Fuel Gamble Pays off for Kenny Wallace

Kenny Wallace and RAB Racing with Brack Maggard earned their second consecutive top-10 finish of the 2011 NASCAR Nationwide Series (NNS) season last weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with a 10th place finish in the Sam’s Town 300. Wallace qualified the No. 09 Federated Auto Parts Toyota Camry 15th for the 200-lap race and spent the majority of the day in the top-15 before a fuel-mileage gamble by Crew Chief, Scott Zipadelli, earned him a top-10 finish, advancing Wallace to eighth in the NNS driver point standings.


After two test sessions on Thursday and two scheduled practices on Friday during the three-day Las Vegas stint, where Wallace consistently posted speeds in the top-5, the RAB Racing team came ready to race on Saturday morning at the 1.5-mile track. Going out 13th for Nationwide Series qualifying, Wallace posted speeds quick enough in the No. 09 Federated Auto Parts Camry to take the 15th starting position.


In the opening 50 laps, Wallace fell back to 25th place before regaining nine spots to 13th by lap 70. Wallace brought the No. 09 Federated Auto Parts Toyota Camry to pit road for the first time during the third caution between laps 101-103. Zipadelli and the RAB Racing team worked quickly to make adjustments on the handling conditions before sending Wallace back out to restart 13th.

Over the final 80 laps of the Sam’s Town 300, Wallace remained solidly inside the top-15, running as high as eighth, before Zipadelli made the call to start conserving fuel in order to make it to the end without pitting. Wallace was forced to slow down in the closing laps, but was still able to score his second top-10 finish in only the first three events of the of the NNS season.


“It looked like we had ourselves a 13th place car all day and at the end we were 14th on the end of the lead lap,” Wallace said. “My car was better on the long runs, [but] I couldn’t go real fast on the short runs. I got up to like 11th and then [Zipadelli] said, ‘Okay, you have to save fuel.’ They told me I had to let off a second a lap. So, I was running like half to three-quarter throttle. Two weeks in a row a top-10. That was the hardest thing I had to do, was let two cars pass me. It was a deal where we could have probably finished eighth or ninth, but we might have ran out of gas. The pay off was to get a points base laid down and get the year rolling, so this should help.”


After two successful weekends on the West Coast, Wallace and the RAB Racing team will get a well-deserved week off before heading to Bristol Motor Speedway with primary race sponsor, the University of Northwestern Ohio, on March 26th, for short-track racing action in the Scotts Turf Builder 300.

 

RAB Racing PR