NASCAR: The rapidly growing drink brand fueling A.J. Allmendinger

CELSIUS has been around NASCAR for the last several seasons, sponsoring quite a few teams and drivers across many levels of the sport along the way.

The energy drink, which features healthy-energy formulas clinically proven to offer significant health benefits to dedicated consumers and racers, has been a long-time partner of Kaulig Racing and driver A.J. Allmendinger, who spoke to Beyond the Flag about his association with the rapidly growing brand.

"It actually started with my association with Kaulig Racing back in 2019, when I had first kind of come into the race shop, and it was really my first introduction to Kaulig Racing as a whole," Allmendinger stated. "I remember seeing CELSIUS just kind of off to the side, they had a little kind of refrigerator, and they had this product, and, you know, to be quite honest, I had never even seen it before."

After he tried it, he immediately became a fan.

"So I tried it, and really enjoyed it, and kind of asked [team owner] Matt Kaulig and [team president] Chris Rice what this company was all about, and they said that it was just a product kind of thing that they had with the deal with CELSIUS, and it's grown to what you see today, being a part of myself personally, and then really our race team and organization as a product sponsor, first of all, and then obviously on the race car now."

Allmendinger has competed with CELSIUS as his primary sponsor for several years, and he is looking forward to doing so behind the wheel of the No. 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet for years to come.

"That was really my first introduction to it, and I’ve really enjoyed, over this five-year process, five, six years, seeing how much CELSIUS has grown as a company."

But it's not just about how NASCAR has helped CELSIUS to grow; it's about how CELSIUS has helped NASCAR to do the same.

"As you know, and as you've covered motorsports in general, we need a lot of energy, right?" Allmendinger continued. "Motorsports fans are super passionate, very energetic. What's always been great, especially on the NASCAR side of it, is the fact that fans really get connected, whether it's race teams or drivers or manufacturers, they get associated with those products.

"That's what really makes our sport go, is the fact that we have such a great fanbase, and they get into the products that their drivers or teams or whatever get associated with, and they're 100% locked into it. I think that's what's been really fun, seeing the activation at the race track and seeing it grow.

"At the race track, we have the product sitting there for not only team members, but for fans and people who come by to try, so to see just CELSIUS cans kind of all over the race track and people using the product is a big deal, and I think at the end of the day, we grow it together. They help us, and hopefully we help them."

Perfectly timed, just moments before we could ask him just how much CELSIUS factors into his own personal routine, he picked up a can and took a drink.

"I am!" he exclaimed. "So it's every day, between training, or my passion – or let's, how do I say this correctly, my love-hate relationship with golf – I do it almost every day. I like to love [golf], sometimes it hates me, and sometimes I hate it back, but I am out on the golf course every day.

"So whether it's training or out on the golf course, or whatever it may be, I'm a guy who does not do well at sitting around."

That's where CELSIUS and its wide range of flavors comes into play.

"I always have to be doing something, and it's a huge part of my daily life to help kind of push for that energy and keep me going, because I definitely don't let myself rest very well."

Allmendinger, who competes full-time for Kaulig Racing in the Xfinity Series after running full-time for the team in the Cup Series last year, is set to make his next Cup Series start at Sonoma Raceway on Sunday, June 9.

"I'm doing that in the No. 16 car at Sonoma," he confirmed.