Kenny Wallace: 2012 Might Be My Last Season Driving In NASCAR

Kenny Wallace loves racing and plans to keep running dirt cars until he’s 60 years old. But his time in NASCAR may not last much longer.

Wallace said Wednesday at Charlotte Motor Speedway he’s “exhausted trying to find money” from sponsors in what seems like a never-ending battle to fund his race cars. As such, the 48-year-old is unsure whether he’ll continue driving in NASCAR past the end of next season.

“I literally go to the boardrooms myself (to talk to potential sponsors),” Wallace said. “Hell, I spent $35 grand on my own DVD to present myself to these people. Every sponsor you see on those (RAB Racing) cars right now, I’ve got by myself. And I’m exhausted.”

All of Wallace’s current sponsors have told him they’re on board through 2012, he said, but there’s room for more. He publicly asked for a sponsor to help him keep racing.

“I love driving that race car,” he said. “Driving that race car is the funnest thing I ever do. ... I’m just completely exhausted trying to find $100,000 to $150,000 a race.”

Dash 4 Cash finale at Charlotte Motor Speedway

Wallace is eligible to win a $100,000 prize in Friday night’s Nationwide Series race should he finish higher than the other contenders in Nationwide’s “Dash 4 Cash” (Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Elliott Sadler and Ryan Truex).

We asked Wallace, Stenhouse and Truex what they’d do with the money (aside from saving it) if they won:

Wallace: “I might turn it into $100 bills and put it under the ground somewhere. No, I’ll be honest with you. My wife says she wants to keep a motorhome for when our kids have kids. The motorhome I have right now is not good. It’s blowing a breaker all the time, it’s upsetting me, it’s making me mad. I’m thinking about getting rid of this motorhome. ... I think I’d buy a motorhome and trade (in) the piece of crap one I’ve got. I think I’d like to drive my motorhome out west as a normal person one time.”

Stenhouse: “I would start a dirt team. Kenny Wallace has got his dirt program going, and that’s one thing I want to do – get my dirt team going. I’d try to get mine off the ground and running.”

Truex: “I’m going to be honest with you – I don’t know how much of that I’ll even see. There’s some people that money would go to who have gotten me to where I’m at now. It’d be cool to win, but, yeah, I don’t think I’d see much of it.”