Revolution Racing Driver Wins His Fourth Race in 19 Career Starts
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (July 24, 2011) – Darrell Wallace Jr. got back to his winnings ways in the Jegs 150 NASCAR K&N Pro Series East race at Columbus (Ohio) Motor Speedway.
En route to winning his fourth race in 19 NASCAR K&N Pro Series East races over two seasons, and his second of 2011, Wallace and his U.S. Army Toyota Camry ran a nearly flawless race. He qualified second behind series point leader Max Gresham, but made a pass for the lead on lap 36 and never was seriously challenged again.
Wallace’s first win of the season came at Richmond (Va.) International Speedway in April.
The win marked Revolution Racing’s fourth win in nine starts in 2011, with teammate Sergio Pena, driving the Freightliner Toyota Camry, to two NASCAR K&N Pro Series wins this season.
With the win, Wallace again became a serious contender in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East race, now trailing Gresham by 100 points with three races remaining and Brett Moffitt by 20 points.
After solid races by all four Revolution Racing teams, Michael Cherry in the Fueling Your Dreams Tour Toyota Camry finished 11th, Ryan Gifford in the TRD Toyota Camry finished 14th and Pena finished 15th, one lap down.
Late in the running, with Gifford and Pena running nose to tail in fifth and sixth, Pena tagged the TRD Camry and sent Gifford spinning, which cost him valuable track position. Later in the running, Pena was running in the top five when the he was turned by the 16 car of Daniel Suarez causing Pena to spin into the infield and lose one lap.
All four Revolution Racing Camry’s finished in the top 15 and brought their cars home without heavy damage despite the rough short-track nature of Columbus.
On the same night, the Revolution Racing Whelen All-American Series late model program was competing with three NASCAR Drive for Diversity participants at Hickory (N.C.) Motor Speedway.
Mackena Bell had the best night of the three drivers in the 60-lap race, despite finishing 14th of 18 cars. Running well within the top 10, her Toyota Camry was forced to stop on the track when a late race spin in front of her blocked the track. She lost valuable track position, and despite running a very clean and consistent race she finished well back in the order. However, her performance showed that she has improved greatly in the Whelen All-American Series.
Tayla Orleans and Trey Gibson finished ninth and 10th in their Toyota Camry’s respectively at Hickory, and both ran good races.
The Revolution Racing Whelen All-American Series late model program will compete in more than 140 races with six drivers as part of NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity Program. Four NASCAR K&N Pro Series East, six NASCAR Whelen All-American Series and multiple youth racing teams are supported by NASCAR, the U.S. Army, Toyota Motor Sales, Toyota Racing Development (TRD), Goodyear, Freightliner Trucks, Wix Filters, Castle Products, Logitech, Play Seat, iRacing and others.
The Jegs 150 can be seen Thursday night at 6 p.m. (ET) on SPEED.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (July 17, 2011) – Things were looking great through practice, qualifying and the early parts of the New England 125 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway Friday for three of the four Revolution Racing NASCAR K&N Pro Series East drivers.
Darrell Wallace Jr. and his U.S. Army Toyota Camry qualified second, Sergio Peña and his Freightliner/U.S. Army Toyota Camry qualified third and Ryan Gifford in the TRD Toyota Camry qualified 12th.
When the field of 36 cars took the green flag, Gifford took off passing four cars on the start to move into the eighth spot behind teammates Wallace and Peña.
Michael Cherry in the Fueling Your Dreams Toyota Camry battled engine issues and was only able to produce a 30th-place qualifying effort. His day would eventually be cut short at lap 14 when the engine expired.
Wallace and Peña each lead early and traded the top spot with pole winner and eventual race winner Max Gresham in his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry. As most of the leaders came to pit road early during a caution period for tires and fuel, the Revolution Racing cars stuck to their strategy of getting beyond lap 60 before taking on fresh Goodyear tires. With varying strategies up and down pit road, it would ultimately come down to the timing of caution flags to help determine track position.
Wallace, who continued to show strength throughout the first half of the race, had a distributor go bad on his U.S. Army Toyota and was forced to the garage for a change, which cost him 22 laps. He finished his day in 30th.
At lap 77 Peña came to pit road for tires, but was penalized following a violation involving a pit gun and hose which was pulled outside the pit box by exiting Freightliner Toyota. The resulting pass through penalty cost him valuable track position and he was forced to restart at the tail end of the field in 28th position. Despite this, he was able to finish eighth which moved him up one spot in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East point standings to fifth. Wallace fell one spot to fourth.
Gifford, who took the lead on lap 51 but was unable to maintain the spot, finished 12th and moved into 10th in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East point’s race.
Cherry is 18th in the standings.
Four races remain in the season with the next event coming Saturday at Columbus (Ohio) Speedway.
Three Revolution Racing D4D NASCAR Whelen-All American Series teams took to the Kingsport (Tenn.) Speedway Friday night while their teammates were in New Hampshire. Bryan Ortiz, Tayla Orleans and Jessica Brunelli battled the tough concrete track at Kingsport with only Puerto Rico’s Ortiz coming out of the race without significant damage to his Toyota Camry. He would finish fifth after a disappointing 12th-place qualifying effort.
Orleans, from Randleman, N.C. finished ninth after qualifying seventh of 19 cars and Brunelli of Hayward, Calif. finished 18th after qualifying 17th.
Both Orleans and Brunelli were involved in accidents at Kingsport that caused significant damage to their Toyota Camry’s, with only Brunelli’s able to be repaired in time for Saturday night’s race at Hickory (N.C.) Motor Speedway.
Ortiz qualified fifth at the historic Hickory track and finished ninth, while Brunelli had a much better night qualifying ninth and finishing 11th in the 16-car field.
The Revolution Racing Whelen All-American Series late model program will compete in more than 140 races with six drivers as part of NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity Program. Four NASCAR K&N Pro Series East, six NASCAR Whelen All-American Series and multiple youth racing teams are supported by NASCAR, the U.S. Army, Toyota Motor Sales, Toyota Racing Development (TRD), Goodyear, Freightliner Trucks, Wix Filters, Castle Products, Logitech, Play Seat, iRacing and others.
The New England 125 can be seen Thursday night at 6 p.m. (ET) on SPEED.
Over 3 minutes of hi definition video from the K&N Pro Series Race in Loudon, New Hampshire.