Mike Wallace Team ASE Evergreen Preview

EVERGREEN, WA (May 24, 2000) - Mike Wallace knows his #2 Team ASE Ford is one of the best trucks in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. Week in and out, Wallace and the team are considered a threat to win at any given racetrack. The next event on the tour is no exception as Wallace and the Team ASE bunch head for Monroe, WA and the Sears 200 at Evergreen Speedway. "We want to win every race we can this year but the real goal, the big picture everybody always talks about, is winning the championship," said Wallace in assessing his team's chances in the June 3 Evergreen event. "That's the goal for this team this year. We'll go to Evergreen with the intention to win just like every week but the realization that we've got to avoid any disasters which, at a tight tough track like Evergreen, can happen in a hurry." Last year, Wallace managed to avoid the perils of the tight .646-mile Evergreen oval to post a fifth-place finish. With its rough, course surface and low, eight-degree banking in the corners, the Washington track is one of the toughest and most unique on the 24-event NCTS tour this season. "There are two key concerns at Evergreen," stated Wallace, who started the 1999 NAPACard 200 from the 11th position. "The first is tire management. The Evergreen track is very abrasive so you have to be real easy getting on the gas coming off the corners. If you don't, you'll end up spinning the tires all the way down the straightaway. At the end of the race, the guys still in contention for the win are those who have taken care of their tires and have something left to race with. Discipline, that's what you have to have. If you have a fast truck, you want to run it hard. At Evergreen, you have to discipline yourself to be smooth, pick your places to pass, and save something for the end. "The second concern at Evergreen is the pit road situation," Wallace continued. "They don't have a traditional pit road that has enough slots for everyone, so they do this deal where they have three pit roads. In two of them, they hold you for so many seconds after the work on the truck is finished to try and equalize things. They say it's supposed to even things out, but I'm not sure if it really does." Over the first half of the 2000 NCTSW season, Wallace has been disciplined enough to lead and win races. That has positioned him as a frontrunner for the season championship. "Evergreen is a track we'll go to with the confidence that we can win but with the knowledge that if we're a little bit off, we'll need to take what we can get and not try to press the issue," said the St. Louis, MO native. "At Evergreen, you can get into a lot of trouble if you press things, and we can't afford any trouble and still expect to stay in the thick of the championship hunt." Wallace and the Team ASE Ford will take the green flag in the Sears 200 at Evergreen at 8 p.m. Eastern Time June 3. The event will be telecast live on ESPN and will also be broadcast on MRN radio.