RAB Racing and the No. 29 U.S. Cellular, American Ethanol Toyota Camry driven by Kenny Wallace came into the Iowa Speedway for the U.S. Cellular 250 and Wallace’s 896th NASCAR start. This would mark Wallace’s fourth start with RAB Racing in the 2013 NASCAR Nationwide season, and second start at Iowa Speedway this year piloting the same chassis No. 40 which he finished 13th with in June.
On track activity began on Friday with two sessions of practice for Wallace and the No. 29, the team worked on several long run situations and Wallace was extremely pleased with the handling of his car. In the first session Wallace recorded the second fastest lap, and in the second and final session of practice recorded the ninth fastest lap. Wallace qualified the No. 29 U.S. Cellular, American Ethanol Toyota Camry in the 12th position.
As soon as the green flag flew Wallace picked up a loose condition and was forced to give up track position, relegating him to outside the top 15. The time crew chief Keith Hinkein spent working on long runs in practice paid off, as the tires wore off Wallace began to come back through the field to where he started the race. On lap 59 the team came in to pit for four tires and adjustments to help Wallace on short runs, but had to come back into the pits for an unscheduled pit stop due to a bad vibration in the front tires. The team changed tires again and the vibration went away, but Wallace had lost 2 laps in the process and gone back to the race track in the 28th position. Although with the misfortune Wallace never gave up throughout the night and picked up six more positions on the track to finish the U.S. Cellular 250 in the 22nd position.
Kenny Wallace: Well it wasn’t the day I and my RAB Racing team were hoping of, we had a really fast car that we were all confident in but just didn’t have the luck to go with it. It was a pleasure to have U.S. Cellular on my race car, as well as having U.S. Cellular as the entitlement sponsor for the race at Iowa Speedway. It was a lot of fun visiting the U.S. Cellular stores throughout the week and signing autographs for everyone at their Loyalty Lounge, and I even got beat a few times in go karts but it was all a lot of fun and U.S. Cellular did a great job in planning all the events surrounding he U.S. Cellular 250. It was also great to have my friends at American Ethanol on the car this weekend, especially in a place like Iowa where corn farmers and ethanol is such a big part of the local community. I do know that I’ll be back in an RAB Racing Toyota Camry very soon, and we’ll continue to bring great race cars to the track and show that we have a lot of speed, I’m confident the next time we’ll have a better showing in my 897th NASCAR start.
RAB Racing PR
