Aric Almirola and the No. 43 Richard Petty Motorsports team will carry the colors of the U.S. Air Force this weekend as the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series marks the Memorial Day holiday and pays tribute to the nation's fallen military. Sunday's Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway is the first of two primary sponsorship races for the Air Force, which is also an associate sponsor on the No. 43 car for the entire 2012 season.
The 600-mile race will be Almirola's first points-paying race in a Sprint Cup car at the 1.5-mile oval. But he's fresh off a seventh-place performance in the Sprint Showdown exhibition race at the track last Saturday, a 40-lap primer that gave Almirola and crew chief Mike Ford plenty of data to prepare for NASCAR's longest race of the year. Almirola also has a top-five and three top-10s in seven Nationwide Series starts and two top-10s in two Camping World Truck Series appearances at Charlotte.
In addition to his on-track activities t...
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May 25, 2012
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