Wallace's 10th-place run in Mexico proves he belongs

If you want to maintain an overly narrow perspective, sure, it might be hard to look at a 10th-place finish and call it a "career defining moment." But hey -- Steve Wallace has only had 61 races in the Nationwide Series -- so if that's what he says; cut him some slack, already.

Truth be told, young Wallace's 10th-place in the fourth annual Corona Mexico 200 at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez was pretty danged impressive.

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"It was a breakthrough deal for me," Wallace said. "We've had a lot of fast cars in the last two years, and finally got a top-10, thank God. I really feel like, now, the good stuff will finally come."

The wait for that first top-10 had been agonizing for Wallace, who debuted in the series at the end of 2005 by qualifying 11th and finishing 15th at the rough and tumble Memphis short track. The promise of that start was a long time to be fulfilled, and Mexico was an unlikely place for it to happen.

Number one, there's the racetrack that not only Wallace -- who at age 20 has only raced four times on a road course in his equally young career -- but the other 42 competitors had to face. The kid had not even made a lap on a road course since finishing 34th after wrecking out of the Zippo 200 at Watkins Glen.

Trust me, after making one Sunday morning lap in a pace car, and then another about 20 minutes before the race on the back of a flatbed -- guaranteed, at a much slower speed -- it's now no secret to me how agonizingly technical this 2.518-mile circuit is.

True, the three-quarter-mile frontstretch, about the longest the Nationwide Series sees in a season, gives you time to take a breath. But the corner at the end of it, as one of only two really legitimate places to overtake, has some added difficulty in negotiating it.

Everything else on the circuit involves a balance in keeping your car on the correct line, so as not to ruin your entry into the next wiggle.

Wallace did that, for 80 laps and never once made a big mistake, though Brad Coleman accused him, based on hearsay evidence gathered at the airport, as Coleman contemplated an amazing recovery from getting spun and knocked back to 32nd, before he charged to 16th.

But getting back to Wallace, he beat all six Mexican entries, who all had more experience there than he did; he beat the pole sitter, road race wunderkind Colin Braun; he beat road race instructors Boris Said and Chris Cook; and he beat former champions with a varying degree of road race experience, Sam Hornish Jr. and Brian Simo.

And, he also beat his specially-imported teammate, Italian road racer Max Papis, who displaced the guy who would have come into Mexico City 13th in the driver standings, David Stremme. Papis had been seen as a man who could win, but Wallace out-qualified and out-ran him all day long. (Continued)