DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — With all these multi-car teams, mergers and alliances in NASCAR Sprint Cup Racing, there is still room for the little guys in the 50th Daytona 500.
Kenny Wallace and John Andretti proved that in Thursday’s two Gatorade Duel at Daytona qualifying races.
Wallace drives for Furniture Row Racing, a team based two time zones away from the sport’s North Carolina hub in Denver, Colo. When the team struggled to make races last year, Wallace was replaced by a variety of drivers, including the team’s current driver, Joe Nemechek.
After Sunday’s single-lap qualifications to set the field for the Thursday’s qualifying races, Nemechek was the third quickest, which put him first in line to make the field based on speed in the rather complicated formula used to determine the starting lineup for the Daytona 500.
For Wallace, however, he had to race his way into the field through the qualifying races. With only two positions open in each 150-mile qualifier, he had to be one of the two highest finishing drivers not locked into the lineup based on the top 35 of last year’s standings.
Wallace’s eighth-place finish gave him one of those two spots and the youngest brother of 1989 Cup champion Rusty Wallace was back in the Daytona 500 for the first time since 2005.
“Besides my wife and my children, this moment right now is the greatest time in my life,” Wallace said. “It beats any Nationwide (formerly Busch) championship, any three-time most popular driver. I got all them stats. 

LOVING LIFE: Kenny Wallace (left) shares a laugh with nephew Steven Wallace during Nationwide Series practice. (HHP/Erik Perel Photo)

“This right here, this is the 50th annual Daytona 500, the biggest sporting event in the United States right now, and I raced my way into it. Besides my wife and children, this is the number one thing. It’s unbelievable.”
Wallace credited his brother, Mike, for helping him get into the race. Mike Wallace has competed in Cup, the former Busch Series and the Craftsman Truck Series throughout his career and was available to serve as Kenny’s spotter on Thursday.
“He inspired me,” Kenny said. “He finished fourth in the Daytona 500 last year. A couple days ago, he said, ‘Will you let me spot for you?’ I looked at him kind of stunned and said, ‘Hell, yeah.’ Mike is one of the best drafters there is in all of NASCAR.”
With Mike Wallace serving as an extra set of eyes for his brother atop the spotter’s stand, Kenny had all the ingredients to drive his way back into the field. It was also a chance for Wallace to earn some vindication with the team that turned him loose last year.
“Last year, Furniture Row, they didn’t know where to turn, what to do to make their team better,” Wallace said. “I don’t know what it was. I don’t know if they fired me or what, because they kept paying me and kept all my stuff.
“And then they called me up in the wintertime and said, ‘We realize it wasn’t you. We want you to run the 500.’ I’m like, ‘What the hell?’ They said, ‘We realize how bad our motors were. This is our chance to pay you back.’”
Instead of a big-name sponsor, Andretti is driving for a Japanese Steak House called Makoto.
The team is owned by Bob Jenkins and is Front Row Motorsports-based in Denver, N.C.
It’s the same town as Furniture Row but a different state, entirely.
“I wish I would have put money on me in Vegas, on me making this race,” Andretti said. “We were definitely not somebody expected.  It was a good race; I knew when I passed Michael Waltrip that was it. I knew when I got alongside Dale Jarrett that he was the guy, coming to the checkered flag. 
“I can’t say that I wouldn’t have passed him, but I really didn’t want to pass him at that point. I didn’t think it was cool. We kind of finished side by side.”
Just getting into the show was a victory for Andretti; he knew that Sunday’s Daytona 500 was a different story.
Both Wallace and Andretti have been in this game long enough to be realistic. That is why their race victories came by simply getting into the Daytona 500 against all odds.
On race day, it was time for the big times to shine as Wallace finished last in the 43-car field after his engine blew up after 141 laps. Andretti would finished 40th, 16 laps down but credited with running at the finish.
Wallace earned  $258,735 while Andretti’s team collected $258,613.