NASCAR competition officials confirmed Monday that driver Mike Wallace was not approved for his previously announced attempt to qualify for this year’s Daytona 500.
MBM Motorsports announced it on January 2 that Wallace, 65, would drive the team’s No. 66 Ford in its bid for the “Great American Race” (Feb. 16, 2:30 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
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For each driver approval request, NASCAR considers recent racing activity and performance as the primary factors to consider.
Wallace’s most recent NASCAR Cup Series start came in the 2015 Daytona 500, when he drove a car owned by Jay Robinson to a 36th-place finish. He last competed in a National Series event in 2020, when he drove three races for JD Motorsports in the Xfinity Series.
Since Wallace has not raced at an intermediate or larger race track since 2015, he is currently not eligible to race at the NASCAR Cup Series level.
Wallace has three career victories at Daytona International Speedway in three different series. He won an ARCA Menards Series race at the World Center of Racing in 1994, then added victories in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series (2000) and Xfinity Series (2004).
