Young Wallace hopes past success translates at Iowa (NASCAR.com)
July 31, 2009
The Nationwide Series races at Iowa Speedway for the first time Saturday in the U.S. Cellular 250 (4 p.m. ET on ESPN2), but it's like a homecoming for Steve Wallace.
"I've got a lot of laps around Iowa," Wallace said. "It's a really cool, awesome track, so clean and new."
Wallace won an ARCA race in 2006 at the .875-mile track in Newton. He's competed in three other races and done lots of testing on it, including in a Nationwide car before NASCAR instituted its testing ban this season. There were never any problems scheduling track time at Iowa, which was co-designed and is partially owned by father Rusty Wallace.
There are a handful of other drivers entered in this race who have competed at Iowa, including Nationwide points leader Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick, and any advantage Wallace has from his experience at Iowa will be minimal after two days of practice.
Wallace has other sources of confidence that he'll run strongly. He finished a season-best fifth last week at O'Reilly Raceway Park, his sixth top-10 of the season. Wallace is eighth in points.
"It's going really good," Wallace said. "I'm really excited about our season. We've had a lot of strong runs. We've been running real consistent. We've got those top-10s and [seven] more top-15s. I understand these cars, how to drive them and how they're supposed to handle to go fast. I've raced these things enough to know how to get them handling. If your car isn't handling, you're going to be slow."
Wallace has shown tremendous improvement in his third full season in the series. He was 14th in the points with two top-fives and seven top-10s running an entire 35-race schedule in 2008 and didn't have a top-10 in 34 races in 2007. Wallace crashed often in the previous two seasons and was parked by NASCAR for rough driving in one race. He's been a more mature driver this season, almost eliminating what had been termed his "stupid" driving.
"I sort of feel like I was thrown to the wolves the first year," Wallace said. "My dad had a Nationwide car and he wanted me to drive the car. I had won in ARCA, won in Late Models, and it's a tough step for anybody."
Steve Wallace says Rusty Wallace Racing has made big steps, too, in the past three years.
"The team started in 2004 and from 2005 to 2007, it was somewhat a decent Nationwide team," Wallace said. "We had decent money, but we didn't hire the right people. Now, we've got really strong people, good sponsorship dollars and we're strong."
Wallace says adding Trip Bruce, who was crew chief for Johnny Benson's championship team in the Camping World Truck Series in 2008, to be his crew chief on the USfidelis Chevrolet in June has made a big difference.
"Trip has helped me a ton," Wallace said. "He brings a lot to the table. Trip wanted to test a lot and we've been testing a lot. We went to Pikes Peak [International Raceway] right after Milwaukee. It drove just like my dad's track, the banking and shape of the track is similar to Iowa, but the asphalt is worn out. It was a great test to prepare for Iowa."
THREE TO WATCH
Carl Edwards, No. 60: Edwards shaved 20 points off points leader Kyle Busch's points lead with a win last week at ORP, but he's still 192 behind. Edwards did have five wins in the final 11 races of 2008, so he still could make a comeback.
Michael Annett, No. 15: A native of Des Moines, Annett holds the distinction of having run the most competitive laps at Iowa among Nationwide Series drivers, and he'll have plenty of fans in the stands rooting for him. That should give him a chance at his third top-10 this season.
Stephen Leicht, No. 29: Richard Childress Racing's Leicht has three top-10 finishes in six races, and two others no worse than 13th. He runs better at intermediate tracks, so this short track will be a challenge for him.
TRACK CHATTER
Jason Leffler: "I'm happy that we were able to participate in the Goodyear test in May and get a good feel for the track. It went really well. You can't really compare this track to anywhere else we go throughout the year. I had thought it would be a lot like Richmond, but it's a lot bigger than I thought and has a different surface. With only four cars on the track, there was only about a lane-and-a-half of a groove, but once we have 43 cars out there this weekend, it's going to get a nice second groove built in."
Chad Walter, crew chief for Justin Allgaier: "I am looking forward to going to Iowa Speedway. We tested there [in May] for Goodyear which gave [our] team an edge over the competition. Justin has raced there three times in the ARCA RE/MAX Series so he knows what it takes to be successful. It is a great track. You will see side-by-side racing all day long. It is imperative to have a strong qualifying lap. Just like at all the short tracks we visit, being up front is paramount."
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