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When the idea first surfaced of honoring active military units on the windshields of NASCAR XFINITY Series cars at Friday’s Firecracker 250 powered by Coca-Cola, someone asked Jesse Iwuji which driver’s car he’d like his last deployment station, USS Comstock, featured on.
Iwuji, the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West driver in his first full season who also is in active service in the U.S. Navy until 2017, didn’t hesitate: Darrell Wallace Jr.
“I’ve followed him a lot and I really love what he’s done in the series,” said Iwuji, who will attend this weekend’s races at Daytona.
Like Wallace, Iwuji is African-American and a lifelong race fan. Like Wallace, Iwuji is trying to make a name for himself in the sport.
Like Wallace, Iwuji has shown great promise, but still is searching for his first win this season.
With so many similarities, somehow when Wallace first heard that his No. 6 Roush Fenway Racing Ford would honor Iwuji at Daytona International Speedway for Friday’s race (7:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN), his predominant thought settled on the major difference between the two drivers.
“I didn’t know he was a Navy Lieutenant, so that’s really cool,” Wallace said.
Many XFINITY Series drivers will learn new facts about the units displayed on their race cars this weekend. Part of ‘NASCAR: An American Salute,’ the program honoring military units and installations is a counterpart to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series’ tribute during the Coca-Cola 600 over Memorial Day weekend where cars featured names of service men and women who died while in active duty.
Several XFINITY Series teams have direct connections to the units, such as driver Elliott Sadler, whose windshield will be adorned with Fort Campbell’s “3RD BCT 101ST ABN” to honor JR Motorsports employee Lee Langley, who served for six years at the Army base as an infantry team leader in the 101st Airborne Division.
And then there’s Iwuji and Wallace. The two drivers met a couple times in the past year that Iwuji has been driving professionally, but rather than discuss Iwuji’s six years of active duty in the Navy, each time the two settled on their shared passion: racing. Iwuji peppered Wallace with questions about how he prepares for races, and how he manages the full-time job of driving.
“I’m still brand new and still learning a lot,” said Iwuji, who earned his first top 10 in his fifth start, “so I definitely have a long way to go.”
Sometimes, Wallace has the same feeling. But after 14 XFINITY Series races this season, Wallace has five top 10s and two top fives. He’s currently ninth in the driver’s standings, with seemingly a fairly secure spot in the 12-driver XFINITY Chase.
But he’s also winless. His second-place finish at Dover in May was a career best — and it was just enough to leave Wallace yearning for more.
“We’re knocking on the door for our first win,” Wallace said. “We need to clean up some areas that we’re lacking in right now. We’re kind of treating this (Daytona) as a test session because we have the Chase format. We can go to the race track and bring a different package to try each and every weekend. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. … Hopefully we can get a win to lock us into the Chase, and then win a Chase race each and every segment, and then put ourselves in a position to win the title, win the title and everybody’s happy.”
It seems a simple formula, though Wallace also knows there are significant strides to be made in the second half of the season.
It all starts with this weekend’s race, when he’ll have USS Comstock plastered atop his windshield.
“Hopefully it brings us some good luck, and hopefully it makes us ‘military strong’ so we can muscle some guys out of the way and get our first win,” Wallace said.