Optimism lives on in the New Year for Mike Wallace

Doesn't matter when you talk to him, you get the impression Mike Wallace would be smiling.

Yeah, yeah -- we've all seen the middle of the three racing Wallace brothers fired up, mostly when he's been wronged on the racetrack. But by and large he's a pretty upbeat kind of guy.

Dave Rodman

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It's why, on the verge of a New Year's Eve that might precede the most tenuous year thousands and thousands of people may face in their lives -- and obviously we're not limiting that to just racing people -- Wallace sounded particularly optimistic.

Not much had changed in the less than a month that had passed since Wallace last talked about his tenuous 2008 racing season (read more). In fact, Wallace remains one of a small handful of very credible race-car drivers who are without rides next year -- a list that includes names like Labonte, Mayfield, Nemechek and Blaney.

Talk to any of them, and a certain degree of optimism exists, and that becomes a great lesson for anyone about keeping your head up and making the best of any situation you're dealt.

It makes you realize things could always be worse. And it makes you realize you always have things to be thankful for.

Right now Wallace is mostly thankful because he's pretty sure at least one streak that's extremely important to the Wallace family will continue. That's the 25 consecutive years that at least one Wallace brother has taken the green flag in the season-opening Daytona 500.

Mike Wallace says he's secured a ride in a "competitive car" for Speedweeks' crown jewel event, so providing he can get through the arduous Daytona qualifying process he's confident of continuing the streak that older brother Rusty began with a 30th-place finish in 1984 and younger brother Kenny maintained, despite finishing 43rd, last season after a stunning Gatorade Duel qualifying effort.

It's fitting he's going to at least have that opportunity, because in the past seven years Mike's had the best "500" finish by a Wallace, fourth in 2007; and in 2001 he was half of the best family finish ever by the Wallaces, when Rusty was third and Mike, sixth.

But beyond Daytona, Wallace said this week he just doesn't know what's going to happen.

"We're still talking to people, and they're still interested in possibly doing something," Wallace said. "The only thing that I'm thinking is that I wish it was, like, three months ago -- because the way they're thinking and the way I'm thinking, knowing how close the beginning of the season is, causes me a little bit of concern."

But then that optimistic spirit comes back.

"People with money are still out there, and they're still talking, so I don't know that it's as bad as people think -- not that it's easy," Wallace said. "If people get involved now, the timing could be good for them because they'll be involved when things start to turn around [with the economy]."

But at this moment, like a lot of other guys and women, if you count drivers like his younger daughter Chrissy, who had meetings planned this week with team owner Bob Germain to determine what the suddenly sponsor-strapped Germain Racing team might be able to do to race with her this season, Wallace just doesn't know exactly what he's doing beyond Speedweeks -- though he'd consider racing any of NASCAR three national tours.

Mike Wallace

Career Statistics

	Cup	N'wide	Truck
Starts	188	330	113
Wins	0	4	4
Top-5s	3	21	32
Top-10s	14	61	55
Poles	0	0	3
Avg. Start	31.6	23.3	13.7
Avg. Finish	26.4	19.8	13.7

But more than anything, what makes Wallace appreciate what he has going on -- no matter how slim his racing prospects appear right now -- is what he saw a couple weeks ago on a four-day trip to the poverty-stricken Caribbean island nation of Haiti.

"I'm not in a hurry to go back," Wallace said of his trip with North Carolina businessman and philanthropist Tom Van Wingerden, whose family operates the 300-acre Double Harvest training farm, Christian school and hospital in Haiti. "But as much as it made me appreciate what we have in this country, even more than that it gave me an eyewitness look at what some special people are doing in that country.

"You're not going to fix Haiti -- that would be an enormous prospect and probably impossible. But with their Double Harvest complex the Van Wingerdens have made an incredible impact on a small fragment of the population, about a thousand people, helping them to live a better lifestyle.

"It's a commitment that's quite overwhelming to me, to be honest, and it's amazing that a family would make such a dedicated effort to make a difference. You want to talk about passion and commitment with the difficulty I saw in traveling there and getting around once you get there, I have to give them a tremendous 'atta boy' for the commitment, and the people there really appreciate it."

The proverbial icing on the cake for Wallace came when he returned to the United States and found out Van Wingerden's son, Thomas, had proposed to his older daughter Lindsey; the wedding is tentatively scheduled for late 2009.

It puts Wallace in another race -- one of helping to create an event plan -- and, with his optimism, one he has a pretty good shot of winning.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.