Rusty Wallace can’t get son sponsors, closes team

Rusty Wallace Racing has run it’s last laps. Former NASCAR Sprint Cup Champion Rusty Wallace claimed he would close the doors of his Nationwide team if he failed to find sponsorship for both his cars and that apparently has happened.

Wallace’s team fielded two cars last season the #62 of Michael Annett and the #66 of , Rusty’s son, Steve Wallace.While the #62 car of Annett had full backing by Pilot Travel Centers the car set to be driven by Steve Wallace did not.

So Rusty Wallace decided to close up shop and let Annett seek employment elsewhere.

“A lot of teams would have run with the level of funding we have now, but we want to ensure that our team has the resources necessary to compete and to improve our operations,” Wallace said. “I promised myself and my family long ago that if the team wasn’t funded to a level with which we were comfortable, we just wouldn’t run it. I’ve worked way too hard to put part of my life savings into a race team.”

Despite lacking funding for his son’s car, Rusty claims that all of his current supporters of Steve’s car will join him wherever he ends up in 2012. Apparently they just were not comfortable putting their names on his car for actual money.

This story is bizarre because the team had sponsorship for one of it’s cars and was getting help from Joe Gibbs Racing. The decision seems largely based on the inability to get names on the cars to be driven by Steve. I guess Rusty may be right. Steve Wallace does get a lot of exposure, he does wreck enough after all and with Rusty calling the shots on the play by play they are always getting a few mentions no matter where they run.

It’s a shame no one wanted to dump large sums of money into that. Then again even Rusty says he worked too hard to put his savings into a race team.

John Boarman
John Boarmanhttp://www.tireball.com
Founder and Owner of Tireball Sports.

1 COMMENT

  1. Sad to see another Nationwide only team have to close shop due to a lack of sponsorship money available, especially when SW66 is your driver. You can’t expect anyone other than Big Dan’s Towing Service to get good exposure on the side of the crumpled up 66 car (being towed back to the garage area).

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