news and notes.
THE STORY: Steve Wallace heads to Las Vegas this weekend looking to right his 2011 championship campaign after a pair of mechanical issues-a flat tire in Daytona and a suspension failure in Phoenix-in the first two events. Wallace looks to be a good bet in Sin City, as the 23 year-old has shown speed on Las Vegas’s ultra-fast oval and had one of the high points of his early 2010 campaign come at Las Vegas.
STEVE WALLACE AT LAS VEGAS: Steve Wallace has qualified among the top-15 in all four of his career starts at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, tying him for the sixth-best average start among entered drivers with multiple starts at LVMS. He scored his first Vegas top-ten finish in last year’s event, marking his third straight top-ten to open the 2010 season.
the machines.
TEAM 66 PRIMARY: RWR-050–Rebuilt for 2011, RWR-050 competed in the 2010 events at Michigan and Charlotte, with Wallace at the helm.
TEAM 66 BACCUP: RWR-052–Named the 66 team’s backup in all of the COT races to date, car 052 made its on-track debut with a lead-lap top-15 finish at Daytona in July 2010, when a bizarre practice incident saw unsecured ballast from a backmarker strike the front of the No. 66 team’s primary car.
your weekly energy shot.
DID YOU KNOW? Original 5-Hour Energy (packaged with red label) now comes in five flavors: Pomegranate, Grape, Berry, Orange and Lemon-Lime! Extra Strength (black label) comes in Berry and Decaffeinated (blue label) in Citrus.
WELCOME SMITH’S FOOD & DRUG: 5-Hour Energy Racing welcomes Smith’s Food & Drug Stores as a partner for the Vegas event. Smith’s branding will adorn the TV panel of Steve Wallace’s No. 66 car for Saturday’s race.
from the cockpit.
Q: You’ve had a couple of unfortunate mechanical issues to start the year. How does that change the way you approach the race and the season overall?
A: “From my perspective as the driver, it changes nothing. You go to every single race trying to win and do the best you absolutely can. That’s the bottom line. I know we have fast race cars and good people; I’m not losing confidence in that at all. What it does is make you want to work that much harder. I know that none of us are satisfied with what’s happened in the first two races, not me, Larry Carter, Doug Randolph or anyone else. We’ve just got to work hard to dig ourselves out of a little bit of a hole.”
