08/06/2005

By CHUCK BURTON  / Associated Press

Seventeen-year-old Chrissy Wallace pulls into the garage area and yells to her crew, "I think something broke on the trailing arm."

She climbs from a Thunder Roadster car and examines a broken bolt. She tells a crew member, "I felt the bolt break on the trailing arm with two laps to go. I could finish last or keep racing."

Wallace kept on racing on this summer night, showing the determination to finish that comes naturally to members of her family.

The daughter of Nextel Cup driver Mike Wallace, and niece of two other Cup drivers — Kenny Wallace and former Cup champion Rusty Wallace — Chrissy Wallace is in her third year of racing and doesn't hide her desire to someday drive in NASCAR's top series.

Tuesday nights in the summer bring the youngest Wallace driver — with her piercing blue eyes, long blonde hair, and broad, brace-filled smile — to Lowe's Motor Speedway outside Charlotte to race in two series.

The RACEceiver Legends series features miniature 1930s-style stock cars with Yamaha 1250cc motorcycle engines. They reach speeds of up to 75 mph on the speedway complex's quarter-mile oval.

Thunder Roadsters are open wheel-style cars with the same engine, but with a longer wheel base and softer tires. They can reach speeds of up to 90 mph.

When Chrissy Wallace first started racing Legends cars, she said, she wasn't welcomed by the men and boys she competed against.

"Not too many guys are happy (women) are around here — especially winning" she said as she stood by her car, covered in stickers earned for winning feature races. "But we're finding more acceptance."

In addition to driving, Chrissy Wallace plays basketball and softball, a sport in which she fielded college scholarship offers. But, she said, "I realized last year that racing was my true dream."

Her dad has never pushed her toward racing.

"I don't care what she decides to do — doctor, lawyer, driver, whatever," Mike Wallace said. "Just as long as she's happy."

Later this year, she plans to move into a late model stock car, racking at tracks in Hickory and Concord. When she turns 18 in May, she intends to seek sponsorship for a ride in NASCAR's Craftsman Truck Series.

"I'd like to race with her," Mike Wallace said. "A father-daughter race would be pretty cool."

If she's successful there, that could lead to the Busch Series and perhaps eventually to the top-level Nextel Cup.

Wallace said she loves softball, but "my heart is set on NASCAR and to be the first successful female driver (in the series)."