Wallace OK after transmission casing explosion

By Lee Montgomery - Associate Editor

Saturday, August 02, 2008

Rusty Wallace Racing's Steve Wallace makes a lap around Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal.

David Griffin
NASCAR Scene

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MONTREAL – Steve Wallace had a scary moment Friday during the final Nationwide Series practice at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, when a part in the transmission failed, exploding the casing and causing the driveshaft to snap in two.

A piece of the driveshaft kept spinning coming through the bottom of the car and hitting Wallace’s seat. Wallace was unhurt but said he would have a “big bruise” on his right leg.

“It just started spinning and ripped the whole rear end out,” Wallace said. “It bent the seat real bad and tore the whole interior out. Scary.”

Wallace said his Rusty Wallace Racing crew had a lot of work to do to repair the damage to the interior. Team owner Rusty Wallace said he had never seen anything like that happen before.

Wallace wasn’t the only driver to have trouble in the final practice. Boris Said’s Team Rensi Motorsports Ford came to a stop on the 2.709-mile road course when the No. 25 entry ran out of fuel.

And Marcos Ambrose, whose JTG Daugherty Racing Ford paced the final practice, slowed early in the session when a gearbox line worked its way loose. Ambrose’s team had changed the transmission after the first practice but apparently didn’t get all the lines tightened. The car was OK.