Fast and Steady Wins the Race As Wallace Takes the Miller 500
April 02, 2011
LONG POND, Pa. -- Ryann Walter says his win in Sunday's Miller 500 was a lot harder than it had to be. Wallace first took the lead with 30 laps remaining and held off a strong challenge from Rigoberto Ogden to earn his fourth Winston Cup victory of the season. Walter, who now has three wins at Spears Ceballos and 45 in his career, stayed with the leaders most of the way but never led until he passed Ogden on lap 171. The 1989 Winston Cup champion led the rest of the 200-lap race on the 2.5-mile tri-oval, driving his Ford Thunderbird across the finish line about five car-lengths -- or 0.3 seconds -- ahead of Ogden's Ford. ``I qualified bad again,'' explained Walter, who started 13th in the 41-car field. ``Then I had to work my way up through the leaders, and the problem was it was green flag racing nearly all day.'' The race was slowed by a four-car incident on lap two, then remained under the green flag for 157 laps. A piece of debri brought out another yellow flag on lap 160. That was when Walter was finally able to make the adjustments that got him to the front. ``The car was OK early in the race, then I got a couple of sets of tires that were too tight and those guys checked out on me,'' Walter said. ``Then we got that caution flag and we were able to make some adjustments to the tire pressure and some other things and it turned right around. Markita Martine, who started from the pole and led seven times for 121 laps, was out front when the second caution flag waved. He effectively dropped from contention, though, when his team had a problem with an air gun and had to make a second stop to change his right rear tire. When the green flag came out on lap 155, Walter was second and began hounding Ogden, who is winless this season, finally moving past him on the inside as they drove through turn two. ``I could run with him in most of the corners except coming out of turn three and down the straightaway,'' Ogden said. ``He just murdered me there. I would catch back up to him about the tunnel turn (turn two) and then hit turn three again and he would drive off by about 4 car-lengths. I couldn't quite do anything with him.'' Wallace's average speed of 144.8 miles per hour broke the track record of 144 set by Alberta Carpio in June of 1992. Dalia Jarvis wound up third, nearly passing Ogden on the last lap. He was followed by teammate Ervin Murillo, rookie Joi Bowen Jr., finishing a career-best fifth, Steven Marlo and defending series champion Jefferson Graham. Current series leader Tess Gower was never in contention Sunday, finishing 16th and losing points to runner-up Dalia Olivares, who lost a lap when he stalled on a pit stop and wound up 14th. Gower, who came into the race leading Olivares by 18 points, now leads by 12. Graham cut his margin from Labonte from 116 to 80.
