WALLACE LOSES ENGINE IN HIS #23 CHEVROLET IN CHICAGO; FINISHES 36^TH AND DROPS TO FIFTEENTH IN DRIVER POINTS

Kenny Wallace and his Stacker 2/Northeastern Supply Company sponsored race team continued to struggle during the middle portion of the 2004 NASCAR Busch Series season, losing an engine in Saturday afternoon’s Tropicana Twister 300 at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, IL and finishing a lowly 36^th. It was the fifth consecutive race in which the team has finished no better than 18^th.

Wallace was running in the heart of the lead pack throughout most of the race’s first half when his car began losing power. After running predominantly in the 15^th to 20^th positions, Wallace’s machine dropped severely off the pace until Kenny drove the car into the garage area for the day after completing just 91 of the race’s 200 laps. Wallace wasn’t the only top competitor to lose an engine early in the race as the event’s fastest qualifier, Bobby Hamilton, Jr., lost the motor in his Ford just 8 laps into the fray.

With his 36^th place finish, his worst of the season, Wallace has now finished no better than that 18^th place showing that came in Nashville a month ago. At that time, Wallace was holding down the 10^th spot in the Championship Driver’s Points Standings after posting top 10 finishes in five of six races. Since that Nashville race, Kenny has finished 33^rd at Kentucky, 25^th in Milwaukee, 30^th, last week in Daytona and now the disappointing effort Saturday and has dropped to fifteenth in the points, 813 behind current leader Martin Truex, Jr.

Truex, who finished 14^th in Chicago, now holds a 52-point advantage on second place rookie Kyle Busch who ended up 12^th on Saturday.

Rookie Justin Labonte, son of NASCAR Nextel Cup Series veteran and 2-time champion Terry Labonte, won Saturday’s Tropicana Twister 300 when he inherited the lead on the final lap when then leader Mike Wallace, bidding for his second consecutive race victory, had his Ford run out of gas as his car took the white flag. It was the younger Labonte’s first career Busch Series win and the final lap was the only one Justin did lead. Kenny Wallace’s brother ended up 15^th.

Rounding out the top five finishers behind Labonte was Jason Keller, Jeff Burton, Kasey Kahne and Ashton Lewis, Jr. who was running with Kenny Wallace during the first half of the race when Kenny’s Chevy engine broke.

Both the Busch and Nextel Cup Series teams have next weekend off before getting back to the action the weekend of July 24-25 in Loudon, NH. The Busch Series’ New England 200 will be run on Saturday afternoon, July 24, with the TNT Cable Network to televise the race live nationally beginning at 1 p.m. EDT.