Race Weekend Central

Kenny Wallace Driver Diary: Daytona, After All These Years

The offseason was good. We had a great time. We went on our fan club cruise – that was a lot of fun. After the cruise, we came back and went to St. Louis for a couple of weeks for Christmas… then, you end up hitting the reset button.

It’s kind of fun to spend a couple of weekends at home. Sometimes, I think to myself: we work seven days a week for about 10 months out of the year, so to take a couple months off isn’t bad. We still stay busy.

It was a rough winter on me as far as sponsorship. I had a good time in the wintertime, but trying to acquire sponsorship was rough. In December, I got hit hard twice. U.S. Border Patrol is not coming back into auto racing, period. And then toward the end of December, my sponsor of three years, JEGS, had to downscale, so I had to find someone to replace JEGS as well [for my dirt car].

I am so lucky and so thankful, though, because Federated Auto Parts wanted to expand a little bit. I’m so happy to join my friend – truly my other brother – Ken Schrader selling car parts! Kenny and I will be able to cover more ground for Federated Auto Parts. I’ll be wearing the Federated logo on my TV shirt on SPEED, and I’ll also have Federated on my car for eight NASCAR Nationwide races, and of course, they will be on my dirt car all year long.

It was a close call there, but you know, life’s kind of funny. I sent all these proposals trying to find sponsorship and I didn’t even ask Federated – they came to me. Sometimes life throws you curveballs and I am so thankful.

It’s a new year and we’re all excited to go to Daytona. This time of year is a lot of fun for everybody because everybody wants to know what everybody thinks. There is a lot of talk. This is why I love racing so much. I’m heading to Daytona. As a kid, I could only dream of going to Daytona for Speedweeks, and now I have been going down there as a racecar driver since 1989. I’m going down as a racecar driver for my 21st year, and I still love it as much as I did when I was a kid. I love Daytona Speedweeks!

Editor’s Note: Kenny Wallace is back for another year doing a Driver Diary for Frontstretch! Check out his 2010 schedule below to find out when he’ll be posting.

February 1
February 12
March 5
April 16
May 7
June 4
July 9
August 6
August 27
October 1
October 22

About the author

Amy is an 20-year veteran NASCAR writer and a six-time National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) writing award winner, including first place awards for both columns and race coverage. As well as serving as Photo Editor, Amy writes The Big 6 (Mondays) after every NASCAR Cup Series race. She can also be found working on her bi-weekly columns Holding A Pretty Wheel (Tuesdays) and Only Yesterday (Wednesdays). A New Hampshire native whose heart is in North Carolina, Amy’s work credits have extended everywhere from driver Kenny Wallace’s website to Athlon Sports. She can also be heard weekly as a panelist on the Hard Left Turn podcast that can be found on AccessWDUN.com's Around the Track page.

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