Looking for a good comparison for Steve Wallace’s improvement? How about to that of the NFL? Coaches talk about the development of young quarterbacks; that few can step in and master a complicated offensive system immediately. It’s a maturation process on and off the field before they start showing progress, usually about their second or third year in the league. The 2010 season is Wallace’s fourth in a full-time capacity in the NASCAR Nationwide Series.
And has he ever begun to show progress. Wallace, 22, heads into this first open week on a career-best streak of five consecutive top-10 finishes dating back to last season. He put up back-to-back results of 10th and eighth, respectively, at Phoenix International Raceway and Homestead-Miami Speedway last year before starting 2010 in the same fashion.
He was 10th at Daytona, sixth at Auto Club Speedway and 10th at Las Vegas. He’s sixth in the standings, by far the best start of his series career. Wallace started his 125th career race last week at Las Vegas.
“Three top 10s is a great way for us to start the season,” Wallace said. “It always seems like the guys who can have a good start to the year and build some momentum tend to stay towards the front of the point standings for most of the year.
“We’ll build on this and head to Bristol in a few weeks — it’s one of my favorite tracks and our hot rods should really be strong there.” Wallace isn’t taking the week off. Instead, he’ll make his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series debut in Atlanta for Billy Ballew. “I’ve always enjoyed watching that series; those guys race really, really hard,” he said. “Running one of those races is something that I’ve wanted to do for awhile, but the timing has never been right until now. “While running the truck race is going to be fun, my main focus is 100% on contending for the Nationwide Series championship. Atlanta is a track where we traditionally haven’t run as well as we’d like in the Nationwide car, so getting some extra seat time at Atlanta will help on that side as well.”
