There were times this season when Steven Wallace just wanted to quit.
After introducing a new sponsor in JET Tools and establishing the CARS Super Late Model Tour as his primary home in 2015, Wallace expected to win early and win often, something that just didn’t come to fruition.
But Wallace and his No. 66 team persevered, swapped over to LFR Chassis and kept working, a series of decisions that resulted in a smackdown victory in the CARS Tour event at Concord Speedway on Saturday night.
The second-generation driver earned the pole in single car time trials and led every single lap on the way to his first victory since February at New Smyrna Speedway. By defeating a hard-charging Cole Timm and Dominique Van Wieringen at Half Mile Triangle, Wallace believes this is just the start of things to come.
“It’s cool to be back,” Wallace said after the race. “A lot of people don’t know how hard me and my crew chief, Blake (Bainbridge) work on this stuff. I have a really good team that comes down here on the weekends and helps me.
“We’ve been busting our asses for like six months. We had a race at Tri County taken away from us earlier this year but we came here and led every lap from the pole and just laid it on them. It feels good man.”
Wallace was quick to credit the people around him for keeping him optimisitic during one of the longest slumps of his career. The 2004 Snowball Derby winner and son of 1989 Sprint Cup Series champion Rusty wasn’t accustomed to being kept out of Victory Lane but was forced to deal with it during the spring and summer months.
That’s where Bainbridge and new sponsor, JET Machinery, came into play.
“The JET Machinery guys got me out of this slump,” Wallace said. “They believe in me. It just feels good to get these boys a win. From the bottom of my heart, I can’t thank these guys enough. It’s an amazing feeling right now.
I’ll be honest with you. Four races into the season and I wanted to quit. It wasn’t fun. It was just work and work with no reward. But then we switched over to LFR chassis and Rob Fuller and his guys helped us out big time.”
Wallace was never really challenged during the duration of the event. Van Wierengen got to his back bumper early in the race but she was eventually overtaken by championship leader Cole Timm.
It was really an overall perfect performance from Wallace who believes this might be the start of a lengthy winning streak
“I feel like we can go on a tear now,” Wallace said. “We got the monkey off our back. We won the race. We won the pole. It’s tough to explain man. We won this race and we have momentum and we worked really hard for it.
“This feels good.”
Timm was able to finish, extending his championship lead over Kyle Grissom who can only manage a sixth place in comparison. There are only two races remaining in the inaugural CARS Tour season. The next race is September 19th at Myrtle Beach Speedway.
The complete results from the Super Late Model portion of the Concord CARS doubleheader can be viewed below.
- Steve Wallace
- Cole Timm
- Dominique Van Wieringen
- Harrison Burton
- Quin Houff
- Kyle Grissom
- Joey Mucciacciaro
- Zane Smith
- Clay Rogers
- Preston Peltier
- Lucas Jones
- Vinnie Miller
- Joey Padgett
- Garrett Campbell
- Garrett Jones
- Matt Craig
- Clay Jones
- Kodie Conner
- Robbie Faggart
- Roger Lee Newton
