After Speedweeks, it's wait and see for Wallace

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Mike Wallace has been racing in NASCAR long enough to recognize when he's had a great Speedweeks at Daytona International Speedway, and top-10 finishes in all three of the final weekend's main events certainly qualifies.

But he's enough of a competitor to feel frustrated by the fact that the Winston Cup Series will continue next weekend at North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham without him.

Wallace's program with James Finch's Phoenix Racing is for only five races, with sponsorship from the Miccosukee Indian tribe from South Florida.

	Mike Wallace shares a moment with Bill Elliott. Credit: Autostock

"It's discouraging for me," Wallace said. "It's very exciting as far as the Speedweeks part of it goes, but it's discouraging to me knowing I'm going to Rockingham next weekend and not having a Winston Cup car to drive.

"Everybody tells me there's things for a reason, but I don't understand any of that stuff because I think I'm fully capable of doing the job real good for anybody in a Cup car."

Despite a constant sprinkle, Wallace was basking in the glow of a ninth-place finish in Sunday's Daytona 500. He posted the best finish of the three Wallace brothers -- all of whom drove Dodges -- despite giving up a position to fellow Dodge driver Jeremy Mayfield in the run to the final caution flag.

"It has been a great weekend for me, with three top-10s -- four if you count the 125s," Wallace said. "That would be a great week for anybody (and) only Dale (Earnhardt) Jr. could beat those standards."

Wallace started the weekend with a sixth-place finish in owner Ken Schrader's Federated Auto Parts Chevrolet in Friday's Craftsman Truck Series Florida Dodge Dealers 250. He then finished fourth in Fred Biagi's GEICO Pontiac in Saturday's Busch Series Koolerz 300.

He almost couldn't leave well enough alone Sunday.

"I wish we could have raced to the end -- I really do," Wallace said. "Because we had an opportunity to do better, but we had the opportunity to get torn up, as well.

"You've got the best 43 teams in the world here and the best 43 drivers in the world, and we finished ahead of 34 of them. I'm real excited about it."

Wallace would have been more excited if he had won the race. His owner, a Florida panhandle businessman, had told him all he wanted after the 500 was the winner's trophy -- Wallace could have all the purse money, which would have exceeded $1.3 million.

"I wish I had a shot to play that out -- it was a huge one," Wallace said. "These guys have been great to work with. They're all serious racers."

Wallace said he races more for the enjoyment than the money, but he had offered incentives to the Phoenix Racing crew in return.

He promised crew chief Marc Reno a new Dodge Viper if they won the 500 -- and also planned to bestow a new car on car chief Johnny Allen -- and said he was going to parcel some of the purse money out to the other team members, as well.

Now Wallace hopes the team's good run leads to an addition to the five-race plan Finch and the Miccosukees had originally laid out, including the four plate races at Daytona and Talladega Superspeedway and the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

"You never know," Wallace said. "The folks from the Miccosukee Gaming Resort were here this morning and they may want to do some more races yet this year, so this five-race deal might turn into more than that -- we'll just have to wait and see.

"I think we ran respectable today. We were towards the front all day, top 10 or top 15, so I think all in all when you put an effort like this together, well, it's a good race team even though it's not a big race team."