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NASCAR Veteran Aramendia Leading Late Models At Houston

A NASCAR racing veteran from Texas is determined to contend for the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series championship at a first-year Texas track this season.

Joe Aramendia, 46, of San Antonio, Tex., is the current NASCAR Fiesta Pro Late Model division at the beautiful Houston Motorsports Park. The .375-mile banked paved D-shaped oval featuring concrete surfaces in the turns joined the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series this year.

Aramendia has been competing at tracks throughout the Lone Star State and at various levels of NASCAR for more than two decades. His brother, John, has been with him through the journey, and has also enjoyed a longtime friendship with Larry Bendele and his son, fellow NASCAR Late Model driver Brandon Bendele.

Brandon Bendele is a two-time NASCAR Whelen All-American Series regional champion in 1999 and 2001. When NASCAR sanction for Houston Motorsports Park was announced for 2009, Bendele and Aramendia immediately found a new Saturday night racing home, even though the state-of-the-art track is a three-and-a-half-hour tow from San Antonio.

“I won the last track championship at San Antonio in 2006 and got to go to the series awards banquet, so we want to be a contender for the first NASCAR track championship at Houston,” Aramendia said. “We’re glad to be racing with NASCAR again.

“I race for trophies and championships. We really want to do well at Houston. We started out knowing we were running for points. We’ll see how it works out.”

Aramendia credits his brother, John, for sustaining his longtime competitive career.

“John is as enthusiastic about racing as I am, and his support is a big part of our success,” Aramendia said. John operates Aramendia Plumbing Company in San Antonio.

The primary car for Aramendia’s 2009 campaign is a Ford Fusion based on a Lefthander chassis owned by Frank Gabrysch of San Antonio. Crew chief for the team is Keith Riethmeyer and the car chief is Homer Pittner. John Aramendia is the team spotter. Rounding out the team are B. Moczygemba, Carolyn Aramendia and Jenner Pittner. The Ford horsepower is provided by a track-mandated crate engine.

Car sponsors include Premier Minerals, Aramendia Plumbing Company, Royal Purple Synthetic Motor Oil and Gullo Toyota. The Aramendias own a backup car based on a Port City chassis.

In 1988, Aramendia began his racing career in the Charger division at the now defunct San Antonio Speedway, a fast half-mile high-banked NASCAR-sanctioned oval in his hometown. He won the division’s championship in 1991.

With the help of Larry Bendele, the track’s 1992 Super Street division champion (and father of future San Antonio star Brandon Bendele), Aramendia advanced to the tough NASCAR Late Model division in 1992. He spent the rest of the 1990s as a regular in weekly Late Model racing, finishing as high as fifth in the track points race. He also started branching out to compete at other tracks and did some touring races within Texas.

Aramendia joined NASCAR’s former Elite Division All Pro Series for Super Late Models in 2002. He enjoyed a competitive season finishing sixth in points with a best finish of third at Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway. He also finished fifth at Memphis (Tenn.) Motorsports Park.

With brother John as owner, Aramendia ran selected NASCAR Nationwide Series events in 2003 with a best finish of 20th at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth. He moved to the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series in 2004, again as a co-owner/driver, and posted a best finish of 25th at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway.

In 2005 he returned to full time NASCAR Late Model racing at San Antonio and recorded his best career points finish of second. In 2006, San Antonio Speedway’s final season, he won the Late Model division championship on the strength of 11 wins in 16 starts. He placed 12th in the NASCAR Whelen All American Series Division II points standings.

Aramendia spent the next two seasons traveling to a variety of Texas tracks in 2007 and 2008 before finding a new home track at Houston Motorsports Park.

Above, Brandon Bendele works on his car at Houston Motorsports Park. Photo courtesy of Bendele family.

Fast Friends

Aramendia and Bendele have been fast friends for more than two decades. Bendele’s father, John, a former driver himself, mentored Aramendia when he started out racing at the former San Antonio Speedway in 1988. For 2009, the Bendeles and Aramendia are racing on the same track, in the same division, for the first time in several years.

“Brandon and I got together once on the track this year. We were battling pretty hard, and it was nothing intentional,” Aramendia said. “We race each other with respect and we try to race everyone the way we’d like to be raced against.”

Brandon Bendele, 34, who once worked for a summer at Aramendia’s plumbing business while in school, agrees.

“We’re good buddies but we’re fierce competitors on the track,” Bendele said. “We have a lot of respect for each other, but competition drives us.”

Bendele has had a challenging season at Houston so far in 2009 and was seventh in points standings at the end of June. Despite the disappointments, Bendele is very happy to be racing at Houston Motorsports Park.

“Houston was one of the first Texas tracks to adopt the crate motors, and their schedule for the oval is every other week. That makes racing there affordable and enjoyable,” Bendele said. “My wife, Nikki, and I have a two-year-old daughter, Karsyn, so the schedule is great for us.

“I think the crate motors help us put on a better show for the fans,” he continues. “They’re still fast and you can run them hard. You still have to work at it to pass someone. Our (feature race) starts are inverted, so getting to the front is great from the fans’ perspective.”

Bendele drives the Select Transportation Resources/S.H.Y. Suspension Ford Fusion owned by Bob Garwood of Houston. He is employed by Terracon, a facilities services company specializing in comprehensive roofing and waterproofing consulting.

Bendele has great memories of his two NASCAR Whelen All-American Series regional championships, which fuel his desire to do well at Houston in the long term.

“I’ve had that experience twice, and I can tell you NASCAR really knows how to take care of their champions. At a champion’s dinner leading up to one of the banquets, I was seated next to (NASCAR President) Mike Helton. Those are great memories.”