BUSCH: Fontana: Mike Wallace preview

LAST RACE (Aaron's 312): Mike Wallace and the GEICO race team descended upon Talladega Superspeedway for Saturday's running of the Aaron's 312. Under the hot Alabama sun, the 43-car field thundered to the green flag with Wallace utilizing the draft to pick up 15 positions before the event's first caution on lap two.

When the race resumed, Wallace stormed into the top ten before bringing the GEICO Ford down pit road under caution on lap 47. The GEICO crew bolted on four new Goodyear tires and filled the tank full of fuel returning Wallace to the track in 11th. In a three-wide battle, Wallace chose the fast moving low line and quickly worked his way into second position by lap 55. Wallace fell in line behind Robby Gordon before ducking out and taking the lead on lap 72. Without a teammate or much drafting help,

Wallace gradually slid back in the pack continuing to maintain position in the top-ten. On lap 86 the event was slowed for the third time giving Wallace a chance to pit for four tires and fuel. Wallace took the restart in 11th position quickly working his way back into the top-ten. As the leaders hit lapped traffic on lap 101 "The Big One" struck at NASCAR's biggest and fastest tri-oval. "I'm not even sure what happened," said Wallace following the race.

"It all happened so quickly; I don't know what really happened. The best I can remember, I was under Greg Biffle and the lapped car was on the bottom. I thought he was going to stay at the bottom, but he started to come up and we all came together. Fortunately, we just got spun around and we were able to put four tires on our Ford and finish 11th."

WALLACE ON CALIFORNIA SPEEDWAY: "California is kind of a special place for this race team itself. It was the very first place that we ever ran the Biagi Bros. race team car a couple of years ago. With Biagi Bros. having warehouses and facilities right in that area where a lot of their customers are, it's really important for us to run well there. Just for self pride of the team and for our ownership group. Most everyone involved with our team from an ownership position is based out of California."

WALLACE ON THE PREPARATION OF THE CAR: "We're not preparing for it any different than we would. But we're real excited about the opportunities going there. Our engine builders, Ilmor Engineering, tell us that this is one of the best non-restricted engines that they've ever built so hopefully the horsepower won't be an issue."

WALLACE ON TIRE WEAR: "We'll probably have the same tire that we had at Texas which proved that tire wear was a non-issue. Anymore, all these races boil down to handling, the preparation of the car, the horsepower of it, and the pit stops as you roll down pit road. Hopefully on that day, all our pit stops will be proper and everything that we've done up until that point is prepared properly and we can bring home a win in California. That'd be pretty cool!"

WALLACE ON HIS 200TH CAREER START: "That's kind of a cool deal. I don't know if it really means anything great to me, to be honest, except I've been able to enjoy this sport for quite a few years now and wake up every day happy as I can be to be able to do what I do for a living. To have this milestone happen at California Speedway is pretty cool because that was the start of this race team. I'm a small percentage owner of the Biagi Bros. race team and it means a lot. It's kind of cool for it to happen there. We'll go over to Rosa's (restaurant) and have a little toast for our 200th!"

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