TAMPA, FL…….2/4/11…..The excitement level in victory lane was off the charts as NASCAR driver Kenny Wallace celebrated a long-awaited win on a dirt track in his Open Wheel Modified Friday night at East Bay Raceway Park.

“When I was a kid growing up in St. Louis, I used to read about the guys that run here and I always wanted to accomplish a convincing win on dirt. This is just my sixth year of dirt track racing and I have been watching all the fun Kenny Schrader has doing this. I decided to get this Impressive Race Car chassis and have some of that fun, too,” Kenny told the crowd as he struck every possible victory pose with his trophy as the photographers captured every moment.

Track announcer, Chris Stepan reminded Wallace how his day had started at the qualifying pill draw when Kenny had pulled his own car number “36” out of the can of 100 pills and the driver immediately said, “That means I’m going to win the feature tonight!”

Equally lucky was the draw Wallace had after he won the third heat and drew pole position out of a possible one to eight starting spots in the feature.

Despite five yellow flags in the 25 lap distance and loosing the lead for five laps, Wallace had the perfect set-up on his UNOH (University of Northwestern Ohio) and Federated Auto Parts sponsored brand new Impressive chassis. Following each yellow flag, he managed to pull away from the field even though it was Rodney Wing and Jeff Mathews on his tail and Vic Vena and Dale Mathison not far behind.

Wallace was quick to credit chief mechanic Billy Smith with the success of his car on its maiden run. The crew had trouble in Wednesday night practice because of a miss and by process of elimination, they ran out of time after three sessions and parked that car and ran last year’s car on Thursday night.

Smith, who is a nine-time feature winner himself at Farmington MO, found the problem by replacing the battery this morning and the new car was “good to go” for tonight’s race using a fresh Mullins engine and equipped with PRO-shocks.

When fourth starting Dale Mathison passed Wallace for the lead on the second lap and held the lead through lap six, Wallace admitted, “I just couldn’t run the cushion like he could, but when I got back by him on the lap seven restart, I could run my groove.”

Second place finisher Wing confessed, “I tried everything to pressure him, but he never made a mistake.” Jeff Mathews was a solid third, but never was a challenge to Wallace.

Vic Vena had his best showing of the 12th Annual Open Wheel Modified Winternationals with his fourth place finish in his Malcuit powered BMS No. 01, while Mathison held on for fifth.
Rounding out the top ten it was Dave Hess, Jr., Roger Crouse, Devin Dixon, Jeff Bland and Stanley Donahoo.

Rick Hensley was fast timer over the 58 cars on hand with a time of 17.370 and the eight heat winners were Wing, Crouse, Wallace, Mathison, Vena, Dale Kelley, Mathews and 17-year old Adam Williams.

The B-Mains sent Austin Sanders, Rick Aukland, Todd Neiheiser and Dave McWilliams from the first one to the A-Main, while Dixon, Buzzie Reutimann, Donahoo and Perry Brown from the second B-Main.

Thanks, Jean Lynch for East Bay Raceway Park

STATS – OPEN WHEEL MODIFIEDS – EAST BAY RACEWAY PARK – FRIDAY, 2/4/11

Qualifying Results:
1. 03 Rick Hensley – 17.370; 2. 22S Chad Kinder – 17.617; 3. 2A Rick Aukland – 17.729; 4. 33X Rodney Wing – 17.756; 5. 40B Kyle Bronson – 17.756; 6. 33 Jeff Mathews – 17.769; 7. 47 Bill Howard – 17.874; 8. 36 Kenny Wallace – 17.878; 9. 38 Jeff Bland, Jr. – 17.907; 10. 22 Dale Kelley – 17.908; 11. 44H Dave Hess, Jr. – 17.923; 12. 777 Jared Landers – 17.927; 13. 64 Austin Sanders – 17.967; 14. D00 Stanley Donahoo – 18.069; 15. 28M Frank Marshall – 18.113; 16. 9M Dale Mathison – 18.152; 17. 2 Devin Dixon – 18.256; 18. 01 Vic Vena – 18.283; 19. 14 Adam William – 18.284; 20. 11 Adam Colley – 18.334; 21. 6 Daryl Herbert – 18.355; 22. 00 Buzzie Reutimann – 18.355; 23. 21 Joey Jenson – 18.398; 24. 72 Todd Neiheiser – 18.441; 25. 14C Corey Conley – 18.479; 26. 8M Matt Miller – 18.490; 27. 129 Rob Penny – 18.572; 28. 144 Anthony Kinkade – 18.576; 29. 3F Rob Fuqua – 18.587; 30. 9C John Carpenter – 18.591; 31. 25W Allen Weisser – 18.625; 32. 155 Jimmy Payne – 18.657; 33. 58 Matt Fetterhoff – 18.697; 34. 96G Curt Gelling – 18.718; 35. 75E Elliott Despain – 18.753; 36. 5L Larry Lambert – 18.775; 37. 9 Roger Crouse – 18.782; 38. 88P David Pollen, Jr. – 18.789; 39. 18 Dave McWilliams – 18.801; 40. 55 David Orr – 18.883; 41. 26 Bobby Gierke – 18.886; 42. 6B Dave Baldwin – 18.901; 43. 100 Reed Storley – 18.904; 44. D4 Dave Jamison – 18.938; 45. 271 Dakotah Stephens – 18.943; 46. 01T Peyton Taylor – 18.985; 47. 83B Perry Brown – 18.989; 48. Z1 Zac Oedewaldt – 18.996; 49. 44P Tim Powers – 19.056; 50. 83 Joe Waba – 19.241; 51. 45 Bob Broking – 19.261; 52. 3K Jeremy Kerzman – 19.294; 53. 6M Terry McClintock – 19.295; 54. 45J Johnny Broking – 19.341; 55. 96H Dennis Haven – 19.361; 56. 44T Joe Turner – 19.616; 57. 23 Terry Haven – 19.943; 58. 05 Greg Johnson – 25.670

