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News .: 1999 .: March 22, 1999 - Mike Wallace Speeds To First Career NCTS Win

March 22, 1999 - Mike Wallace Speeds To First Career NCTS Win


Mike Wallace Speeds To First Career NCTS Win

Mike Wallace, #2 Team ASE Ford F-150: "It's so damn good to win this race. I've got to thank Ultra Motorsports, Team ASE, Snap-On Tools, Wagner Brakes, Robert Yates for doing the engines, all those ASE Certified Mechanics out there. I'll tell you what I didn't want to see that caution come out with the 25. Ron was back there and they were racing eachother. It was a phenomenal day." YOU MENTIONED THE CAUTION. THERE WERE SEVERAL TODAY. DID YOU THINK TO YOURSELF, MAN THERE HAS ALWAYS BEEN SOMETHING THAT HAS GONE WRONG? "You're right. I was, but I just stayed calm. The 16 truck helped me win this race by teaching me some stuff last year. I'd like to take my hat off to the 16 crew. We had some killer restarts. Ron helped us out there." DID YOU THINK IT WOULD BE THIS TOUGH TO WIN IN THIS SERIES? "I didn't think so initially, but the competition is so tough, so darn tough. I'm with a great race team. That's the main thing. They've worked their butts off. They worked every week on pit stops. We really picked up on pit stops. If we didn't come in leading, we left leading. They did a phenomenal job. Kenny and Rusty are at Darlington, and I hope they will have great runs tomorrow.

Rick Crawford, #14 Circle Bar Motel & RV Park Ford F-150: "We made a tire change there with about 30 laps to go, and that was a good move for us because we had a right front going down. We went to church this morning, and that included church service and (crew chief) George Church. He did a great job and put a good truck under us. I was running fifth there with the green, white, checker, and I wanted to run first and that made me go back to ninth. But we gave it a shot."

Tim Steele, #21 HS Motorsports Ford F-150: "We had a motor let go. We had a piston lock up on us, and made our day a little short. But we'll get there. We'll recover from it, and we'll be back next week."

Randy Nelson, #26 Mittler Brothers Ford F-150: "We were running good. The chassis was good, and we were going to work on it during the first pit stop. We ended up throwing a dry sump belt off, and we lost pressure. We replaced it, but when we went back out we broke the motor before we got it up to speed. Mittler Brothers and American Trucking have done good for us, and we got here, and hopefully we'll get to Phoenix next week."

Ernie Cope, #27 Hastings Premium Filters Ford F-150: "The motor blew up. It lost a cylinder, and we kept going hoping a caution would come out, but we dropped a valve. We were hoping to get some laps here and get the experience. It's been a long weekend. We've just got to get to Phoenix and go on from there."

Kevin Cywinski, #31 Auto Trim Design Ford F-150: "I've got give credit to this whole crew. They practiced pit stops all winter, and we were gaining spots every time. That really gives a driver confidence. It was a great debut for our sponsor, Auto Trim Design. It's a great foot to get off on. Hopefully we can carry it through the season."

Greg Biffle, #50 Grainger Ford F-150: "My guys did a great job. I just think there was a lack of respect on the race track. It was a tough day out there. A couple of trucks got into me, but my guys did a great job. We kept coming back, and coming back. Finally after the last incident, I decided I wasn't going to pass anybody. I was going to stay right there and finish. They were all going crazy out there. I've never seen guys race like that. We had a good truck. We got off sync and got back in the pack a little bit. But we came back, and we care about the points. We'll go to Phoenix with our other truck."

Ron Barfield, #55 Icehouse Beer Ford F-150: "We were racing to win. We had a truck that could have won today. Icehouse Beer and Tom Gloy and Bobby Rahal, they've given me excellent support. It is a good race truck. It was just that somebody hooked us on the right rear there and turned us into the fence. But hey, it was no big deal. It was just one of those things. We'll go onto Phoenix next week. There at the last it must have got a hole in the radiator, and it burned the motor up too. That's what stopped us there at the last. But it was a good race, good truck, good team." WHAT HAPPENED WITH JACK SPRAGUE? "I didn't see him. I never even looked up in the mirror there because he was a long way behind me in the middle of the corner. When I came up off of the corner he didn't have enough of a nose in there. You have to give and take out there, and I guess he took a little bit. It's no big deal."

