WALLACE’S STRONG EFFORT IN KENTUCKY FOILED BY BROKEN ENGINE IN MEIJER 300 AFTER 135 LAPS

For most of the first 130 laps of Saturday night’s Meijer 300 NASCAR Busch Series race at Kentucky Speedway, Kenny Wallace’s Stacker 2-Nortneastern Supply Company Chevrolet looked every part of a contender. A broken part in his #23 machine’s engine a few laps later, however, foiled the effort and ended Wallace’s day prematurely.

The end result was a very disappointing, 33^rd place finish, knocking Wallace from the top 10 in driver’s points for the first time in three weeks.

Starting sixth following his best qualifying effort of the 2004 season to date, Wallace ran in the top five positions most of the evening. Some handling problems occurring after his first pit stop and change of tires forced Wallace to drop out of the top 10 and to as far back at 17^th in the running order. After getting some adjustments following a caution period on lap 94, Wallace’s Chevrolet once again found the handle and quickly forged towards the lead pack. That all ended on lap 135 when his engine soured and forced Kenny and his racecar into the garage area for keeps on lap 135.

Wallace dropped two spots in the championship driver’s points battle to the twelfth position, now 622 points behind points leader Martin Truex, Jr. who earned the pole position for Saturday’ race and finished sixth.

Wallace, who now trails 11^th place Kasey Kahne by just four points and new 10^th place position holder Mike Bliss by just 40, will attempt to get back the points he lost and regain some momentum this Saturday night when the Busch Series moves on to the Milwaukee Mile in Milwaukee, WI for the Alan Kulwicki 200. It will mark the very first race at that facility to ever be run under the lights. Race time is 9 p.m. EDT with the race to be telecast live nationally by the FX Cable Network.

Rookie Kyle Busch was the winner at Kentucky, overtaking Greg Biffle late in the race to post his third victory of the 2004 season. Bliss, Ron Hornaday and Jason Keller rounded out the top five finishers. A standing-room-only, record crowd of more than 72,000 race fans were in attendance.