ROOKIE DRIVER RUINS WALLACE’S STRONG DAYTONA RUN; KENNY ENDS UP WITH VERY DISAPPOINTING 30^THPLACE FINISH

Kenny Wallace had an excellent run going nearly 80 laps into Friday night’s Winn Dixie 250, NASCAR Busch Series race at Daytona International Speedway. He was running with the lead pack of cars and eyeing a top 10 finish when disaster struck.

The lapped car of rookie driver Kim Crosby was tapped slightly by the Chevrolet of Dale Earnhardt, Jr. as the latter tried to get around Crosby’s Dodge. Following closely behind Earnhardt, Wallace’s Chevrolet also was trying to move around Crosby’s machine in the high side only to be squeezed by Crosby into the outside retaining wall.

The hit pancaked Wallace’s Stacker 2/Northeastern Supply Company racecar badly and ended any chance Kenny had at what would have been his sixth top 10 finish of the 2004 Busch Series season. He lost several laps making pit stops for fresh tires and repairs and ended the night in 30^th place, five laps down to the leaders.

Kenny’s brother Mike went on to claim his fourth career Busch Series victory when on the final lap then leader Michael Waltrip was tapped from behind by Jason Leffler and spun down the back stretch. Leffler tried to hold onto the top spot when he squeezed a fast closing Earnhardt, Jr. into the outside wall slowing both cars down and allowing Wallace to sneak underneath and to the finish line first.

Greg Biffle, points leader Martin Truex, Jr., Robert Pressley and pole sitter Mike Bliss also got past the tangling Leffler-Earnhardt, Jr. duo to finish in the second to fifth spots, respectively. Leffler ended up finishing 13^th, Earnhardt, Jr. 17^th and Waltrip 27^th, one lap down.

“We had a great race car tonight, one certainly capable of a top 10 finish and maybe more if things would have gone our way for a change,” Wallace said after the race. “That lapped car (the Dodge of Crosby) was basically in the wrong place when Junior (Earnhardt, Jr.) first got into him and then I became the aftermath. That’s just the way our season has pretty much gone so far,” added Wallace, who was able to hold onto the 11^th spot in the Championship Driver’s points standing but is now 769 tallies behind Truex, Jr.

With what once was a commanding edge on the drivers behind him in the standings, Wallace now finds himself just four points better 12^th place Tim Fedewa, seven more than 13^th place Kasey Kahne and 11 ahead of 14^th place Ashton Lewis, Jr.

Truex, thanks to his third place finish and an 11^th place effort by rookie Kyle Busch, extended his points lead over Busch to 68 with Biffle (327 behind), Ron Hornaday (-381) and Bobby Hamilton, Jr. (-388) rounding out the top five drivers in the championship points battle as action shifts to the Chicago area next weekend. The Twister 300 at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, IL next Saturday afternoon takes the green flag at 2 p.m. EDT with NBC televising the test live.