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"Well, Michigan is a great place to win, no doubt about that," Wallace said. "But with the losing streak that I've got going on right now I don't give a crap where I win to tell you the truth.
"Whether it's at Roger (Penske's) track, or whoever's track, I just want to win. I'm tired of being out of Victory Lane. It's embarrassing.
"But we were quickest in Happy Hour today, we were third quick in the second practice session and our Dodge is running strong. We've got a hell of an engine in this car, and I know we can win at this racetrack. We sure can.
"We've been so close all year long. I don't think I've gone this long in my life without a race victory. We've been so close so many times, but we'll get it. I know we'll get it. I'm determined as hell to get it, and we'll see if we can't pull it off this weekend."
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The 2-mile D-shaped Michigan track, which used to be co-owned by Wallace's car owner Roger Penske, has been kind to Wallace in his career. He has five victories here to go along with 15 top-five and 20 top-10 finishes in 39 past races.
Wallace won the first pole of his career here in 1987, and his victory in June 1988 was the first superspeedway victory of his career.
"Strategy racing will be the key at Michigan again," Wallace said. "Whoever gets their car up front and wins the fuel mileage race will be in good shape. We did a lot of fuel mileage testing in Happy Hour, so we feel like we're up in the game there. You've got to run at least 50 laps to get in the fuel windows.
"We brought out car No. 51 this weekend. It's the car we had here in the spring, and it's one of our better high-downforce cars. It's a really good hot-rod, and I'm really happy with it."
Dale Earnhardt Jr., who qualified 19th, was second to Wallace in Happy Hour at 180.709 mph. Third was Kurt Busch at 180.678, followed by Jeff Green at 180.628 and polesitter Bobby Labonte at 180.582.
The rest of the top 10 were: Ryan Newman, Michael Waltrip, Tony Stewart, Jamie McMurray and Greg Biffle.
Happy Hour was interrupted twice, once by debris on the track and then by Jeremy Mayfield's shredded right-rear tire. The tire went down on Mayfield's car in Turn 4, and by the start-finish line, it had come apart. The flapping rubber destroyed the right-rear quarterpanel, and Mayfield limped to the garage area.
"I came off Turn 4 and evidently ran over something," Mayfield said. "(Mike) Skinner said he'd seen something. I didn't see anything. All I know is it blew the right-rear quarterpanel off if it, blew the pretty little Dodge logos off the right side. We were real fortunate not to hit the wall."
But by the time Mayfield had stopped in the garage, his crew was loading the back-up Dodge from the team's hauler.
The car was prepared well enough that Mayfield was able to get nine laps in the back-up car before Happy Hour ended.
"The guys did a great job," Mayfield said. "We came back, and they had the back-up car out. We warmed it up, put shocks on it and went back out. I was as fast or faster in my back-up car."
Jimmie Johnson led the first practice at 183.833 mph, followed by Labonte at 183.795, Wallace, Kevin Harvick and Sterling Marlin.
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