Dinger unleashed: Volume No. 1

This is the debut of AJ Allmendinger on Yahoo! Sports. His column will appear every other Wednesday. Allmendinger drives the No. 84 Red Bull Toyota. Last weekend, he finished 37th at Infineon Raceway.

Hey there, this is AJ, and in case you didn't know, I am named after A.J. Foyt. My dad is a racer, and he wanted to name me after Foyt. He told my mom she could pick the names, but the initials had to be A.J., so I'm Anthony James Allmendinger.

I took away the periods between the A and the J because they slow down the process when you're signing autographs, especially when you've got a last name as long as mine.

Anyway, I'm here to talk about my life in the Sprint Cup Series – on and off the track. I guess we'll start with on the track.

The first thing you have to know about me is that I hate to lose. I hate sucking. I hate losing. I hate struggling. I want to win, and I hope people respect me for that.

If I'm struggling at the track, I'm not the nicest person to be around sometimes, and I'm never going to get out of the car after finishing 30th and say, "Well, that's OK, we'll just get 'em at the next race."

"Well no, this race right now, sucked." That's what I say.

(Fortunately my team, Red Bull, lets me speak my mind, so I can say things like that.)

I don't ever want to be known as a guy who's there just to be there. I want to win. I want to be competitive. I hate to lose. I have more of a passion for the hatred of losing than I do for the passion of winning.

Whatever it is, if we don't finish as well as I think we should have, I'm going to show my emotions. Sometimes that comes out wrong; sometimes that comes out right.

I was big-time pissed off after Sunday's race at Infineon. I got out of the car and left. Sometimes I realize afterward that maybe that wasn't the right thing, but it was frustrating. I'm a road course guy. I want to go up there and be running up front.

We struggled all weekend, but we still should have finished in the top 20 and made up a ton of points on the top 35. I'm tired of having to qualify every week. I've done that for 18, 19 months straight. It's wearing on me. I'm losing years on my life right now. I want to be out of that situation of having to qualify every week and know that I'm going to be in the race. We just threw away a chance to make up points.

Obviously I feel pretty strongly about this because I want to be in the series next year. My first choice is Red Bull, but if not, I want someone to notice me. All I can do is go out there and drive my ass off. There's no lack of trying or lying down in the middle of the race if we're struggling. I may get pissed off on the radio and start cussing about it, but I ain't lying down, I can tell you that.

I know how lucky I am. Sometimes when I hear other drivers complaining about the way things are in the series right now, I think we have to remember we're very fortunate.

I'm not going to say we can't complain because I'm the first guy that'll complain about certain stuff. But sometimes it's a little over the top with how far we take it.

Part of it is that because the sport is so popular, we know a lot of people are listening. But ultimately it comes down to we need to just shut up and drive. If we want to complain about our own car that's not handling well, I'm for it. But in general, you've got what you got and you gotta race it.

I mean, we're only here because of fans and sponsors. And I've been to races where not a lot of people showed up, so when we've got as many people showing up every week and when we have sponsors on the cars, it's important not to be complaining about everything on the planet.

Things are getting better for us in the 84 car. I think I'm gaining more popularity. Fans at least are starting to know who I am, accepting me as a Cup driver instead of an open-wheel guy trying to make it here. I don't necessarily need the attention. I like fading into the crowd a little bit. But I certainly don't mind when fans do know who I am and they ask for autographs, because the worst day is when people stop asking for autographs.

If people don't know who I am, it doesn't offend me. But if they do and they ask for an autograph, that's kind of special. Just don't expect any periods in my name.

That's it for this week. Next time, we'll talk a little bit about my life away from the track.