Silly Season is serious business for Wallace
By Dave Rodman, Turner Sports Interactive
October 30, 2001
6:10 PM EST (2310 GMT)
MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- Kenny Wallace is far from inconsolable over his fortunes in the wind-down stages of the 2001 NASCAR stock car season.
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Kenny Wallace
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On the one hand, he’s got a pair of good rides for this weekend’s NASCAR Busch Series and Winston Cup races at North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham. But only the Busch Series ride is guaranteed to continue into next season.
As Wallace battles to maintain a top-10 standing in the Busch Series with Innovative Motorsports and simultaneously tries to compete for wins in the No. 1 DEI Chevrolet in the Winston Cup Series, there’s a lot of uncertainty going on for him.
They don’t call it the Silly Season for nothing. But it’s far too serious for the outwardly happy-go-lucky Wallace to get too lost in the mirth.
"I always get excited when we run good,” he said of last Sunday’s 11th-place Winston Cup finish at Phoenix, as his relief stint for the injured Steve Park continued. “I'd get more excited if I could get solid and know what car I'm going to drive for next year, that's for sure.”
The fall is a time for meeting and posturing and negotiating and maneuvering for the best possible situation for the coming season. For Wallace, those possibilities have all but been eliminated.
That’s frustrating, and somewhat worrisome, he said.
“Here's the situation -- this is a little bit different Silly Season this year,” he said bluntly. “There are no cars that are going to race next year that are available right now.
“Robert Pressley has been rumored to be driving the No. 33 car next year. Well, the No. 33 car has no sponsor -- it's not going to race. The No. 92 Kodiak car has no sponsor -- it's not going to race.
“My name hasn't been out there because I'm not talking to those teams that don't have a sponsor. To me, silly season is over. Robby Gordon is definitely going to drive the No. 31 car because Cingular wants him really bad.
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Mike Wallace pulled in a second-place finish at Phoenix.
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“If the No. 12 team stays open, my brother Mike is definitely going to be in that car. And then there are no other teams left. There are no sponsors and so there's no money.”
It doesn’t mean Wallace has been totally quiet. He has been shopping his options for the Winston Cup Series somewhat -- bolstered by the fact that Innovative Motorsports owner George deBidart has been a staunch supporter.
"That seems to be the No. 1 question,” he said of his immediate job prospects, which are somewhat confusing. “People do two things to me. They tell me how great I'm doing in the No. 1 car and then they say they hope that it leads to something.
“First and foremost, I have my Busch Grand National ride with George deBidart to rely on, totally. If a Winston Cup ride does not come along, I'm definitely going to drive the No. 48 Busch car all next year -- with a handful of Winston Cup races.
“I have one Winston Cup team that I'm supposed to call here this evening and talk to them. And then I have another Winston Cup team that wants to run a limited schedule.
“As you can imagine, this is a hard decision for me to wait while waiting for Steve Park to recover. I want to be there for DEI, and the Wallace family is just kind of waiting and seeing -- taking it down to the last minute on purpose."
He has just now begun to turn things around with the No. 1 Pennzoil Chevrolet, which he has driven since Darlington.
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Kenny Wallace has been in the No. 1 Chevrolet since Darlington.
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And he has been pumped up by the performance of his older brother Mike, who was inserted into Penske Racing’s No. 12 Mobil 1 Ford four races ago. Mike Wallace finished second at Phoenix.
“With me driving the No. 1 car and running in the top-10 and Mike having been pegged as a driver who can't drive, I think we've upset the apple cart,” Kenny said. “People always want to say it's the driver or it's the car.
“The fact of the matter is that Jeremy Mayfield got out of that car and my brother is doing five times as good as Jeremy. The stats are there and you can't question it.
“It's really neat for drivers like Mike and myself who have never gotten in good race cars. I can't stress how important it is to get in a good race car right away because then people think you're a good driver.
“When you get in a bad race car, people question your ability. It means the world to Mike. This has completed his life, his soul. We've talked. This means the world to him. It hurt his pride and his feelings for people to question his ability when he has won an incredible amount of races in the Midwest -- some 200-300 races."
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