Wallace much more than just another face on TV

Call him TV Guy one more time, and Kenny Wallace might come across the table.

When he participated in this past Saturday's Nationwide race at Richmond International Raceway, Wallace made his 800th career start in NASCAR's three national series. To put that in perspective, Mark Martin recently reached the 1,000 combined career starts plateau. And in the history of the sport, there have been a total of 3,821 drivers in all three national NASCAR series. Wallace now ranks 17th in combined national series starts.

So he considers himself first and foremost a racer. Forget that TV stuff, even though he does not doubt it has raised his public profile dramatically since he started doing a pre-race Cup show for SPEED several years ago. Wallace talked about all this and more at RIR this past weekend.

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Q: So you just made your 800th start in NASCAR's top three touring series, but something is bugging you. What is it?

Wallace: I hate it when people come up to me and say, 'Hey, you're that TV guy.' They say I'm on TV all the time. Well, there are seven days in the week and almost all of that time I'm working on something to do with my race team. I'm only on television two hours a week. Two hours out of all the hours that make up the seven days in the week! I don't like being known as a TV guy.

Q: But it has opened doors for you, hasn't it?

Wallace: I mean, I know everything about NASCAR because I was born and raised in it. I know everything about the sport. My brother Rusty tried to help me out. He said, 'Herm, I know you don't like being known as a TV guy -- but man, when you're on the race track everyone has a helmet on and no one sees your face. When you're on TV, there you are.' So he helped me feel better about it.

But it's been an Achilles' heel of mine. Did anyone watch the Prelude to the Dream? That's what I'm about. I'm a hard-core racer. TV has just been really, really good for me. It's a sponsor's dream. ... People want to sell product -- and you've either gotta win races, or if you can't win races, you've gotta figure out how to sell their product. So TV has helped me do that. It has helped me extend my career [as a driver].

• Note: Wallace finished third in the Prelude to the Dream after leading the first 12 laps. (read more)

Q: And yet there is a part of it that really eats away at you?

Wallace: Yeah, I hate it. I hate it when people come up and tell me I'm a TV guy. I want to punch 'em out. But I won't.

Q: So how do you feel about being 17th on the all-time list in NASCAR national series combined starts?

Wallace: Thank God somebody as famous as Mark Martin started this. Because he's the one that started it. That's pretty cool. ... When I started, I could only run about 28 races a year. But what got me so many starts is that I ran [Nationwide] and Cup. For like five years in a row, I ran both series.

• Note: See all-time starts list at the bottom of the page

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Q: What do you think about Danica Patrick meeting with Tony Stewart recently to discuss the possibility of coming to NASCAR and maybe starting out in the Nationwide Series you now run in?

Wallace: Well, first of all, I know a little bit about her. And she's hard-core. That's the first thing I can say. And what I mean by hard-core is that I don't care who you are, you've gotta drive a race car. And when I look at what she's done in the IndyCar Series, where she races against men and she's won. I don't care if she won on gas mileage. Dale Jr. won last year on gas mileage at Michigan. ... She ran top-three at Indy and that's very difficult. You watch men just spin their cars out just during qualifying.

So I admire her for her talent. I've read stories on her. Her dad sent her to Europe; she became her own person. And she's got enough smarts to market her good looks. I like her bikini magazine; she looks good. And, you know, I think she's pretty smart.

So she goes to Tony's shop and she wants to find out everything there is [about NASCAR]. And if you look at Ryan Newman, Roger Penske took him through ARCA, took him through Nationwide -- and I think that would give her a really good gauge as to whether she's cut out to do it.

Q: Could she raise the profile of a whole series, particularly in the case of the Nationwide Series and helping guys across the board get more sponsorships?

Wallace: Would her presence help the Nationwide Series? It will be awesome for our sport, there's no doubt. I'm not a male chauvinist. I love my wife and I love my girls and want them to be the best they can be. So I think it would be awesome.

Q: But it wouldn't be a cure-all for the Nationwide Series?

Wallace: The only problem the Nationwide Series has is not the drivers. What has hurt the Nationwide Series is the Cup car owners. Not the drivers. The Cup car owners come in with just massive amounts of money and they really make their cars really fast.

So people say we need identity. We don't need identity. We just need less money in the sport. When you need a $6 million sponsor to go Nationwide racing, there's something wrong. And right now, that's something that is wrong.

Q: You think there is too much of a Cup influence in Nationwide now?

Wallace: Danica could at least raise the profile [of Nationwide]. But I just found out one thing that is very disappointing to me. My brother Rusty was very upset about this and I don't think he'll get mad at me for saying this -- but it's very, very depressing that the top 10 in the Nationwide Series, which has always been a big deal, won't be honored this year like it has been in the past. This year NASCAR has elected to put the Camping World Truck Series and the Nationwide Series [postseason] banquets together, and celebrate only the top five drivers [from each series].

So Rusty's got two teams that got $6 million apiece -- he's got all these sponsors and CEOs and he wants to invite them to the banquet. He's in the top 10 [with both teams], but now he can't even bring them to the banquet. I think NASCAR needs to rethink this -- because the banquet is not just about the drivers, it's about thanking the people who spent $6 million a year on your team. It should be, 'Hey, come on down here to Florida. We're gonna have some cocktails. Our driver's going to be up there [on stage] for being top-10 in points.' We need to take that back and fix that.

Q: Any other thoughts?

Wallace: Another thing that's gonna be bad is it could very possibly be that all five of the drivers honored could be Cup drivers. You could have a Nationwide banquet and all five drivers honored are Cup drivers -- which it won't [this year] because Jason Leffler is in there. But how embarrassing would that be? 'Let's have a Nationwide banquet -- and by the way, all the top five in points are Cup drivers.' And they don't even want to be there. They think it's funny, you know?

I'm relaying all this for my brother. He was telling me about it in a phone call [the other night]. He can slap me if he didn't want me to say anything about it.