Concord, NC (June 4, 2008) – As the first half of the NASCAR season begins to wind down, Mike Wallace and the GEICO Racing team find themselves in a good place. The driver is sitting 9th in the point standings and is coming off a string of good runs, which most recently included his 8th place finish at Dover last weekend.
Sure, it would be easy to point out that Wallace and the #7 GEICO Camry finished 25th at Darlington and 22nd at Charlotte, however it would not be indicative of his actual performance. In Darlington, he was sitting in position to record a Top 5 finish before a melee under a green, white, checker finish found the GEICO Camry more resembling a pinball than a race car. Charlotte would be more of the same story. While the finishes were less than desirable, Wallace ran both of those races solidly around the Top 10, even in the Top 5 at Darlington, before disappointment set in on the final laps.
“We’ve worked really hard to run well every week and put ourselves in position to win races, and I feel as though we’ve been successful at that,” Wallace said from his North Carolina home. “This Germain Racing team has worked really hard week in and week out to prepare the #7 GEICO Camry and I think you can see that it’s really paying off. We’re showing what the driver and team can do and we will continue to do it until we’re all standing in Victory Lane.”
Next up for the Gecko? Nashville Superspeedway on Saturday Night. 7:00 p.m. Eastern, on ESPN2.
“We had a good run today and we’re glad to bounce back after having two tough races where the GEICO Camry was taken out on the final laps at Darlington and Charlotte,” Wallace said. “We had a consistent weekend and ran well in the practice sessions and the race. The driver probably got a little bit conservative in qualifying, but when the green flag waved we showed how good the GEICO Camry was. I’m happy to record another Top 10 for GEICO, Sport Clips and Smith Transport.”
He continued, “This Germain Racing team did a great job and we’re looking forward to getting to Nashville next week. We’ve got a good run going and Nashville is going to give us the opportunity to make up ground in the points chase.”
Wallace started his race week off by visiting GEICO’s corporate office, which is located just 100-miles from Dover, on Thursday afternoon. He met with GEICO’s top executives and presented them with his driver helmet from the 2007 season and thanked them, as well as GEICO’s 20,000 employees, for their support over the years. After all, Wallace and the Gecko have shared a lot together, including a trip to Victory Lane at Daytona in 2004.
Wallace must have enjoyed his visit to GEICO’s office and whatever they said he must have liked because when he arrived in Dover he wanted to go fast. And he did.
This week, the Germain Racing team heads to Nashville, Tennessee, where Mike Wallace and the GEICO team will attempt to pick up ground in the point standings, where they currently reside in the 9th position.
Mike Wallace and the #7 GEICO Camry will hit the track at Nashville Superspeedway for their opening practice session on Friday, June 6th, at 6:00 PM (ET), with the final practice session being held at 7:45 PM (ET). Qualifying will be held on Saturday afternoon at 3:35 PM (ET).
The Federated Auto Parts 300 presented by Dollar General is on Saturday, June 7th, and it will be televised live on ESPN2 beginning at 7:00 PM (ET), while the Motor Racing Network (MRN) will carry the live radio broadcast.
History shows Dennis Setzer (No. 18 BHR-V Dodge) as the only North Carolina-born driver to win a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race in Charlotte.
Setzer, from Newton, N.C., won in 2004 and is the only Tar Heel winner in NASCAR national series points competition at Lowe's Motor Speedway since Dale Jarrett's UAW-GM Quality 500 victory in 1997.
That's a far cry from earlier eras when names like Petty, Baker, Parsons and Earnhardt dominated.
The birth of the Craftsman Truck Series in 1995 aided the rush of non-southern and off-oval competitors into the sport. Only one champion -- the late Bobby Hamilton -- was born south of the Mason-Dixon line.
There have been three Sprint Cup races so far in 2008. These races have shown Ford Motor Company’s potential for success and disaster in NASCAR’s top series. Ford drivers have the potential to win any race. They showed that at the end of 2007 when Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle combined to capture four victories in the final 13 races. However, the problem with the three top Ford drivers is that there are only three of them. Ford has found itself in a position of being out gunned every time the green flag drops.
By Richard Allen
Roush Fenway Racing maintains five Sprint Cup teams, a number that will soon have to be reduced to four. Of those five teams only the three of Kenseth, Edwards and Biffle appear to have the ability to contend on a weekly basis. David Ragan has never seemed comfortable in the Sprint Cup series. Jamie McMurray has shown flashes of brilliance, like his win last July in Daytona, but has been far from a model of consistency.
Once powerful Yates Racing, which has brought Ford a championship and numerous victories, is currently campaigning two cars, one of which is partially sponsored and the other is not sponsored at all. The organization’s last win was in 2005 at Talladega when Dale Jarrett was ruled to be in the lead after a late race caution fell.
Another former powerhouse for the blue oval brand, Wood Brothers Racing, has brought itself to the brink of extinction by holding on to its glorious past for too long. The company remained in its Stuart, Virginia shop long after all other competitive teams had based themselves in the Charlotte area. Also, the Woods have stuck to the single car approach rather than go the multi car route with virtually everyone else.
Casey Mears won his first Nextel Cup race at the Coca-Cola 600 when he stayed out while the leaders came in for a quick splash of fuel. It's no secret Mears didn't have the best car that night, but his team managed the fuel situation better than the others. The question is, should winners be determined because they have nothing to lose and can gamble on fuel?
I don't know about the rest of you, but after five-plus hours of racing in Charlotte, I was actually standing in front of my TV for the final laps of the Coca-Cola 600. Aside from the Daytona 500, I don't think we've had a better finish to a race then what we saw this weekend, and yes that includes Martinsville.
Complaints are at an all-time high about NASCAR staging races, throwing phantom debris cautions to benefit guys like Jeff Gordon and Johnson. Well for once we didn't have that. It was great to see the final 50 laps run under green, not interfered with by the dreaded yellow flag.
Take absolutely nothing away from Casey Mears in Sunday night's Coca-Cola 600. He drove his butt off, the team made some great decisions on pit road and he deserves a trip to Victory Lane more than nearly anyone in Nextel Cup. There's something right about a Mears winning a race on the Memorial Day weekend. Plus, who would have expected names like Yeley, Petty, Sorenson and Vickers to pop up in the top five? All five of those cars ran well all night and deserved to be on the lead lap. But top-five finishes? Get real.
Do you really want to see cars coasting around the track well off race pace, trying to conserve an extra gallon of fuel? Remember Phoenix, when nobody would get out of line because they were so worried about not having enough fuel to make it to the end? I wouldn't call that exciting racing.
I'm with Bill. I love the possibility of gas mileage coming into play. It is a part of motorsport. It is a very big part of racing in other sanctions such as F1 where the whole field is very seldom bunched up by a full course caution. It gives young guns their furst shot and old dogs with good long run set ups another shot at glory.
The question is not who is fastest? If you like that go drag racing. The question is who can cover a set distance in the least amount of time with pit stops, tire wear and gas mileage included?
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