KENNY WALLACE’S BREAKS CONTINUE TO BE BAD ONES IN 18^TH PLACE FINISH AT NASHVILLE SUPERSPEEDWAY

For the last five 2004 NASCAR Busch Series races, whatever breaks veteran driver Kenny Wallace was getting were bad ones. That didn’t change Saturday afternoon when Wallace had to settle to an 18^th place finish in the Pepsi 300 at Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon, TN.

Wallace was running a solid 11^th in his #23 Stacker 2/Northeastern Supply Company Chevrolet more than 150 laps into the 225-lap test when he made a routine pit stop under green flag racing conditions to get four new Goodyear tires and Sunoco Racing Gasoline. Sixteen other leap laps cars did exactly the same thing only to have Bobby Hamilton, Jr. hit the turn two wall to bring out an unwelcome yellow flag.

There were four cars on the track at that point that had not yet pitted, thus leaving only these four cars (the Chevrolets of rookie leader Clint Bowyer, Robby Gordon and Michael Waltrip and the Dodge of Kasey Kahne) on the leap lap and the cars that had elected to pit before then a lap down. One of them was Wallace. “We just cannot catch any breaks. It’s as simple as that”, a disgusted Wallace said after the race.

Wallace never was able to recover and get that lost lap back and actually faded in the waning laps to finish out of the top ten for the seventh straight race, three laps down to eventual race winner Waltrip. Unable to avoid mishaps, Wallace was only able to maintain his 17^th place position in the drivers’ championship point race, 300 behind new leader Waltrip who holds an 8-point advantage now over David Green.

Waltrip was running sixth on the race’s final lap with the cars of Bowyer, Johnny Benson, Kahne and Gordon all bearing down on leader Busch in a last-ditch attempt to steal the victory. Heading down the backstretch, Bowyer tried to sneak inside Busch only to tap the left rear quarter panel of Busch’s car sending it into a spin. The cars of Bowyer, Benson, Kahne and Gordon were all tucked behind and likewise spun with Busch onto the backstretch grass allowing Waltrip to sneak past unscathed and onto the checkered flag. Johnny Sauter did the same to finish second with Gordon, Bowyer, Busch, Kahne and Benson getting their cars straightened out and across the finish line in enough time the finish third to seventh, respectively.

This was the sixth time in the 2004 season’s first seven Busch Series races that a Nextel Cup regular had tasted victory.

The Busch Series teams take next weekend off before resuming the 2004 schedule on Saturday afternoon, April 24, on the high banks at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama for the running of the Aaron’s Rents 312. That race gets the green flag at 2 p.m. EDT and can been seen on FOX TV.