Darrell Wallace Jr. Finishes Sixth in Backup Car - Speedway Digest

15 minutes into the opening practice session of the year for the XFINITY Series, Darrell Wallace, Jr. lost control of his car and slammed the outside wall. This forced his team to bring out the backup car, knowing that there was still three hours left of practice and not having another car to work with.

After starting 12^th in Saturday’s Powershares QQQ 300, Wallace found himself among the lead pack for the majority of the afternoon. There was one instance in which the No. 6 had lost the draft, but as the checkered flag waved he crossed the start-finish line in the sixth position.

“It’s really like a win for us,” Wallace said after the race. “As much as we’ve worked this offseason to get where we need to be, we still have a long way to, but the car was okay. It needed a little bit of work, but we’ll build off this. It feels damn good to come out of here with a finish.”

With a sixth-place finish, Wallace currently sits second in the championship standings, three points behind Elliott Sadler.

Comparing his restrictor-plate finishes from last year to this one, Wallace out did all of his performances. In 2015, his best finish on a plate track was 12^th in the season opening race at Daytona.

This race was special for Wallace because of how hard his team worked all day Friday. He felt that after his crash in practice that he let his team down, essentially making them earn their money.

“I’m not going to say it was a blessing, but I’m glad it happened early in practice,” he said. “We had enough time to get to run some laps in the second and third round of practice. They never gave up. They never gave up all day today.”

Wallace came into the new season with a resurgence and vengeance on his mind. He wants to perform well and has caught the eye of some of the top Cup Series drivers.

“Dear Selfeo, you have a star in that car,” Kevin Harvick said from the broadcast booth. “Stick with him.”

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Dustin Albino

Dustin is a 20-year-old, currently studying journalism at Ithaca College. Albino has always wanted to report on NASCAR and beginning at the end of 2014 that is exactly what he did with Speedway Digest. Since that time he has become well-known around the garage area and is looking to attend even more races than he did in 2015. Twitter: @DustinAlbinoInstagram: @dustin_albino