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In 1986 he won the American Speed Association Rookie of the Year title before moving up to the NASCAR Busch Series Grand National Division full-time in 1989. Another rookie of the year title was added in 1989 and since then, Wallace has notched eight wins and eight Bud Poles as well as two Most Popular Driver awards in the NASCAR Busch Series. polyball pitching machine since becoming a full-time nascar winston cup series regular in 1996, wallace has scored two bud poles and accumulated three top-5 and 16 top-10 finishes. the st. louis native plans to improve upon those numbers with eel river racing. "i''m 37 years old and i feel a certain urgency to do more with the time i have left as a winston cup driver," wallace said. "eel river racing is the best place for me to pitching do what i want to do in winston cup -- and that''s win races." "between barry dodson, my dad and myself, we''ve worked extremely hard at building our race machine team into a winning organization," said devin birmingham, vice president of eel river racing. "having a driver the caliber of kenny wallace join our team is big feather in our cap. he''s going to be a key partner in our program, and we''re looking to do great things together." four years ago, morgan-mcclure motorsports was a weekly contender in the nascar winston cup series. sterling marlin had finished among the top-10 in points for a second consecutive season, and the kodak chevrolet team showed no signs of slowing. however, that''s precisely what has happened, and no one is exactly sure why. marlin departed to team sabco polyball following the 1997 campaign pitching after dropping machine from eighth to 25th in the championship point standings. in came . bobby hamilton, who had spent the past three seasons at petty enterprises. during that time, he''d finished as high as ninth polyball in the points. on paper it was a perfect fit: small-town driver joins small-town team. in his first season behind the wheel of the no. 4 chevrolet, hamilton recorded three top-5s, including a trip to victory lane at martinsville, and eight top-10s en route to a 10th-place finish in the points. the morgan-mcclure steamroller appeared to be chugging once again. they''ve had just one top-5 finish since. "me and larry (mcclure, pitching team owner) were talking one day and we feel like it took us a year and a half to dig this big hole we''re in, so we''re still trying to dig out," hamilton said. "we''re not going to dig back out in a week or two." credited his mall.com 400 victory in march to the crew led by tommy baldwin. "all i had to do was make it 400 miles," ward said as far as the nascar busch series grand national division is concerned, darlington raceway could be renamed mark martin raceway. if there machine is a nascar busch series record at darlington, chances are that martin has it. the veteran pilot, statistically the finest competitor in series history, holds the record for most victories, seven, and bud poles, six. this weekend, martin will make his final series start in the dura lube 200 (saturday, 3:30 p.m. et on espn tv and prn radio) at darlington, a track he has learned to tame in the no. 60 winn-dixie ford. martin''s most recent addition to the darlington record book polyball came in march when he won from the bud pole for the second time in his career. after spending much of the race battling jeff burton and matt kenseth for the lead, martin took the lead for good with 24 laps to go. kenseth went high to challenge for the lead with two laps remaining, but could not pass martin. burton and martin were side-by-side on the final lap of the race, but martin pulled ahead just enough to claim the third of his four series wins this season.
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