STEVE WALLACE / 5-HOUR ENERGY RACING NOTES: THURSDAY AT DAYTONA

–No. 66 Team Strong in Final Practice, No. 77 Team Gains Valuable Experience–

DAYTONA BEACH, FL (February 17, 2011)–With the final practice session for the NASCAR Nationwide Series now concluded, Rusty Wallace Racing’s Steve Wallace (No. 66 5-Hour Energy Toyota Camry) and teammate, Michael Annett (No. 62 Pilot / Flying J Toyota Camry) appear to be among the contenders in Saturday afternoon’s 300-mile event.

After blistering lap speeds by Wallace, Annett and others approached or topped 200 mph in Wednesday night’s practice, NASCAR took aggressive steps after each of today’s two practices to slow the Nationwide Series cars for Saturday’s race.

Opting to spend the vast majority of today’s sessions on single car runs rather than drafting, Wallace posted the 21^st-fastest speed in final practice.  However, the 23-year old wheelman says that today’s speed charts are almost irrelevant.

Noted Wallace, “You can’t read anything at all from the speed charts at restrictor plate tracks, especially with all of the rules changes they threw at us today. Those charts are pretty much useless, other than just to give something for everyone to talk about.  You never know who was drafting, making qualifying runs or even something in between.

“What I do know is that we have a really fast 5-Hour Energy Camry here this weekend.  Our 5-Hour Energy team and the No. 62 team both worked really hard in the offseason and it has really showed down here.

“We spent almost all of today just working on making our car faster, rather than risking getting caught up in a crash.  I’m excited to see what we have in qualifying tomorrow and in Saturday’s race.”

Although the week has been smooth sailing thus far for his Nationwide Series team, Wallace’s Sprint Cup team (No. 77 5-Hour Energy Toyota Camry) faced a bit of adversity today, following the second of the two 150-mile qualifying races for Sunday’s Daytona 500.

After cracking the top-ten with just six laps remaining in the race, Wallace was caught up in a multi-car accident, set off when the No. 60 car of Todd Bodine-running directly in front of Wallace-appeared to clip the apron of the track.  Bodine’s car then shot up the surface, collecting both Wallace and another car.

Despite moderate damage to the No. 77 Camry, Wallace’s Larry Carter-led team has elected to remain with the primary car for Sunday’s race.  The team will spend Friday enacting repairs to the car, before getting back on track for Saturday’s final practice session.

Said Wallace, “I definitely learned a lot more about drafting in these cars today.  In addition to some technique, I also learned that it’s all about who your partners are.  We started towards the back, so we had a hard time getting paired up with a fast car at the beginning of the race.  Luckily, there were a couple of cautions and we were able to get lined up with faster cars towards the end; it made a ton of difference.

“By the end of the race, I felt like I had a lot better handle on the two-car draft-especially on how to get pushed-and we were moving forward really fast.  You could really feel the pace and intensity of the race pick up in the last 10-15 laps. 

“I get along with Todd (Bodine) and a lot of those guys at Germain (Racing), so at the very end, I was really trying to help them get in the race.  We went down in the corner and he was sideways before I really even got back on him; it looked like he clipped the apron or something.

“It’s just a product of the style of racing we have down here right now.   With all of the pushing you have to do and how fast the closing rates are on slower cars, it just causes this kind of thing to happen. 

“I hate it for everyone involved-including our sponsors, like 5-Hour Energy and Aspen Dental.  Luckily, we didn’t have too much damage to the 5-Hour Energy Camry.  We’re going to spend Friday working on it and it’ll probably be even better than before by the time final practice starts on Saturday.

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About Rusty Wallace Racing, LLC

North Carolina-based Rusty Wallace Racing (RWR) is a professional auto racing team steeped in the legendary history of its founder, Rusty Wallace-one of NASCAR’s top-ten drivers of all-time.  The team currently campaigns the No. 66 and No. 62 Toyota Camrys in the prestigious NASCAR Nationwide Series, driven by Steve Wallace and Michael Annett, respectively. RWR entries have been among the top-ten in the final Nationwide Series driver or owner standings in each of the last three seasons.  For more on Rusty Wallace Racing, please visit the award-winning rustywallace.com.