WALLACE POSTS 4^TH TOP 10 FINISH IN LAST 5 RACES IN FINAL NAZARETH NASCAR BUSCH SERIERS RACE

Kenny Wallace and his Stacker 2/Northeastern Supply Company race team continued their steady climb up the NASCAR Busch Series points ladder Sunday afternoon by posting a consistent, ninth place finish in the Goulds Pumps/ITT Industries 200 race at Nazareth Speedway. It was the final Busch Series race to be run at the unique, 1-mile, 5-turn Pennsylvania facility as the 2005 Series schedule will change greatly and will not have the Nazareth stop on it.

Red-hot Martin Truex, Jr. made the Nazareth finale that much more historic as he snuck inside leader Bobby Hamilton, Jr. on the final lap to win for the fourth time this season. Truex also regained the Series points lead and will carry a 31-point edge on second place rookie Kyle Busch into next Saturday’s Car Quest 300 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Charlotte.

Rounding out the top five finishers were Busch Series veterans David Green, Jason Keller and David Stremme.

Truex never led the race until that final lap when Hamilton, Jr., trying to keep Truex at bay on the white flag lap, drove his Ford too hard into the third turn. It got his car loose and forced it up the racetrack, brushing the lapped car of Andy Ponstein and allowing Truex to sneak underneath and grab the lead. Hamilton had led

Seventeen cars finished on the lead lap with the 17^th place finisher, Jeff Purvis, making a successful return to Busch Series competition after recuperating from serious injuries suffered in a race accident in 2002.

“I had the best team out there today,” Wallace said to TV reporters after the race. “Our biggest problem today was a bad choice of pit locations. We got boxed in on our last past stop and ended up 16^th coming out, but I had a fast race car and was able to pass quite a few race cars to finish ninth. I couldn’t be prouder of these guys,” he added.

As a result of his fourth top ten finish in his last five races, Wallace jumped three spots in the driver’s points standing and now sits in 11^th place, only 58 points behind current 10^th place points holder Jason Leffler.

Trailing leader Truex and Kyle Busch in the driver points race heading to Charlotte is Green in third, 102 points behind, Michael Waltrip (-126), Keller (-161), Hamilton, Jr. (-203), Ron Hornaday, Jr. (-282), Robby Gordon (-318), Greg Biffle (-343) and Leffler (-379).

Saturday’s Lowe’s Motor Speedway test will get the green flag at 1 p.m. EDT and will be televised by the FX Cable Network live.