I left Advance recently, just ahead of these cuts apparently. Agree with other comments, the Carquest acquisition was a disaster - looking back AAP really got nothing from the integration: in my region, at least 75% of the knowledgeable Carquest people left the organization in the 12 months following the deal, AAP did not take advantage at all of the expanded distribution footprint (remember 5x delivery?) and morale was an ongoing problem.
Store sales targets were random, you know that if you'd had 2 good years of beating target you'd pay the price in the third year with unachievable targets. I had stores that were running a 10% or better comp and still missing target, when the company as a whole was running a flat sales comp. AAP will be acquired by someone, these numerous stumbles have been disastrous and AAP lags behind it's competition with Wall St.