Mike Stefanik, #66 Carlin Burners & Controls Ford F-150: "It's great. I feel great. What can I say. I'm just thankful Dale Phelon gave me a chance to come and run in this truck series. I love racing with them guys. I used to run on the treadmill, and look at Ron Hornaday's back bumper, and just say, 'this is what I want to do when I get to him. I dreamed of that.' Someone said to me when you leave here tomorrow you're going to have twice as much experience as you've had. This is my second truck race. These guys know how to race. This is a great series, and Miami-Homestead is a great race track. I'm just so happy. I haven't ever been so happy about a second. I'm kind of tired. The Ford is a super truck. Ford was one-two. What else can you say. Sprague had a real tough truck, and he had misfortune. A lot was happening out there. I didn't see it all, but it certainly was exciting." YOU WERE IN A TESTING ACCIDENT. HOW DO YOU FEEL? "I'm telling you I'm here to say I was worried. I was pretty scared. I went to a chiropractor. I didn't sleep good. I didn't eat. I just laid there. I couldn't get up out of bed. I was worried. I didn't want to hit anything here. I felt good enough to race the race, but god forbid if I hit anything. I would have been out for a long time. My neck is just not 100 percent. My guys did a great job with head supports. My head was just stuck in there, but it was okay. The better the truck ran, the more excited I got. You see some of those tough trucks get torn up, I'm just glad it wasn't me because I couldn't have taken any of those hits."

Kevin Harvick, #98 Porter-Cable Power Tools Ford F-150: "The water pump had been leaking all day, and finally it just spit all the water out and the motor went. The Porter-Cable F-150 was awesome. We couldn't figure out what was wrong. It was just pouring water on the tires, and it was sliding all around. We'll be back next week."

Mike Bliss, #99 Exide Batteries Ford F-150: "We were better than the 24 truck. He just out-motored us. I had him in the corners, and he came down on me, and I hit him in the left rear. I let off so I wouldn't spin him out, and look where I ended up. It doesn't pay to be a good guy out there. Next time I won't lift."

NOTES FROM MIKE WALLACE'S POST-RACE INTERVIEW

TODAY'S WIN WAS THE FIRST FOR MIKE WALLACE IN THE NASCAR CRAFTSMAN TRUCK SERIES.

WHAT WERE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE LAST COUPLE RESTARTS? "Man, they were wearing me out. Any time you're leading a race, we've all lost races in the closing laps. Jim Smith had reminded me they had lost races that way before the race started. They had lost a few that way. They drug it out. It was Randy down there that was tore up. It's a shame he wrecked there."

THIS WAS THE FIRST TIME YOU'VE RACED MIKE STEFANIK. WHAT WERE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE LAST RESTART? "Mike Stefanik is a great race car driver. I watched him run everything else. I wasn't going to race him any different or take him any more lightly than I would Hornaday or Sprague." WHAT WAS

THE WISH YOU HAD ON TUESDAY? "This was the wish. It was kind of unique because we had dinner for Benny and Terry Parsons and they had a birthday cake for me told me to make a wish. And he looked me square in the eye, and he said I know what that wish was, and I said yeah I hope it comes true."

HOW OLD ARE YOU? "40 years old and 10 days." WITH 10 TO 15 LAPS TO GO, YOU AND RON WERE

REALLY BATTLING IT OUT. TALK ABOUT THAT. "Ron is a really great guy in a race. Ron is a friend of mine. We race eachother hard. What happened was that somebody lost a motor down in three, and he drove down in there and I seen the front end of his truck start to slip, and I just got onto the brakes hard and I slid. Then I got to turn underneath him and make a run to the corner. And we came to the caution. That was a big turning point to the race. Ron didn't have as fresh a tires as I did, and considering what he had told me last night, he said he was absolutely junk, and would be thrilled to death to finish in the top ten. So he did a heck of a great job."

THIS WAS YOUR FIRST RACE WITH THIS TEAM? "Jim and Marlene Smith who own Ultra Motorsports, Team ASE, Snap-On Tools, Wagner Brakes, Ford, I'd like to thank them immensely for a great opportunity. I told somebody going into this race, I've got all the parts and pieces. Now it's up to me and the team to get it done."

DID EVERYTHING FIT TOGETHER TODAY? "I don't know if you guys got to watch pit road today, but it fit together. They kicked their butt on pit road. They worked hard. We've got all new guys. They're just young and enthusiastic. One used to be a cop. Another one was an ASE Certified Mechanic. Whatever time it took they practiced pit stops. They just gave a thousand percent. They said why do you think we need to work so hard, and I gave them a scenario. We're at Homestead, and we're leading the race. We're coming down pit road. Are we going to lead it leaving? They helped me lead it. Our team is perfect right now."

