Mike Wallace and the No. 01 G&K Services Chevrolet started their day off at New Hampshire Motor Speedway by qualifying 22nd for Saturday’s NASCAR Nationwide Series race.
And, for the early going of the 200-lap event, he was maintaining a solid running position right where he qualified, too. The native of St. Louis used his veteran poise to stay right where he needed to be in order to take advantage of the slip-ups by other drivers.
Despite going a lap down early, Wallace and team were in that perfect position to take advantage of the Free Pass rule on the third caution and return to lead-lap status. From there, he would advance into the top 20 and then top 15 with less than 20 laps remaining.
The only issue the team was battling was a tight condition through the relatively flat turns of NHMS. With his sights set on a top-15 finish, the No. 01 Chevrolet was running right there when the fate of his race changed with four laps to go.
A car ahead of him was taken out by another and Wallace put his veteran ability to use and pretty much avoided the wreck as other cars started to spin. However, the No. 67 of Andrew Ranger didn’t slow down and ran into the back end of the No. 01 G&K Services machine at a high rate of speed.
This forced the No. 01 into other cars causing damage on the back and front end of the car. In all, there were seven cars involved in the incident. This forced an extended trip down pit road to repair the damages to Wallace’s Chevrolet and try and finish the race. With too few laps, they were relegated to an undeserved 27th place.
As a result, Wallace remains 12th in the Driver’s Standings, trailing 11th by two markers, as the series heads to Nashville Superspeedway this coming Saturday.
“We had a fairly average day going in our No. 01 G&K Services Chevrolet and were just trying to get better to be there at the end. The way things looked, the worst we were going to do was finish 15th with about five laps to go.”
“Then, that seven car crash took place right at the end and we got hit so hard in the back end that we were tossed into someone else. That was totally unnecessary for that to happen. And, this team didn’t need to end our day the way we did after working so hard for a commendable finish.”
JD Motorsports PR
