A 12th-place finish in last Saturday night’s 30th Annual Kroger 200 at Lucas Oil Raceway (LOR) capped off a month-long stretch of solid performances as veteran driver Kenny Wallace captured his fifth NASCAR Nationwide Series (NNS) finish inside the top-12 to close out the month of July. As a result, Wallace, who is driving the No. 09 Federated Auto Parts Toyota Camry for RAB Racing with Brack Maggard, successfully narrowed the point’s gap between himself and fifth-place in the 2011 Nationwide Series driver point standings.
In a summer full of high temperatures and radiating heat, Wallace and the RAB Racing team made their first and only trip of the season to the newly-minted Lucas Oil Raceway, formerly known as Indianapolis Raceway Park. During a “one-day” show in Indianapolis, Ind., Wallace participated in two practice sessions Saturday morning before entering qualifying later in the day. Posting speeds fast-enough to earn the 13th and 17th positions, respectively, during practice, Wallace was able to dig a little deeper during qualifying to pick up the 11th spot on the starting grid for the night’s event.
Taking the green flag in front of over 35,000 fans, Wallace started just outside of the top-10 but dropped two positions to 13th by lap 30. When the first caution waved on lap 49 for debris on the front stretch, Wallace was scored 16th. By lap 60, Wallace had improved to 14th but had dropped to 19th by the time the second caution flew at lap 115. Restarting 19th on lap 120, Wallace worked to stay ahead of the race leader until the third caution of the night brought relief from the heat and gave Wallace and crew chief Scott Zipadelli a chance to discuss changes on the No. 09 Federated Auto Parts Camry while the field was forced to wait out red flag conditions to clear the track.
Racing resumed on lap 183, but after only seven laps of green flag conditions, the fourth caution flag waved. Wallace, who was scored 16th one lap down to the race leader, picked up the Aaron’s Lucky Dog award, improving the No. 09 team to the tail end of the lead lap. With less than 10 laps remaining on the restart, the field would succumb to the fifth and final caution of the night on lap 200 before entering a green-white-checker finish. At the end of 204 laps of racing, Wallace was scored in the 12th-position, rounding out the month of July with four top-10 finishes and a continued hold on the seventh position in the driver point standings.
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