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Tampa native Aric Almirola moved one step closer to fulfilling his dream of driving in Nextel Cup on Thursday with the announcement that he will race in two NASCAR Truck series events beginning Saturday at Memphis Motorsports Park.
"It still hasn't really hit me," said Almirola, 21. "Maybe when I go stand on the stage for driver introductions."
Almirola, a member of the Joe Gibbs Racing diversity program who competes in the NASCAR Weekly Racing Series, also will drive the No.47 Chevrolet for Morgan-Dollar Motorsports on Aug.5 at Indianapolis Raceway Park.
Joe Gibbs Racing president J.D. Gibbs said Almirola has the chance to earn more opportunities in truck races.
"We're hoping he can have a little splash here," Gibbs said. "If we get some (sponsors) signed up down the road, next year we will come out swinging and get him a lot more truck and possibly some Busch stuff, kind of lay the foundation."
Almirola has won four times this season racing Late Models in various tracks in the Southeast. Gibbs Cup drivers Tony Stewart and Bobby Labonte have driven the No.47 this season, with Labonte winning at Martinsville. Almirola will have to qualify for the Memphis and Indianapolis races unless qualifying is rained out, at which point he earns entry on a provisional because of Labonte's win.
BACK IN THE CHASE: There is a wow factor these days to see Dale Jarrett's name in 10th place in Cup standings.
Jarrett, the 1999 series champion, has quietly had a solid season, continuing the comeback that began in the second half of 2004.
In 2003, Jarrett won the second race of the season and did not have another top five the rest of the year. He was 26th in the standings - his first time out of the top 10 since finishing 13th in 1995.
Last year began with more of the same, but the No.88 Robert Yates Racing team turned things around the second half of the season, getting four straight top-10 finishes. Jarrett was 48 points short of making the cutoff for the inaugural Chase for the Championship and wound up 15th in the standings.
The 48-year-old began this year by winning the Daytona 500 pole - his first in four years - and has three top fives and five top 10s. Jarrett has been running at the end all 19 races and has failed to complete just 11 laps. But he isn't impressed with his performance.
"The season has been, I would call it average at best," he said. "We haven't, obviously, performed the way that we would like. If we had, then we would be further up into the top 10, but we've had good weekends and then a lot of what I call average weekends."
Jarrett heads into Sunday's race at Pocono trailing leader Jimmie Johnson by 418 points.
Jarrett said it was still too close to call, as far as the Chase is concerned, with 93 points separating him from fifth-place Kurt Busch and 120 from 15th-place Jeff Gordon. The cutoff race will be Sept.10 at Richmond.
"It's going to be a wild seven weeks," Jarrett said.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.