Wallace relieved to get 2-year extension
Johnson looks to end career-long 43-race winless drought
LONG POND, Pa. — For Bubba Wallace, a visit from car owner Richard Petty to his motor home at Daytona earlier this month was a welcome relief.
Wallace quickly learned during that encounter that he won’t have to wait on pins and needles until the end of the year to find out his status with Richard Petty Motorsports for 2019.
The contract extension was announced Saturday as a multiyear deal, but Wallace was more specific.
“I was asleep on my couch in Daytona when he (Petty) comes barreling up to my bus,” Wallace said. “And he says ‘Hey, we’re going to do the next two years with you,’ and I’m like, ‘OK, great.’
“It was just like that. And then I went back to sleep. I thought ‘Oh, I probably put off a bad vibe, because I was knocked out,’ and he’s like, ‘Congrats on the next two years,’ and I’m like, ‘Cool. Thanks.’ ”
With the next two years set, RPM can concentrate on its ongoing search for sponsorship.
“Knowing that we have a set future ahead, we can sell that,” said Wallace, 24, who finished second in the season-opening Daytona 500. “That’s the biggest thing as a whole, how we want to make our program better from the outside looking in.”
For Petty, extending Wallace’s tenure with RPM is a move consistent with what the team owner sees as a paradigm shift in the sport— a changing of the guard from veterans to younger drivers.
“We’re going to have a new chapter with the racing crowd and the drivers,” Petty said. “So we wanted to get in on the ground floor on this. If you look back, a lot of the drivers I’ve had kind of went through their deal and then we picked them up on the back end.
“We want to start out a little bit different this time. We’re going to start out on the front end. Bubba was a logical choice for us.”
JOHNSON MILESTONE: It’s poetic injustice that Jimmie Johnson is making his 600th start in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series in the throes of the worst slump of his career. He hasn’t been to Victory Lane since June 4 of last year, when he took a checkered flag for the record 11th time at Dover. Since then, the drought has stretched to a career-long 43 races entering today’s Gander Outdoors 400 at Pocono Raceway.
Johnson’s performance issues aren’t isolated. Hendrick Motorsports, his parent organization, hasn’t won a race with any of its four cars since Kasey Kahne’s swansong victory at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on July 23, 2017.
Johnson starts 15th today.
QUALIFYING: Kevin Harvick’s bid for his first Pocono Raceway victory will start from the rear of the field.
He had turned a lap of 177.750 mph on Saturday to win the pole and Kyle Busch joined him on the front row at Pocono, but both cars’ qualifying sessions were tossed out when they failed inspection.
Joe Gibbs Racing driver Daniel Suarez starts first at Pocono.
Busch won the Trucks Series race Saturday then momentarily joined Harvick on the front row.
XFINITY SERIES: In Ames, Iowa, Christopher Bell moved back out front in overtime to win Saturday at Iowa Speedway, becoming the first series regular with three straight victories since Dale Earnhardt Jr. in 1999.
Coming off victories in Kentucky and New Hampshire, Bell led 94 of 257 laps. He broke a tie with Cup driver Kyle Larson for the series season victory lead with four.