No one has told Mike Wallace that he is crazy yet but he also hasn’t give people the chance until Thursday.
The 65-year-old was even reticent to tell his mom and brothers over the holidays, waiting until they were parting from dinner at The Peninsula Club on Christmas Eve to tell them, ‘oh by the way, one more thing, I’m going to attempt the 500.’
Wallace expected it in that moment, but brother Rusty, the 1989 Cup Series champion surprised him.
“Really? I would love to do that but my eyes are too bad. Good for you!”
Okay, that was the first hurdle to clear but he also got similar reactions from his children too. It’s been a rough year, and that is an understatement, with Wallace losing his wife of 44 years, Carla, to cancer in January.
Wallace says she would have been the only person to call him ‘an idiot,’ dotingly, while simultaneously telling him that he should do it. So the entire family is going to Daytona next month, and no matter what happens, will race in her honor.
“Dad, we have to go for it,” he says of the conversation with his son.
Wallace is racing for old friend Carl Long at MBM Motorsports. It will have a Roush Yates powerplant underneath the hood, with Doug Yates vowing to him that it’s going to be a good piece. If he succeeds at making the show, he would be the second oldest driver to start the race.
“I’ve got to give you our best piece,” Wallace said of the conversation with Yates. “So, he said that tongue-in-cheek but I believe him that it’s going to be good.”
And really, that’s how this whole thing began over the holidays. Long put out a Facebook post lamenting the lack of interested racers in driving his No. 66 car in the Great American Race given the updated parts and pieces and Doug Yates support.
Wallace said he texted Long at 11 p.m. that night, expecting to not hear from him until at least the next day. Long was at a party but immediately responded. They quickly reached a deal. Wallace is going to cover the full cost of the No. 66 to race at Daytona as long as he gets to sell sponsorship himself.
“So I’m getting paid,” Wallace said. “This is a real deal. I want everyone to know the car is fully funded. I just need to work my tail off on my end to sell it and I will.”
And whatever doesn’t get sold will just be run as a tribute to Carla.
“This is all heart,” Wallace said. “It started with my wife and it will end with her. She was always in my corner. … She would be really proud of this because I watched her support me for years. We moved to North Carolina when it didn’t make sense to and she supported me then too.”
He recounts the story of his last win, the 2011 Truck Series race at Talladega, which came together a week or so before the race … the same weekend as their planned vacation.
“We were going to an exotic island, that was the plan, and then Kevin called me,” he recalled. “I didn’t say ‘yes,’ and I told Carla that I had a chance to race for KHI. “She goes, ‘well, you’re going to drive it,’ right and I said, ‘well, I was going to talk to you about it first,’ and without skipping a beat, she said, ‘go call him right now and say yes, you idiot,’ and I did.”
He points to a picture of them in their office, the photo he calls ‘our picture,’ remembering how happy they were in that moment.
“I told her sorry I didn’t take her to the exotic island but I did take her to the exotic infield at Talladega,” and really, that’s the same thing.
Wallace says it’s not lost on him that this came together in a very similar last-minute fashion. Paraphrasing: ‘We won that race so let’s go in there with the mindset that we can win this one too.’
He says there is no pressure because there is no expectation. He says the glass is half full and the salt shaker is full too. All the analogies apply.
Wallace says the moment he closed out of the deal, he went to the nearby gym that he semi-regularly attends and is hitting it every day.
“I told him, ‘I need to be on my A-game,’ and I have a short time to get there,” he says.
Beyond that, Wallace says he expects the muscle memory to still be there. He says he wants the racing world to know that he would like a simulator day if any manufacturer or team would give him time. He mostly just wants to learn the NextGen car.
Yates has offered him time in the chassis dyno just to go through the gears to get used to how to get the car up to speed — all the little details.
“If, I get in that car that week, and something feels off or I feel like I can’t do it, I will get out,” Wallace said. “Knock on wood, I haven’t ever gotten really hurt in a race car and I don’t intend to now. I have a long life to live with my grandkids and I am blessed to have them and to be able to do all the things we get to do together.
“I’m going to have brand new everything for my safety gear. Everything is going to be perfect.”
Wallace says he really does believe they can make the show on time in qualifying, but that ‘even if we don’t, I’ve gone from the back to the front in a duel,’ and that he looks forward to racing at Daytona again no matter what.
“That place means a lot to me and it means a lot to me and my family that we just get to go there together.”
Before ending the conversation, Wallace made one request.
“Just have fun writing this story,” he said. “I’m going to have so much fun just being a part of this. I’m taking it seriously and I’m going there to make the race and to win the race but it has to be fun or it’s not worth doing.”
Crazy or not, it’s a Wallace family tradition, after all.
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.
