FONTANA, Calif. – In one of the most exciting and weirdest finishes in recent NASCAR XFINITY Series history, Darrell Wallace Jr. snookered through the chaos to earn a third-place finish in Saturday’s TreatMyClot.com 300 at Auto Club (Calif.) Speedway.
You can call the finish redemption of sorts for Wallace and his Roush Fenway Racing team.
“This is great. I don’t know where to begin,” offered Wallace post-race. “We weren’t where we wanted to be in practice, but this was our better day of the two this week. I messed up in qualifying and that put us behind a little bit, but I knew we had a decent EcoBoost Ford Mustang to work with.”
Although not a serious contender to win his first XFINITY Series race at ACS Saturday, the driver of the No. 6 Ford EcoBoost Ford Mustang did duplicate the speed at the two-mile oval from last year’s race.
Much like 2015, fuel mileage was the determining factor in the outcome of the fifth XFINITY Series race of the year, but Wallace described that his car improved significantly from qualifying earlier in the day, where he clocked in 13th fastest overall.
While the Joe Gibbs Racing trio proved to be the cars to beat, the others behind were left with nothing more to do than improve the handling on their racecar in the event the tables turned.
They began to turn with two laps to go.
Never falling outside the top-12 since the green flag, Wallace Jr. broke into the top-10 by Lap 10 and briefly hustled inside the top-five on Lap 70, before hovering just outside the top-five until Lap 130 where he positioned himself back inside the top-five and well into fuel conversation mode.
When the leaders began to have trouble either with fuel or a flat tire, Wallace’s strategy played into his hands passing Daniel Suarez coming to the checkered finish, tying his career-best XFINITY Series effort.
“Get me the hell off the West Coast, yeah, good job,” Wallace hollered on his radio after the race.
Later he said, “The grip level that felt like we were lacking in practice was there for qualifying so I knew we’d have a good race today,” he added. “It didn’t fire off like it did in qualifying, but we never gave up. I just kept talking to myself and singing to myself – anything I could do to stay calm and not get into the wall. This is a great day for our Ford EcoBoost team.”
Much like his competitors ahead, Wallace said he too was close on fuel.
“We were close, really close. It’s all in this foot and the engineer and crew chief on top of the box. It’s a team effort.”
Wallace exits the West Coast Swing looking for some stability in his season. After being wrecked early in practice in Daytona, he recovered for a sixth-place run in the season-opener.
Since then, finishes of 18th at Atlanta, 33rd at Las Vegas and a solid 12th last weekend at Phoenix had the former NASCAR diversity driver looking for something positive to carry into the two-week break.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
