By Caleb Whisler, Staff Writer
After a second place finish in the Daytona 500, Darrell Wallace Jr. and the No. 43 Richard Petty Motorsports team have struggled a bit.
With the switch over to Chevrolet, the Camaro ZL1 and being “young”, the team is still figuring things out.
“We’ve been struggling a little bit. But, it’s all learning together. Looking back on last year when I jumped in, they already had some mojo rolling. And right now, with the new alliance with RCR, the new manufacturer with Chevrolet and the Camaro ZL1, we’re just figuring things out,” Wallace stated on Saturday at Martinsville.
Despite the struggle, the team is not hanging their heads low about their current performance. According to Wallace, the team knows where they need to be through trying different things in practice.
“Phoenix was probably our best race out of those first four, not counting Daytona, until we just hit pit road. We just weren’t all clicking on eight cylinders there and that took us out of contention. If we had a re-do, Phoenix would have been really good to us, I believe. But it’s just a learning curve,” continued Wallace.
Wallace is learning each track on the circuit up until the first and second stage of the race. As a driver, Wallace understands that he needs to adapt better.
“I’m not fully learning the whole race track until the first or second stage into the race. I’m thinking oh, I could have done this in practice and probably gained a little bit of speed. Being able to adapt a little bit quicker is what I need to work on, but I’m excited to see where we’re heading,” stated Wallace.
Wallace was quick to point out that the team was just missing a good rhythm in the past four races, but knows that they will be making up some ground soon.