Mike Wallace took his No. 01 Cowboys & Aliens Chevrolet on one heck of a ride at Road America on Saturday during the NASCAR Nationwide Series race en route to a great finish, and even led some laps along the way.
Once all the mayhem stopped on the 14-turn road course as dusk settled over the track, the smile of Wallace and his JD Motorsports team brightened the area with their career-best road course finish of fifth place. While some might think it was a fluke the St. Louis native finished so well, the team had their pit strategy aligned to accomplish just that for the scheduled 50 laps, but didn’t end that way.
After qualifying 25th, Wallace and owner Johnny Davis discussed their pre-race strategy and figured if the cautions and pit stops could go their way, they could leave the Wisconsin track with a commendable finish.
And, they were right.
Wallace rode in the top-15 positions for much of the race and broke into the top-10 just before the halfway point. By using early pit stops under green and caution, Wallace wheeled his way past his competitor’s and stayed out of trouble.
His efforts and pit strategy paid off when he took the lead on lap 37 to show the way around the twisting and turning course. He would hold that lead for two laps before having to hit pit road for tires, fuel and adjustments.
From there, it was a matter of survival and having enough fuel to go the distance. Great driving by the veteran and the pre-determined pit strategy combined for the perfect recipe for success as the drama of the race played out.
With three green/white/checkered finishes, cars crashing each other off the track and pushing others into gravel pits, Wallace simply utilized his veteran guise to avoid the mayhem. By doing so, he would gain more positions in the last six laps of the race to earn his first top-five finish at a road course, and his best of the 2011 season, in his No. 01 Cowboys & Aliens Chevrolet of JD Motorsports.
In other good news on the Wallace family front, his daughter, Chrissy, won her second Late Model feature race of the season at Lebanon (Ill.) 44 Speedway. She did so by making a last-lap pass of the leader to grab the checkered flag. Coming into the event, she was second in points.
Mike Wallace returns to action at Daytona International Speedway next weekend looking for his second NNS win at the 2.5-mile oval. This will also be his 399th-career NNS start; he is 13th in Driver’s Points, trailing 14th by just one marker..
Mike Wallace Quotes: “You’re not going to believe this, but I told some people we were going to earn a top-five finish this weekend at Road America. I know some of them thought I was probably kidding or crazy, but that was the plan we had laid out.
“We just went with our plans and knew – as long as nobody else ruined them – we could leave Road America with a great finish like this. We took a gamble by pitting off sequence in the early going and it worked out.
“We knew if it came down to a green/white/checkered finish that we would be good to go. When it came down to three of them, I just kept racing as hard and smart as I could to keep what we had going. Heck, we even led some laps under green and earned ourselves some TV time and bonus points. We have a good car for Watkins Glen now and we’re looking forward to see what we can do there, too.”
JD Motorsports PR
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