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What Can We Expect From Rusty Wallace Racing in 2013?

rusty-wallaceRusty Wallace Racing will return in a limited schedule in 2013, but what can we expect from this race team? Steve Wallace will be behind the wheel of the No.66 car beginning at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. The team will announce later what other races they will be running and Rusty Wallace hopes that the team will be able to run at least 10-15 races in 2013.

What does this mean for Steve Wallace’s career though? Wallace ran just one race last season in a car that he and his friend fielded themselves, but Wallace had a decent finish in 11th. I think it would be a good idea for Wallace to move away from his father’s race team, but who would pick up Wallace in this economy? I think he could potentially have a better future with another team on those circumstances.

In their most recent year, Michael Annett and Wallace finished ninth and tenth in the final points standings. Annett moved on to Richard Petty Motorsports and enjoyed his most productive season in his career. The team just isn’t stable enough in my opinion to really be effective. But Steven Wallace is in a really delicate position. No one contacted Wallace for work last season, which just emphasized how hard this economy has been on NASCAR drivers and owners. As you know, Rusty Wallace temporarily shut the team due to lack of sponsorship.

Steven is still young and still has a chance to move up to the Sprint Cup level, but his time is running out.

Rusty Wallace Racing has fielded cars on the Nationwide tour since 1985, winning four times, the most recent with Jamie McMurray in 2004.

DuPont Says Goodbye to NASCAR and Jeff Gordon

Photo Credit: Noel Lanier
Photo Credit: Noel Lanier
Photo Credit: Noel Lanier

Jeff Gordon’s No.24 Dupont Chevrolet. How many times have you heard Jeff Gordon say that over the course of his soon to be 21 year career? Many times. But the season finale at the Ford Ecoboost 400 this past fall was officially the last time we will hear Gordon utter those famous words. DuPont has been a familiar sponsor in the NASCAR garage area since Gordon made his debut during the 1992 season finale at the Hooters 500 at the Atlanta Motor Speedway in what was Richard Petty’s final race as a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series competitor.

What does this mean for Gordon? Well, DuPont was bought out by Axalta Coating Systems for nearly $5 billion and they have since stated that they will remain committed to Hendrick Motorsports and Jeff Gordon. For Gordon fans, it certainly is going to be a hard transition after 20 years, and myself included. Axalta will sponsor Gordon for 14 races in 2013. The only races that have been confirmed to be sponsored by Axalta for this upcoming season are Texas and the season finale in Homestead. The 22 remaining races will continued to be sponsored by AARP and the Drive to End Hunger.

“While these are big changes for us, our commitment to the No. 24 team, Jeff Gordon and NASCAR remains the same,” Axalta President John McCool said in a statement. “We are proud to continue our sponsorship of the No. 24 team and Jeff Gordon in 2013.”

Rick Hendrick also made a short statement today saying that the new Axalta brand is made up of the “the same folks who have spent more than two decades executing one of the most successful sponsorship programs in sports.” And the win at Homestead has to feel 50 times more special for Jeff Gordon and Hendrick Motorsports as they sent off DuPont with a win in their final NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race together and in the special paint scheme, which also happened to be Gordon’s first career victory at Homestead. It was just a great night all together as Brad Keselowski became the second driver in NASCAR history to win his first championship in just his third full-time season on the circuit. Guess who was the other driver? Jeff Gordon! Crazy.

Carlyle Group was the business that purchased DuPont for nearly $5 billion late last year. They also own a variety of businesses including Hertz, and Dunkin’ Donuts.

Dalton Wins All 3 AMS Championships on iRacing

Dalton Baldwin does a burnout after winning the AMS Truck Series race at Chicago, his 6th straight win on a 9 race win streak.

In what was an utterly dominating season, that saw Dalton Baldwin visit victory lane a total of 34 times after starting from the pole an outstanding 35 times in the 60 points races held, DB sat on top of the points standings in all 3 series.  That’s right, all 3 series.  Dalton dominated the points standings from the opening weeks, even after being suspended from the first race for an altercation in last seasons finale.  Even the equalizing, chase style format that NASCAR uses couldn’t stop Dalton in the AMS Cup Series and Truck Series, and the Nationwide Series was all Dalton’s from the minute he started to pull away.