Driving race cars remains Kenny Wallace's primary commitment
Jay Robinson Racing's Kenny Wallace is currently ninth in the NASCAR Nationwide Series standings after the first four races of the season. // David Griffin, NASCAR Scene
Several times a weekend, it happens. Kenny Wallace smiles and says thank you, but inside, his blood is boiling. Wallace will be at a race track, sometimes not long after driving his Jay Robinson Racing Nationwide Series Chevrolet, when a fan approaches him.
“Hey, Kenny, we sure do love you on that TV,” the fan will say. “Do you still drive?”
Wallace could scream. Oh, sure, he loves the compliment about his work on Speed, but it’s an insult to his driving.
And this year, he has been driving well. With a smaller, underdog team, Wallace has parked the No. 28 inside the top 10 in the Nationwide standings. So, yes, he still does drive, Mr. & Mrs. Fan. And he has driven to ninth place in the points.
“If I was young, I’d deny everything,” Wallace said recently. “But I’m 45 years old now. I will tell you I will stand up on TV right in front of 3 million people and say, ‘Look, I am a race-car driver, OK? I’m very grateful to be known as a famous TV commentator. But it just so happens that I’m here on this TV because I’m not racing today.’”
That’s the reason why he got into TV work in the first place. And now, in some strange way, it has backfired on him.
“I started doing TV because I didn’t have anything to do on those particular Sundays,” Wallace said. “I would stay around the race track and do TV. I had no idea that I would be so popular for TV.
“Maybe it’s because I need therapy over it, but it offends me. I would rather be more popular for driving [a] race car than [that] I do TV. But I’m still grateful for it.”
There’s an easy solution to his dilemma, of course. Wallace could always quit doing his TV work, but he said he won’t “let people control what I do.”
So he’ll keep doing both, although there’s no doubt what comes first in his mind.
“He is as serious as they come when it comes time for that race car,” said his crew chief with JRR, Chris Rice. “And he’ll let you know that, too. He’ll say, ‘Look, this is our serious time.’”
Wallace has been plenty serious this year, his first full time with the growing organization Robinson started in 2000. For many years, Robinson scraped by with little sponsorship and sometimes with aging race cars.
But then Robinson landed the U.S. Border Patrol as a sponsor, giving him additional resources to build his team. Rice is one of those resources, getting hired after long-time JRR employee Kenneth Campbell died last year.
Rice and Wallace worked together in the Cup series in 2002 for Bill Davis Racing, and they are a good fit.
“Chris Rice likes me a lot,” Wallace said. “We have an understanding with each other. We’re working on the car; we’re not worried about each other’s feelings.
The two look after each other like brothers, knowing they have each other’s best interest in mind.
“He’s Kenny Wallace. He’s a very likable person,” Rice said. “At the same time, he’s a competitive person. When you deal with him, you almost have to deal with him like he’s your brother. If you deal with just as a workmate, you never see eye to eye. We’re like best friends.”
Rice has known Wallace since 1989, when Wallace was a rookie in what was then known as the Busch Series. Wallace wasn’t the famous personality then. Instead, he was just a hard-working young driver trying to make it.
“He worked on his race cars back then himself,” Rice said. “He built all his own race cars, so when you talk to him about a lower A-frame or a spring or something like that, he knows what you’re talking about because he has worked on them and built them.”
So, no, Wallace isn’t always the goofball you see on TV. He isn’t the free spirit without a care in the world that he seems to be when he’s goofing around for the camera.
There’s another side to Wallace, the side that’s proud to be ninth in the point standings after four races.
“It’s not a fluke that Kenny Wallace is there,” Rice said. “He’s a great racer. He races the race track until it’s time to go race. With 50 to go, he’ll go race the race, and next thing you know, you’re sitting there 10th to 15th, and you’ve gained 120 points.”
