I love irony. So here's to you, Team Red Bull, for giving me something to write about this week other than Jeff Gordon ending his 47-race winless streak.

It was announced this week that Richard Petty Motorsports (RPM) had signed a sponsor that will keep A.J. Allmendinger behind the wheel of the No. 44 Dodge until at least September.

Hunt Brothers Pizza will sponsor six points events and the All-Star race in May in Charlotte, guaranteeing the team on the track through the fall Richmond race.

"This is awesome news," said Allmendinger. "I want to thank Hunt Brothers Pizza for coming on board and supporting us. We plan to give Hunt Brothers Pizza a lot to talk about in the coming weeks."

Allmendinger has unquestionably been the feel-good story of 2009 with RPM with a couple of top-10 finishes -- including a third in the Daytona 500 -- for a team that didn't know if they would still be running this late into the season due to their sponsorship situation. Allmendinger is currently 20th in the Sprint Cup points standings (he was 15th before a bad day at Texas last week).

I know, not exactly world-beater stuff but given the expectation and the fact that the guy didn't have a ride in January, it's pretty good.

What makes it even better is if you look at the guy that is currently in the ride that Allmendinger was forced to vacate last year. Scott Speed would love to be in the same position with his Team Red Bull Toyota that Allmendinger is in.

With his team 20th place in the points, Allmendinger is sitting pretty to make every race for a while. Speed, due to finishes of 35th, 41st, 21st, 35th, 28th and one did not qualify, currently sits 38th in the points standings, 124 points behind 35th-place Joey Logano and his guaranteed starting spot. And it's a really slippery slope once teams start missing races like Speed did last week. That guaranteed spot just keeps getting further and further away.

I'm not knocking Speed.

I mean, come on, the guy's name is Scott Speed. That's a perfect racing name. A friend asked me if he was Lake Speed's son. It made me a little bit sad that I didn't think of that.

Anyway, I'm not anti-Speed, I just think that Team Red Bull made a huge mistake by giving up on young Allmendinger last year. His first year of development in Cup racing was stunted by a lack of seat time caused by Team Red Bull being a new team without those guaranteed starting spots. The team showed remarkably little faith in his driving abilities last year, pulling him out of the car for a stretch early in the year for Mike Skinner -- stunting his development as a driver even more -- before he got yanked late in the season. He finished up 2008 with Gillette Evernham Motorsports, which is now RPM, and it was only a little legally-binding contract that kept Allmendinger from replacing Elliott Sadler in the No. 19 Dodge -- a car that is fully sponsored for 2009.

"I think we have shown that we have the ability to run up front in this series," Allmendinger said. "I think you are going to see our results get progressively better the longer this team stays together. We started the year putting an emphasis on qualifying, but now that we are locked in the starting field we can turn our attention to the race and that's going to help our race results."

Speed would love to be able to say that.

But he can't because the guy that his team thought was inferior to him (and everyone else) is kicking his, and his better funded team's, butt every week.

Terrific irony if you ask me.

If you haven't gotten your tickets to the Carolina 500 and the UARA Late Model Race, shame on ya'.

Get them by calling the Rockingham Speedway at 910.205.8800 or by visiting the track online at www.rockinghamspeedway.com. Found out this week that Kevin Harvick is going to be there to wave the green flag.