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."

While Wallace was competitive in the Truck and Busch races, he was far from fast in the Daytona 500. It was a miracle he was even in the field -- Wallace passed Sterling Marlin on the final lap of his 150-mile qualifier to earn a spot in the race.

"It not a victory, but it is a moral victory," Wallace said. "We came here and sent a lot of good racecars home that were supposed to be in the Daytona 500.

"We made the 500 by the Duels on the last lap on the last corner and we finished fourth on the last lap and the last corner.

"It was a huge deal. We came here and we were the worst-qualifying car -- 61st. We had a fuel-line problem and raced our way in through the Duels."

During the first 160 laps of the 500, Wallace stayed on the lead lap only after the damaged Dodge of Kyle Petty repeatedly drafted with him, helping him remain on the same circuit as the leaders.

Wallace was one of the final cars on the lead lap until 40 to go, and that is when the rally started. In the final 40 laps, Wallace's run was nothing short of extraordinary -- he raced from 34th to fourth, picking off a car every three miles.

Final lap critical for Wallace, Harvick

Wallace was mired back in 14th with 10 laps to go, but through a combination of attrition and skill, he was sitting sixth when the green flag waved on Lap 200.

There were two laps to go, and Harvick was sitting right behind him and Elliott Sadler was in front of him.

During the 11-minute red flag that immediately preceded the Lap 201 restart, Sadler's spotter, Brett Griffin, made a deal of sorts with Wallace's spotter: Wallace would push Sadler down the backstretch.

No matter what.

"[Sadler] during the break told my spotter, 'Tell him to stick his bumper up my rear end,'" Wallace said. "Well, I shoved him. I don't know if it helped or hurt, but it did fine for us."

Wallace was bumping Sadler on the final lap, but Kevin Harvick was absolutely creaming him from behind.

"Elliott was in front of me," Wallace said. "Everyone had agreed basically during the break [to] stick the nose to the rear bumper of the other guy. Everyone did what they were supposed to do.

"I was sixth going to the restart. I took the green flag, and I was worried about Harvick getting a jump."

Harvick indeed got a jump, but he continued to push Wallace through Turn 1.

"As soon as I went through the gear box, I went to the bottom and he ran into the back of me," Wallace said. "He bumped-drafted me incredibly hard, and I hit [Sadler], and [Sadler] hit whoever was in front.

"He hit me so hard, and he just ended up getting such a run [that] he went to the outside."

After Harvick hit Wallace in the middle of the backstretch, he moved outside Wallace and eventually beat Mark Martin at the line for the win.

"I didn't think he was going to pull it off," Wallace said.