WERE YOUR THOUGHTS ANY DIFFERENT WITH STEFANIK BEHIND YOU THAN THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN IF IT HAD BEEN HORNADAY OR SPRAGUE? "I'm kind of sitting there thinking, well Mike is back there and he will be thrilled with second, or he should be. He could go for the win, but he's not going to do anything stupid. That was my own thought. Ron was back there. I knew I had to have a killer restart. On previous restarts I know I had spun the tires leading the thing so I was real cautious when Stefanik was behind me that I had total traction on the restarts. So I got a three or four truck length lead, and it just kind of held out there."

HOW WOULD YOU HAVE FELT IF YOU HAD FINISHED SECOND? "Today? I'd have been very disappointed. We said we would be happy leaving here in the top-five. I've lead enough races and lost that I know it hurts. Competition is so tough any more in any division whether it is Busch or the Cup deal. These wins are so tough to come by. This could be our last win of the year. I don't believe it will be, but we're going to savor every moment of it right now."

YOU MADE CELL PHONE CALLS IN WINNERS' CIRCLE. WHO WERE THEY TO? "Actually it was my wife. My daughter (Lindsey) had her first horse show today, and she won it. She's 13 years old, and it was the first time she had traveled out of town. The race was tape delayed, and they were at the horse show. She was going to come down here this week. My wife and children were coming, and unfortunately her mother had some medical problems, and she thought it was best to stay home with her. Unfortunately she wasn't here to celebrate with us so we wanted to get her to celebrate as quick as we could. She was in the Raleigh-Durham area. She does quarter-horse, hunter, jumper, the show stuff. I guess English is what I'm trying to say. I don't know a whole lot about horse. I just pay for her stuff. I like the horse power I can shut the switch off and turn the wheel. When she (wife Carla) hung up the phone last night, she said when you win tomorrow call me. I said okay. So I did what she told me to."

YOU'VE WON IN BUSCH AND YOU'VE WON IN ARCA? CAN YOU PUT THE WINS IN CONTEXT? "One of the first big races I ever won was the ARCA race at Daytona. Driving into victory lane in Daytona was big. This was a huge win. I'd say equal to those wins. The last race I won was the Pocono ARCA race in 1996, and I'd won three in a row. I was close last year at Homestead. I lead the race, and with five to go got in an altercation. Winning a race is so hard. I remember a comment Mark Martin made to me. He said he was miserable, and I asked what was wrong. He said he hadn't won in a year. He said, I may never win again. He was dead serious. We feel we can win again. We won today, so I feel very confident. And this isn't just about me. It's about all the guys on the team, Ultra Motorsports. We sat down a couple of weeks ago and had a team meeting, and tried to come up with a theme tee shirt for our team. Since Ultra is the name of Jim Smith's wheel company, we made up a team tee shirt that says Ultra Bad Boys. We had them in the trailer, and we weren't bringing out until we did something. Anybody that was in victory lane, we had some black tee shirts that said "We're 2 (the number two) bad, and on the back it says We're Ultra Bad"

DESCRIBE THE RACE TEAMS AND THE MANUFACTURER. "The race teams haven't been that big a deal, and the main reason was that Timmy Kohuth, who was my crew chief over at Schrader Racing for the last two years came with me. We came as a package I guess. We felt that going to Ultra Motorsports was the best chance we had to win races. We had the proper funding. We had engines from Robert Yates. If you are going to have a Ford it is one of the best you can have. We have a car owner who says whatever you guys need, tell me. If it's within my means I'll provide it for you. We've got a beautiful race shop. And it was up to us. The transition has been absolutely flawless. The team is just as enthusiastic as heck. Our sponsors are wonderful people. ASE, Snap-On, Wagner Brakes. We came here as a new team. There were only three guys on the team who had raced together last year."

WHAT IS THE EMOTION OF WINNING YOUR FIRST TRUCK RACE HERE? "I was trying to hit my mark those last two laps perfect. Stefanik was three or four truck lengths behind, and I knew if I was straight he wasn't going to catch me. As soon as I got the wheel straight, I keyed the radio and said boys, go get them tee shirts. We just won us a truck race. I wanted to do donuts so bad. And they're going, they want you in victory lane, they want you in victory lane. It's a pretty big deal with ABC so you want to get there for television. But I wanted to do donuts up and down the front straight-away. With the CART race here, you always watched Alex Zanardi. He was the master of those things. He had a front wheel brake lock or something."

NUMBER TWO WALLACE. "It's kind of unique. Rusty is number two, and Jim Smith had this number all the time. It was nothing to do with me or Rusty. We won a truck race here today with. We're going to run four Winston Cup races this year, and four Winston West races. We're going to Phoenix next week, and run the truck race and the Winston West race, so we've got a lot of cool things happening."....


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