing a burnout at Talladega, winning the race after teammate Kurt Busch ran out of fuel in turn 4 on the final lap.

The following season was even less consistent, nabbing a top-10 in only one-third of the 36 race schedule, but Ford made the switch to the Mustang from the Fusion.

The change affected the whole team as Kevin Harvick was the only SHR driver to log a win that season compared to all four SHR drivers winning the year before.

In addition, the much-maligned NA18D high-downforce, lower-horsepower package also came into effect in 2019, making it more difficult for drivers to work their way through the pack due to the prevalence of dirty air.

Almirola put in his most consistent performance to date in 2020. With teammate Kevin Harvick lighting the world on fire, Almirola caught a few embers, snagging a top-10 in half of the season’s races and locking himself into the Playoffs on points.

Aric became almost notorious for his good fortune in 2020. With the Covid-19 pandemic relegating qualifying to a lottery, Almirola started outside of the top-10 only six times in the 26-race regular season.

The #10 team finished in the top-10 in every race of the first round, vaulting them to the Round of 12 for the second time, but that’s when their fortunes turned sour.

In the final seven races, Almirola found his way to the top-10 just once when he logged a 7th-place run at Martinsville. The late-season slide resulted in a 15th-place points finish for the Florida native.

Outside of one bright and shining moment at New Hampshire in the summer, the less said about Almirola’s 2021 season, the better.

Coming into the weekend 27th in season points, Aric needed a win to make the Playoffs, and after waiting out the rain, he methodically worked his way to the front, passing Matt DiBenedetto with 20 laps to go to win his third career race.

Almirola’s Loudon triumph was the only victory for Stewart-Haas in 2021, and while the #10 team made the Playoffs, they were a non-factor in the first round when they were unceremoniously bounced.

Citing a lack of quality time with his family, Aric announced his retirement at the end of the 2022 season, the first year of the NextGen car.

Almirola returned to his early RPM form, scrapping to stay in the top-20 in points while putting in respectable performances.

This led to him deciding to return for 2023 after having a more intense discussion with his family, but it seems like 2023 will likely be all she wrote.

His 2022 season featured a 20th-place points finish alongside two top-5s, seven top-10s, and his 4th career pole at the Bristol Night Race.

You might be asking yourself: Why did he bring up Almirola’s stats? Doesn’t that make him look worse and more mediocre?

If you’re strictly a stats person, then yeah, that’s probably how it looks.

Almirola is 1 of 110 drivers to win three or more Cup Series races, and while yes, that is a lot of drivers, consider that there have been over 3200 drivers to start a Cup race.

That puts Almirola in the top 3% of Cup drivers all-time.

Almirola is also a member of an exclusive 41-driver group to win in all three national series during their career.

He spent much of his career elevating mediocre equipment until 2018 when talent met engineering, winning a race and coming a few spots short of putting himself in the Championship Four in his first year with a new team.

But, the real reason I think Aric Almirola is a Hall of Famer is his historical impact on the sport, and on the surface, it doesn’t look like he’s done much.

In the early 2000s, former NFL defensive lineman Reggie White took a significant interest in NASCAR and contacted car owner and former Washington Commanders head coach Joe Gibbs to talk about starting a diversity initiative.

The very first driver of that initiative was Aric Almirola.

In collaboration with JGR, NASCAR’s new Drive for Diversity program also came to the aid of Almirola who hails from a family of Cuban descent.

Almirola’s success at the Cup level allowed NASCAR to continue building the Drive for Diversity program over the last 20 years, and its graduates currently populate the Cup field today.

In fact, D4D alumnus Kyle Larson took the series by storm in 2021, winning 10 races and earning his first Cup Series title.

Bubba Wallace (who replaced Almirola at RPM) found victory lane for the first time in 2021, becoming only the second Black driver to win at NASCAR’s highest level.

2016 Xfinity Series champion Daniel Suarez planted his flag in the ground (or taco, perhaps) in Sonoma in 2022 when he won his first race at the road course.

Obviously, there’s no way to tell for sure, but without Almirola proving himself at the Cup Series level and becoming a contender, there’s no telling where the program is today.

And if you’re here to tell me that the Drive for Diversity initiative gives minority drivers a leg up on underfunded white drivers or whatever, save your breath. I’m not trying to hear that bullshit.

As we approach Almirola’s final season (again), I wonder how he will add to his HOF resume, but one thing is for sure: his legacy in NASCAR is already set in stone.