For Mike Wallace, to make it to the 1990 Busch Series, it was a last-ditch effort. Initially a top dog at managing finances and running commercials for Uncle Gary’s vacuum cleaner and janitorial supply store, Mike had the best business year. But this was not without a side hustle that kept him running all over the Midwest — winning 11 weeks in a row at Tri-City Speedway in Granite City or the 1990 Winston Racing Series Mid-America Regionals, for instance. The latter was a sign and Mike gathered the courage to cut a deal with ‘Unc’:

“I run really good and got a guy that offered me a deal. I gotta try to be a race car driver. But do this for me: Let me take off for the rest of the summer, which is going to be six months, and I’m gonna try to go race. And if for some reason it doesn’t work, I’ll quit racing. 100 percent come back here and run this business and be dedicated to it.”

Unc looked him square. The answer was a resounding “no.” As upset as he was, Unc knew he couldn’t convince Mike otherwise, and mastered up just this much at the end of the conversation, “Make sure you leave your truck and your fuel card when you leave.” Brothers Kenny and Mike shared a good laugh recalling the story but a supposedly late move to NASCAR, at least compared to his brothers, Rusty and Kenny, Mike couldn’t have asked for a better start — making his Nationwide Series debut at the final race of the 1990 season, starting 24th and finishing sixth at Martinsville. And no matter how quickly the conversation drifted, Mike kept coming back to these constants, “If it wasn’t for her” or “You can ask Carla” as if his story needed validation, as if it needed more meaning.

So, today, when you see Mike Wallace groaning and moaning after that dreadful Jan-13 phone call that rendered him ineligible to compete for a spot in the Daytona 500 field, it’s understandable. You see, although a 65-year-old returning to NASCAR after over a decade can make for a good column, the irony is the race was not about him; it was to honor the memory of his beloved wife… or at least the ones that he remembers fondly — some cool pictures from Daytona or Talladega hanging around the house in the basement “of her and [me] in victory lane.”

Up until this point, Mike claimed that he was led on from as early as Dec 22 till Jan 9 when he was assured things were progressing as routine. On his end, he ensured a No. 66 MBM Motorsports entry for The Great American Race. “Well, I think it’s past heartbreaking, it’s devastating… And not just not approved to run the Daytona 500, but I wasn’t approved to run any NASCAR Cup race this year or Xfinity race or Truck race,” said Mike a couple of weeks ago. And just a day in, Kenny came live on his YouTube channel with podcaster Charlie Marlow, with the boldest of intros: “For the people that were not fans of Mike, for the reporter that said what he said about Mike, he ends up getting the last laugh. But I’m a bada** and here I am.”

“He’s very embarrassed, and he’s like, ‘Oh my God, I’m embarrassed.’ But he felt like he had his ducks in a row, Charlie.” When probed further about how devastated or dejected he sounded on the phone, Wallace revealed, “He’s devastated. The reason he’s embarrassed is because if he thought there was a talk to NASCAR Executives, he would have never pursued it, right? But he’s dejected. He’s very embarrassed is what he told me but, you know, I told Mike, ‘Look, I am the king of positive mental attitude because everybody eats dirt in life…’ You’re not going to get us; there’s nobody getting nobody, Charlie. This was a storyline, and the storyline just kind of ended with not going through it right. So, Mike made a mistake and should have called competition first, but yeah, he’s bummed out.”

Storyline aside, Mike Wallace is down in the mouth for a couple of more reasons.

Lots of greens and fees later, “They canceled Mike Wallace”

Running The Great American Race is a costly affair. And Mike here, was out on a mission to get a lot of it right. For starters, he dedicated himself to a workout regimen at the gym throughout the past year to tackle the rigors of racing at the Daytona 500. But more than that, he broke bank to shell some $2,000 to have a seat mold poured for his Ford Mustang along with usual race gear (helmets, fire suit, and other safety equipment). But being a 65-year-old, a few other things had to be taken care of.

A special data-gathering mouthpiece! “I have the new mouth guard with the sensors in them that you would wear during the race, I committed to wearing them only during practice, but they gain data over a driver, what’s happening in a driver’s mouth during the race,” said Mike Wallace in an SI interview. More than that, he had shown up at Charlotte Motor Speedway for a 10:30 AM ET appointment for health check-ups per NASCAR’s requirements that entailed a receipt for a concussion test, drug test, eye test, and physical test. “I even volunteered to have my mouth scanned.”

On the part of Wallace, there’s some quiet acknowledgement of the fact that he hasn’t been on a NASCAR race for years, let alone racing in a Next-Gen car, but to deem him ineligible across all tiers of NASCAR still bewilders him. Although the story goes as MBM owner Carl Long, who is good friends with Mike, was gasping at straws after losing both his sponsor and driver last year until he found Mike, the aftermath does paint a grimmer picture for MBM as a whole. Not only did it rebrand itself to be called Garage 66 just four days after the development, they are now cutting back and hoping that less really is more.

You see, at 65, Wallace was not looking to build a career out of NASCAR legacy. He wanted a big stage to honor his wife, set a good example for those who are inspired by him, and just go on to make a good story for the ages. Although this was a dead end with all the gear updated, Mike is considering going back to dirt racing again to compete against familiar faces, and most important of all, his own brother, Kenny. “Just because we’re brothers, it would be fun. It would be; there’s another storyline… I was telling him, I wish I could sit around like you and [Ken] Schrader and tell stories, but you’ve got to build the content to grow it… Now, whether they come to fruition, we don’t know yet.”