RICHMOND, Va. (September 11, 2015) – Perseverance paid off for Bubba Wallace Friday night at Richmond International Raceway. Wallace qualified his No. 6 Roush Performance Mustang 32nd after struggling with handling in a rain shortened practice session. Despite starting at the back Wallace worked his way forward, overcoming a pit road penalty for a crew member over the wall too soon to earn a 14th-place finish under the lights at Richmond.
“It is good to rebound and I just drove hard each and every lap and never gave up,” said Wallace. “These guys, the whole team, never gave up on me this whole weekend. That is really encouraging so I try to do the same. We had an incident on pit road with too many guys over and that cost us two spots, which is disappointing especially when we are racing the No. 18 for rookie of the year. I told the guys on the radio that we will be alright, and we will be.”
Rain washed out part of the valuable practice time the XFINITY Series had on Thursday afternoon. Handling was a challenge for the No. 6 team in the little bit of practice they were able to get in and resulted in a 32nd-place qualifying effort. Wallace made up the lost track position from qualifying right from the start of the race.
The No. 6 Roush Performance Mustang was a little free, but Wallace had worked his way up to 19th by the time the competition caution was displayed to the field. Wallace lost a lap to the leaders on a long green flag run while searching for grip, but was the “lucky dog” recipient when a caution came out on lap 160.
On the final pit stop of the evening while running 13th one of the crew members jumped over the wall too soon and NASCAR issued a tail of the longest line penalty to the team. Despite the setback, Wallace was able to make up one of the lost positions to finish 14th at Richmond International Raceway.
