Wallace plays key role in Daytona outcome

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Mike Wallace entered Speedweeks with little chance of making the Daytona 500 field. He ended it by playing a substantial role in deciding the race's outcome.

It was Wallace's No. 09 Chevrolet that Kevin Harvick used to help author his out-of-nowhere, Earnhardt-esque, final-lap charge.

Not that Wallace minded all that much. The shove from Harvick gave Wallace enough momentum to enter Turn 4 with power to spare, and his Phoenix Racing entry made it through a final-lap crash to finish fourth.

Fourth. In the Daytona 500.

It was a major victory for the team with the tiny shop located not in the sport's Charlotte, N.C., hub, but 90 minutes away in Spartanburg, S.C.

"It is a great story for us," Wallace said. "They can go home to Spartanburg and say, 'We did it.'"

Phoenix Racing's glass-fronted shop, originally built in the 1990s for the Busch Series team of Buckshot Jones, only has the resources to run a handful of Nextel Cup efforts a year, and the team always makes it a point to attempt Daytona.

The decision netted the team more than a half-million dollars.

For a driver who entered 2007 with just two top-fives in 184 starts, Wallace has always been beyond comfortable at Daytona, where his more-famous sibling, Rusty, never won a points race. It is Mike, 47, who has enjoyed the best moments of his career in these 500 acres situated four miles from the Atlantic Ocean.

In short, he knows how to guide a stock car in the draft.

"I just like it, I understand it and I pay attention to it and I focus on it really hard," Wallace said. "I wish I could lie to you and say I could see air, but I don't.

"I understand what it does. If I can have a car that is close to get me in the race, let me handle it from there. I would love to come here with a fast car one time."

Wallace's last top-10, which came in 2005, was in the Pepsi 400 at Daytona when he finished eighth. In 2003, he entered all three of NASCAR's major events at DIS and came away with top-10s in all of them.

As Speedweeks 2007 approached, Wallace again entered the Truck, Busch and Cup events. He had a fast truck Friday night before a crash on the first lap sent him packing. In the Busch race, he ran in the top 10 for the majority of the event until running out of gas on the final lap.

"[Saturday], I was incredibly disappointed. To run out of gas on the final lap was an incredible blow," Wallace said "The only thing I am really disappointed about was the Truck race. I got taken out on the first lap in a truck that I thought could win the race." (Continued)