The fans are helping Wallace race in Montreal (cont'd)

Just ask Wallace about Montreal 2008, when a complicated deal between three car owners resulted in one of the most shocking things Wallace said he's ever seen behind the wheel of a race car.

It's the deal that's ultimately put him in the position he hesitantly got into. He hesitated, but more than anything Wallace is a racer, so raising enough sponsorship "to do the race the right way," which would be testing and having enough tires to practice and race all-out, stripped away his reluctance.

“

We've got a lot of passionate Canadian fans, so I put up a post -- a feeler -- to see if there was any corporate interest up in Canada for doing anything with the race in Montreal. Several people suggested doing a fan's car. We were trying to keep it on the down-low; I didn't want to get embarrassed.

”

-- KENNY WALLACE

That wasn't the case a year ago. As Wallace rolled off pit road to begin the pace laps for the second annual Nationwide Series road race at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, he looked at his No. 28 Chevrolet's pit stall and all he saw was his wife Kim, tears filling her eyes as she sat, alone, on the Jay Robinson Racing pit box.

There wasn't another soul there.

"I was stunned -- I thought, 'is this what my career's come to?'" Wallace recalled recently. "I had no pit crew, because my car owner had a deal with James Finch, who was running Landon Cassill for Rick Hendrick, and they had to pit Landon's car first, then come and pit mine on another lap.

"We had no tires to practice or really, to race. The car wasn't wired for a windshield wiper. When it started raining, I had to drive over next to the guard rail because I couldn't see. That's how I managed to find my way back to the pits and I had to pull out of the race because I couldn't see."

"I said, right then and there, that I would never let that happen again," Wallace said. "I told the team I'd get the sponsorship to do the race in Canada."

Wallace has continually sworn there's no one better than his car owner at formulating a budget for his race teams and then staying within it. Robinson's a rarity at his level, a racer who won't go into debt to race.

But when Wallace's car's sponsor, the U.S. Border Patrol, couldn't participate in the event that's obviously way north of the border; and without the sponsorship money, Robinson couldn't properly field the car, it left Wallace biting his lip and his wife in tears.

And so 2009 rolled in and finding sponsorship is obviously easier said than done. But while he's spent decades developing his racing career, Wallace has also taken pains to stay media savvy -- and for him that means cultivating a presence on Facebook and Twitter, which fans can reach from kennywallace.com.

"We've got a lot of passionate Canadian fans, so I put up a post -- a feeler -- to see if there was any corporate interest up in Canada for doing anything with the race in Montreal," Wallace said. "Several people suggested doing a fan's car, but one of them, Jim Ryan, stood out. We were trying to keep it on the down-low; I didn't want to get embarrassed.

"But the people have stepped-up. I'm going to be part of NASCAR's press conference at Daytona with Carl Edwards, promoting the race. The race track up in Montreal was so excited about it; they've set up a meet-and-greet at the track for everyone who's sponsored the car who's up there." (Continued)