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10 Questions: Mike Wallace

In conjunction with its season-ending top 10 lists, NASCAR.COM asked a number of drivers to answer the same 10 questions. Thursday: Hermie Sadler

Mike Wallace, the middle of the three Wallace brothers from St. Louis, Mo., scored one of his biggest career wins at Daytona International Speedway last July.

But despite winning the Busch Series Winn-Dixie 250, Wallace, 45, has no definite plans for 2005 beyond driving for Ken Schrader in the Craftsman Truck Series during Daytona Speedweeks.

Wallace sat down between the Christmas and New Year's holidays to answer 10 questions with NASCAR.COM's Dave Rodman.

1. What's your dream vehicle that you don't already own?

It would probably be something like a pimped out (Cadillac) Escalade with some good wheels and some flat screens in it. The kids are pretty big into that stuff, you know?

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So a nice Escalade, ivory colored, 22-inch wheels on it, lowered a little bit, flat screens mounted in all the headsets, a good sound system and some video games in it (would be it).

Sometimes what you saw as a kid is what you want as an adult, so was that the way it was around suburban St. Louis?

No, (laughing) that wasn't even in the era. We weren't exposed to any of that at the time, but both my daughters have got me exposed to that a little bit more and the stuff looks pretty cool, actually.

Other than that, I'd probably like to have me a really cool Corvette, to be honest with you.

2. If time on the road weren't an issue, what would be your ideal pet?

I'm not really big into pets because they take too much work to keep up. So if time was not an issue -- as of recently my family is huge into pets -- so a Golden Retriever was the choice and I'd have to go along with them on that.

3. What's your biggest pet peeve while driving on the road?

The person that runs about 30 miles an hour slower than the speed limit -- or slower than traffic's flowing and in the fast lane. And they just ride along beside someone else and they've got traffic backed up for 30 cars and never get out of the way.

I think that's been a unanimous choice so far, so how come none of these slowpokes can figure it out?

(Laughing) Well, all you'd have to do is look in the mirror and you'd see 30 cars lined up behind you and there's nobody in front of yah.

4. You travel a lot, so what's your worst hotel experience?

Darlington. Actually, it's not Darlington. I guess, Florence (South Carolina). It's across from the Swamp Creek Inn -- or whatever it's called. Gosh, I'm trying to think of the name of the place, but I forget.

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It's horrible that I don't remember, but the incident was in Florence. The problem was, aside from the hotel room being nasty and horrible, was that it was one of the times I didn't have my motor home, recently.

I stayed with the team and we started off and went down into the little restaurant that they had and dinner was absolutely horrible. It took three hours to eat just a simple meal.

We went up to our rooms and turned on the hot water and there is no hot water. The boiler went out and they said it would come back on later, so when you turned the faucet on, mud rusty water come out of the faucet.

And then we didn't have any hot water for a day and half, so that was the worst experience ever.

Did you get a break on the room rate?

Very little (laughing). Very little. It's probably (deserving) to the community in that area that they only have one race, now.

5. What's your favorite food?

Chicken. I just like grilled chicken breasts in different ways. But unanimously that would be it.

6. If you had to choose, would it be being honest, or being nice?

Being nice.

Do you find that that comes around better to you?

I found out that a lot of people that have been very successful in a lot of things (were nice). I've tried the honesty part of things and it backfires on you.

Just being nice and a little full of bull seems to get people a lot farther than being honest.

7. With your two brothers I'm almost afraid to ask this one, but what's your fondest childhood memory?

I think it would just be growing up, in our family. We had so many memories. I think just going to the racetrack as a kid and selling snow cones at (the) speedway in Rolla, Missouri.

Things like that, just growing up and going to the racetrack with my father was a hugely fond memory for me.

8. What would your dream date be? Where and with whom?

My dream date would be with my wife, Carla. What we would do is hop on a private, chartered jet or our own jet and we would fly to some coastal area and get on a helicopter.

The helicopter would then take us, whether we were in the Caribbean or the Mediterranean, from one extreme to another; and it would take us out to a huge yacht with a landing pad on it for the helicopter.

We'd land the helicopter on the yacht and then just enjoy ourselves. We'd have a crew of people waiting on us hand and foot, and her and I would just enjoy ourselves, not having to do a thing.

9. What's your worst prank, either perpetrated by you, or done to you?

To be very honest with you, I'd like to give you some real characteristic thing here, but I can't think of a fun prank that's been pulled either way.

10. What would you consider your "Welcome to NASCAR" moment?

I'm just going to take the good side of welcome to NASCAR, and that was winning my first Busch race, at Dover (Delaware). There are some welcome to NASCAR moments that I don't want to remember and I'm going to forget about those -- that's just in dealing with certain people.

But with Mark Martin, Terry Labonte and Jimmy Spencer lined up behind me for my first win -- that was pretty big time.