NEWTON, Iowa (May 21, 2011) – Darrell Wallace Jr. slipped only one spot in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East points standing despite finishing ninth Saturday in the Pork “Be Inspired” 175 Saturday.  Race winner Brett Moffitt took over the top spot now leading Wallace and his U.S. Army Toyota Camry by one point.

Teammate Ryan Gifford fought hard down the stretch of the 175-lap race in his Toyota Racing Development Toyota Camry, making several impressive passes in the final two laps to come home sixth, three-wide across the line and inches behind a top-five finish.

Sergio Pena, driving the Revolution Racing Freightliner Toyota Camry and Michael Cherry, driving the NASCAR’s Fueling Your Dreams Toyota Camry, each suffered cut tires early in the race and finished 29th and 40th respectively.

[callout_left]”Our TRD Camry was really strong and I’m happy with a sixth-place finish.  We’ve had terrible luck this season and we’re better than where we sit in points, but we avoided mistakes tonight and didn’t hit anything.  If we keep running races like this the wins will come and we’ll get ourselves back in contention for the championship” – Ryan Gifford[/callout_left]Gifford improved to 11th in NASCAR K&N Pro Series East points while Pena fell four spots to sixth.  Cherry took a big hit falling to 19th from his previous 11th-place position.

“We had a pretty good car all night, but we just didn’t have anything for the leaders,” Gifford said.  “Our TRD Camry was really strong and I’m happy with a sixth-place finish.  We’ve had terrible luck this season and we’re better than where we sit in points, but we avoided mistakes tonight and didn’t hit anything.  If we keep running races like this the wins will come and we’ll get ourselves back in contention for the championship.”

“This wasn’t our best race but we didn’t hurt ourselves too badly,” Wallace said.  “We lost a few spots on pit road with an illegal fueling issue when the gas can fell, but it didn’t hurt us too much.  We didn’t have the car to beat tonight and wouldn’t have had much for Moffitt even if we had stayed up front.  We’re still right there with Moffitt for the championship and with eight races left anything can happen.  We had to fight hard for a top-10 tonight, and it was typical of a hard-fought U.S. Army effort.  There were a lot of Army personnel at the race and I’m proud of the fact that we didn’t give up and we gave them a good show.”

The Pork “Be Inspired” 175 can be seen on a taped-delayed basis on SPEED June 2 at 6 p.m.


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