Allmendinger earns All-Star berth

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CONCORD - The all-star undercard, officially known as the Sprint Showdown, went to a couple open-wheel immigrants. It wasn' pretty, though.

A.J. Allmendinger held off Sam Hornish Jr. in a battle to the end in which the runner-up had no incen-tive to pass the leader on the final lap. Both earned berths in the Sprint All-Star Race.

"I feel like I just won the Daytona 500," said Allmendinger, whose best NASCAR finish in a race that counts was 15th place at Lowe's Motor Speedway on Oct. 13, 2007.

Allmendinger's victory wasn't without controversy. Elliott Sadler lost a shot at the big race because Allmendinger's Toyota dumped his Dodge on the seventh lap.

"If you take a look at the replay, you can tell what happened," said Sadler. "The ‘84' (Allmendinger) just took us out. There's a reaon why he gets taken out of that race car seems like every other week. It's a shame. We had a fast car and got into us and took us out."

Sadler's charge wasn't fully correct. Allmendinger took a forced sabbatical, missing five races before returning at Talladega. He has finished 30th, 39th and 27th in the past three races, but his No. 84 failed to make the field at all in the first three races, though one failure came as a result of qualifying being rained out.

"There's no defense," said Allmendinger of the Sadler incident. "That was my fault. I slid up into him. I didn't do it on purpose. I don't want to be known as someone who races like that."

If Allmendinger's victory was an upset, the fan vote certainly wasn't. Kasey Kahne earned a berth in the All-Star Race by winning the vote.

"For us to come through, it's the biggest thing that could ever happen to me," said Allmendinger.