Rusty Wallace gives son Steve a few tips during a testing session at Daytona International Speedway earlier this month. Credit: Turner Sports Interactive/Dave Rodman

Another generation of racers takes to the track

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Rusty Wallace and Len Wood are just like any other dad when it comes to giving their sons every possible advantage to advance their racing careers.

While 19-year-old Steve Wallace and 22-year-old Keven Wood were testing ARCA RE/MAX Series cars at Daytona International Speedway last weekend, their fathers were busy supervising and participating.

	Stats at a Glance Steve Wallace's 2006 Busch stats Race Start Finish Bristol 3 33 Nashville 35 12 Richmond 20 28 Dover 9 38 Nashville 28 15 Kentucky 7 11 Milwaukee 5 25 Martinsville 11 35 Gateway 4 31 O'Reilly 26 30 Michigan 16 24 Dover 9 21 Kansas 19 24 Memphis 28 20 Texas 37 31 Phoenix 36 16 Homestead 9 22 Average 17.8 24.5

Wallace went so far as to take several practice laps Sunday in Steve's car, to confirm what the teenager was reporting about its handling.

It was Wallace's first time in a stock car at Daytona since the 2005 Pepsi 400, though he did run the Rolex 24 at Daytona last Speedweeks.

"He hasn't been to Daytona," Rusty Wallace said of his son. "He has been flying everywhere else we've taken him but I just want to make sure when he comes down here [to race] he has a good handling car.

"I got in the car. It ran real good, the motor ran good but it drove a little too free for me. I told Steve, 'In order to race this thing, you're going to have to tighten this thing up. You only have a couple hours of practice, go out there and make these changes I suggest and tell me what it does.'

"To him, if feels pretty good but to me it needs to be a little bit tighter to be stable in a long run. That's just the fatherly advice I'm giving him."

While overseeing his race team and shepherding several potential team sponsors for two days, Wallace was usually wearing a grin last weekend.

Wallace, who retired as a driver after the 2005 Nextel Cup season to serve as an analyst for ESPN's racing coverage, hopes his advice helps.

"I know what works here and what doesn't work here," Wallace said. "When I got in the car, it came right back to me -- it was like I just got out of it yesterday, it didn't feel any different."

Before Steve Wallace drives in the Busch Series Daytona 300 on Feb. 17, he'll drive a similar Dodge Charger in the Daytona ARCA 200, scheduled a week earlier.

"I've never run here [so] this is for sure my first laps around this place [and] I'm real excited," he said. "My dad has run here a lot [but] with me just starting out in Busch and ARCA, it's very cool to be here.

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"It's a great opportunity and I'm glad that I'm here. I've been racing since I was seven years old, I've worked hard all my life to get to this point [so] this is pretty cool to be able to get on Daytona."

The younger Wallace competed in a mixed-bag schedule of Busch and ARCA races last season in preparation for his first full Busch schedule in 2007. He showed plenty of speed, winning a league-leading four poles and three races in eight ARCA starts and scoring nine top-20 finishes in his 17 Busch races.

Even though his father made nearly 90 starts in Cup cars at Daytona, Rusty Wallace scored only one victory, in the 1998 Budweiser Shootout. He also won the 1989 Daytona round of the International Race of Champions.

"Dad was always running good," Steve said. "In the 500, he led a bunch of laps and had a bunch of chances to win but blown motors, wrecking and all kinds of stuff would always happen to him and put him out of contention.

"I'd like to [make it up]. That's everybody's goal in life, to win the Daytona 500. I'd really like to do it. That's what everybody comes here for -- to be a champion of the sport and win as many races as you can. That's what I'm going to try to do."

The Woods came to the test with one of the family's older Nextel Cup Ford Fusions and a mixed bag of Wood Brothers/JTG Racing crewmen -- including Craftsman Truck Series crew chiefs John Monsam and Gary Cogswell.

The aces up the younger Wood's sleeve were his father, who's spent a lifetime literally in the engine bays and around Cup stock cars while accruing 12 Cup victories at Daytona and the team's Nextel Cup driver, Ken Schrader.

Schrader took the young driver around the track in a street car, and then ran the No. 19 Ford's first laps on Friday to establish a baseline set-up for Wood to work from since, before getting out on Daytona, Keven Wood had never competed on a track bigger than a half-mile, where he raced Legends cars and Late Model Stock Cars.

Keven Wood expects to run a full Late Model Stock Car schedule in 2007, with plans to move up the ladder in the future. Credit: Turner Sports Interactive/Dave Rodman

"I think the word Daytona says it all," Keven Wood said. "It's as big as it gets. I've tried to look at it as another racetrack and just get in the racecar and do what you do in the racecar.

"You don't really notice the speed, because these cars are stuck to the ground so good and it's not a big deal to go as fast as we do -- but it's Daytona and that's an eye opener in itself."

Len Wood, one of the co-owners of Wood Brothers/JTG Racing with his brother, Eddie and Tad and Jodie Geschickter, said he wasn't sure if his son would begin laying his Daytona foundation in less than two months.

At the very least, he said, Keven's test was designed to give both he and the family team a head start on 2007.

"We're down here kind of doing a pre-Cup test," Len Wood said. "It's so crowded and time consuming trying to get out on the racetrack when we come back with the Cup car, we decided to do an ARCA test and try some tail pipes and stuff like that."

At Daytona, the younger Wood said he anticipated primarily running NASCAR Late Model Stock Cars this season at Motor Mile Speedway near Radford, Va.; South Boston Speedway; and Caraway Speedway in Asheboro, N.C. -- three tracks within two hours of his family home in Stuart, Va.

"We'll pick among those tracks each week," Wood said, "but we may concentrate on Motor Mile because they have the best car count and there are a bunch of tough racers there.

"We also have a deal to fly out to Irwindale, where a car owner has a Super Late Model I'll be able to drive some."

He also may compete in the odd ARCA race. Len Wood said, if a sponsor stepped up, he might enter his son in the ARCA 200.

"I'm doing stuff like this to get him ready for the first opening [that we're able] to stick him in," he said.

For his part, young Wood was thrilled to be back in a racecar at Daytona only six-and-a-half weeks after anterior cruciate ligament surgery on his left knee, from an injury in a mid-October pickup soccer game.

Although the damage occurred mid-game, Wood finished the match and his injury's severity was not immediately apparent. It went undiagnosed for several weeks, and in the meantime Wood continued Late Model racing.

Wood finished sixth in the Mid-Atlantic Championship 350 at Caraway the night before his surgery on Oct. 30. So Daytona was the icing on his cake as Christmas approached.

"I love it, I think it's great and I think I'm hooked," Wood said before making his final mock qualifying run. "It'd be great if we could come back here and race, but we need everything to come together before we can do that.

"But as long as we got these guys what they needed [in the test] that's all that matters."