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BUSCH: Loudon: Steve Wallace preview

THE LOWDOWN THE STORY: 19 year-old Steve Wallace, one of the Busch Series's most prolific qualifiers, heads this weekend to the scene of his RWI Racing team's first ever pole position, New Hampshire International Speedway, in search of his third ...

Edited: Apr 16, 2008, 12:40 AM

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THE LOWDOWN

THE STORY: 19 year-old Steve Wallace, one of the Busch Series's most prolific qualifiers, heads this weekend to the scene of his RWI Racing team's first ever pole position, New Hampshire International Speedway, in search of his third pole and first top-ten finish of 2007. RWI Racing's cars have traditionally been fast at the flat northeastern mile, so hopes are high that Team Rapid RWI Racing will come out of New Hampshire with a solid finish. The New Hampshire weekend marks the first time in 2007 that RWI teammates Wallace and Chase Austin will compete in races at the same venue on the same weekend. Austin will pilot Team HomeLife Communities RWI Racing's No.66 Dodge Charger in Friday afternoon's NASCAR Grand National Division, Busch East Series event.

THE MACHINE: Steve Wallace will pilot RWI-012 in this weekend's contest. The "12 car," the team's flat-track workhorse over the past two seasons, has one previous start in 2007, on Phoenix's flat desert mile in April.

THE MAN AT NEW HAMPSHIRE: Saturday's 200-lap event will mark Wallace's first start at New Hampshire International Speedway. Although Steve Wallace does not have prior experience at New Hampshire, his RWI Racing team does. The team scored its first-ever pole position there in 2004 with Jamie McMurray behind the wheel. It followed up that performance with a top-five finish in the 2005 event. In 2006, McMurray started 8th and ran as high as second in RWI's Dodge before getting caught up in an accident around the mid-race mark.

STEVE WALLACE, DRIVER, NO.66 RAPID INDUSTRIAL CLEANING DODGE CHARGER

STEVE, COMMENT ON YOUR OVERALL THOUGHTS HEADING INTO THIS WEEKEND: "Last weekend didn't turn out quite the way we wanted, but I feel like we're still heading into New Hampshire with a good deal of momentum after our recent runs. Our team is a lot better than our finishes show; I feel like everyone here realizes that, so we're not letting ourselves get down. Sometimes this year, I've made rookie mistakes, while at other times, the cars just didn't handle; we've also just had just a ton of bad luck too. Our team has traditionally run pretty well at New Hampshire in the past, so we're hoping that maybe this could be the weekend that all of our bad luck turns around."

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE NEW HAMPSHIRE FACILITY?: "I've never raced at New Hampshire, but I've been there several times before. It's almost a dead-flat racetrack, just like Milwaukee, but with a lot more grip. It seems to me that passing will be at a premium on race day, although they seem to have made it a lot better in recent years when they worked on the aprons and everything they did up there. As always on a flat track, it's going to be all about maintaining momentum through the center of the corner and being able to accelerate hard up off the corner without getting loose. Whomever can do that, plus have a little bit of good luck, will be the one to beat."

ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO RACING ON THE SAME WEEKEND AS YOUR TEAMMATE?: "Yeah, you know, Chase is a good guy and a lot of the guys who work on my cars at the shop actually crew his car at the racetrack. So, I'm going to be right there with them, cheering them all on during Saturday's race. Although I tested Chase's car with him at South Boston earlier this year, I haven't been able to actually attend one of his races yet, so I'm excited about seeing the progress that they've made. They've had some good runs this year and I know that they were fast in their test at New Hampshire, so hopefully both of our teams can put all of the pieces together and have great runs this weekend's races."

-credit: rwi

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