The January NASCAR Winston Cup Preview saw
\nsomething unusual in 2001 – an area of pessimism. That area was found at the
\nbooth of Wally Dallenbach Jr., a driver in Winston Cup since 1991 and who had
\ndriven the ex-Butch Mock #75 presently owned by businessman Darwin Oordt.
\nDallenbach indicated that as of mid-January sponsorship of his #75 was needed,
\nbut he sounded less than optimistic about chances of acquiring sponsorship. He
\nalso indicated he was tired of being miserable in NASCAR and that he would look
\nback to open wheel racing, from where he came in 1991. "(NASCAR) is too
\nlong a season to be miserable. If I can get into a situation where I can be
\ncompetitive, this is where I want to stay. Right now the best (non-NASCAR)
\nopportunity I have is in the IRL……John Barnes and I are good friends, and
\nthere is a possibility there."<\/p>\n
Whatever Dallenbach winds up doing, his
\nNASCAR career has been one of banging his head against a wall and trying to get
\nsomething going. The son of 1970s USAC open wheel star Wally Dallenbach Sr.,
\nWally Jr. forged a career in road racing in the 1980s. Wally Jr. tried to enter
\nIndy cars but no rides were available, so he joined Junie Donlavey’s #90 Ford in
\nWinston Cup early in 1991.<\/p>\n
When Jack Roush formed a second team for
\n1992, Dallenbach was hired as the driver, and the Coors brewery out of
\nDallenbach’s home state of Colorado provided sponsorship. The tenure with Roush,
\nhowever, was an early sign of trouble. Dallenbach had difficulty adapting to
\nstock cars, and in his two seasons with the team he managed only five top tens.
\nEven his brightest moment – second at Watkins Glen – was robbed of any glory;
\nduring the Watkins Glen GP Jack Roush confiscated tires slated for Dallenbach’s
\nteam to give to Mark Martin’s primary #6 team, which led to a confrontation
\nbetween the two afterward.<\/p>\n
Dallenbach signed with Petty Enterprises
\nfor 1994, and almost immediately things went wrong. He failed to qualify at
\nRichmond and Atlanta, then at Martinsville, and then Michigan, Daytona, and New
\nHampshire. His only bright spots were stellar efforts at Talladega, a tenth at
\nDover, and a fourth at Sears Point. The end came when he squabbled with crew
\nchief Robbie Loomis after the Brickyard 400 over radio problems and Loomis lost
\nall control at Dallenbach. Wally’s driving looked doubly bad when rookie John
\nAndretti jumped in the car and qualified handily at every race and led 30 laps
\nat Charlotte.<\/p>\n
Wally basically sat out 1995, but at
\nWatkins Glen he was tabbed for Bill Davis’ #22 Pontiac – and he appeared
\ndestined to win, but a late caution erased his lead and wound up giving the race
\nto Mark Martin. This, though, got him the notice of Bud Moore, and Dallenbach
\nsigned to drive Moore’s #15 Fords for 1996. The team acquired Hayes Modems
\nsponsorship and at the Daytona 500 Dallenbach stormed into the battle for the
\nlead, pushed Dale Jarrett past Earnhardt with 24 to go, and ultimately finished
\nsixth.<\/p>\n
But the pattern continued. Dallenbach
\nfailed to qualify at Martinsville, ran well at Talladega, and finished third at
\nSears Point – where Terry Labonte commented that the two road courses were the
\nonly tracks Dallenbach was competitive on.<\/p>\n
The rest of 1996 was more of the same –
\nWally stormed to second at Talladega but crashed, and was not a factor anywhere
\nelse. His season ended at Atlanta with a crash with Loy Allen.<\/p>\n
He did, though, sign with a new team –
\nSABCO. But despite another stellar Talladega effort he was gone from the team by
\nMay 1998. He wound up landing into the Hendrick Motorsports #25 for 1999, and he
\nbegan to garner some top tens. In the Winston 500 of 1999 Dallenbach was the
\nfastest in final practice and he stuck the #25 into the lead early on. But the
\nengine shut off, and that was it as far as being competitive for 1999.<\/p>\n
Dallenbach then signed with Darwin Oordt,
\nwho’d purchased Butch Mock’s #75 in 1999. "….he came in here and had no
\nidea what this business is like," Dallenbach said in PitNow. "Darwin
\ngot a pretty big education (in 2000)." Among the struggles was failure to
\nqualify at Wally’s best oval, Talladega.<\/p>\n
Aside from racing, Dallenbach has also
\nbeen known in NASCAR circles for his hunting expeditions with, among others,
\nRichard Childress.<\/p>\n
It always hurts the sport a little bit
\nwhen a driver has to drop out. For all his struggles, Dallenbach did show some
\nmoxie over the years, and 2000 did see some good runs. NASCAR racing wouldn’t
\nexactly suffer with Dallenbach’s continued presence, but given his open wheel
\nheritage, a return to Indianapolis in an open wheeler would be a nice change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The January NASCAR Winston Cup Preview saw something unusual in 2001 – an area of pessimism. That area was found at the booth of Wally Dallenbach Jr., a driver in Winston Cup since 1991 and who had driven the ex-Butch Mock #75 presently owned by businessman Darwin Oordt. Dallenbach indicated that as of mid-January sponsorship […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-original-archive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}