1st Heat – 1)Rodney Wing 2)Chad Kinder 3)Austin Sanders 4)Adam Colley 5)Elliott Despain 6)Reed Storley 7)Bobby Gierke

2nd Heat – 1)Roger Crouse 2)Anthony Kinkade 3)Todd Neiheiser 4)Bob Broking 5)Tim Powers 6)Dave Baldwin 7)Dennis Haven

3rd Heat – 1)Kenny Wallace 2)Joey Jenson 3)Rick Aukland 4)Rob Penny 5)Terry McClintock 6)David Orr 7)Johnny Broking

4th Heat – 1)Dale Mathison 2)Rob Fuqua 3)Dave McWilliams 4)Jared Landers 5)Peyton Taylor 6)Joe Turner 7)Terry Haven

5th Heat – 1)Vic Vena 2)Corey Conley 3)Bill Howard 4)Curt Gelling 5)Frank Marshall 6)Joe Waba 7)Zac Oedewaldt

6th Heat – 1)Dale Kelley 2)Jeff Bland, Jr. 3)Perry Brown 4)Matt Fetterhoff 5)John Carpenter 6)Jeremy Kerzman 7)Jimmy Payne

7th Heat – 1)Jeff Mathews 2)Rick Hensley 3)Stanley Donahoo 4)Daryl Herbert 5)Greg Johnson 6)Matt Miller 7)Larry Lambert 8)Kyle Bronson

8th Heat – 1)Adam William 2)Dave Hess, Jr. 3)Buzzie Reutimann 4)Devin Dixon 5)David Pollen, Jr. 6)Allen Weisser 7)Dakotah Stephens 8)Dave Jamison

1st B – Main (Top 4 go to back of A inside row) – 1)Austin Sanders 2)Rick Aukland 3)Todd Neiheiser 4)Dave McWilliams 5)Adam Colley 6)Jared Landers 7)Peyton Taylor 8)Bob Broking 9)Elliott Despain 10)Dave Baldwin 11)Reed Storley 12)Bobby Gierke 13)Joe Turner 14)Johnny Broking 15)Terry McClintock 16)Rob Penny 17)David Orr 18)Tim Powers 19)Dennis Haven 20)Terry Haven

2nd B – Main (Top 4 go to back of A outside row) – 1)Devin Dixon 2)Buzzie Reutimann 3)Stanley Donahoo 4)Perry Brown 5)Bill Howard 6)Frank Marshall 7)Greg Johnson 8)Matt Fetterhoff 9)Allen Weisser 10)Curt Gelling 11)Jimmy Payne 12)Dakotah Stephens 13)John Carpenter 14)David Pollen, Jr. 15)Jeremy Kerzman 16)Joe Waba 17)Dave Jamison 18)Larry Lambert 19)Daryl Herbert 20)Zac Oedewaldt 21)Matt Miller 22)Kyle Bronson DNS

A – Main (25 Laps) – 1)Kenny Wallace 2)Rodney Wing 3)Jeff Mathews 4)Vic Vena 5)Dale Mathison 6)Dave Hess, Jr. 7)Roger Crouse 8)Devin Dixon 9)Jeff Bland, Jr. 10)Stanley Donahoo 11)Adam William 12)Corey Conley 13)Chad Kinder 14)Rick Aukland 15)Joey Jenson 16)Rick Hensley 17)Anthony Kinkade 18)Dale Kelley 19)Austin Sanders 20)Rob Fuqua 21)Dave McWilliams 22)Perry Brown 23)Buzzie Reutimann 24)Todd Neiheiser