A passionate dream now lies in pieces. Mike Wallace, the middle child among the iconic Wallace brothers of NASCAR, wanted to run the 2025 Daytona 500. After reeling under a family tragedy last year, losing Clara, his wife of 44 years, to cancer, this was his wish to have another shot at happiness. “Myself and my kids, we all needed a boost. We need something that would say, ‘Here’s a positive story for us, let’s go make it happen’ and this opportunity presented itself,” said Wallace on his reason to participate in the event.

However, NASCAR dashed Wallace’s hopes to return to superspeedway racing after a long break.

Mike Wallace loses his spot

We all know the marvels accomplished by the Wallace brothers. Rusty Wallace ended his star-studded 55-Cup race win career in 2005. Kenny Wallace is an Xfinity Series veteran and now mesmerizes fans with his podcast. Mike Wallace is no less talented – he was comfortable with superspeedway pack racing, recording top-ten finishes in a quarter of his Daytona starts. He has also won thrice in Daytona – once in the ARCA series, once in Xfinity, and Daytona’s inaugural Truck Series race in 2000. Despite this wealth of experience, Wallace faced a hiccup on his Daytona return.

NASCAR canceled Mike Wallace’s No. 66 Ford Mustang Dark Horse entry under MBM Motorsports for the Great American Race. Journalist Bob Pockrass updated the reason for it on Twitter: “NASCAR has not approved Mike Wallace to race the Daytona 500 because he has not raced on an intermediate or larger racetrack since 2015.” The last time that the 65-year-old racer competed in a NASCAR national event was in 2020. He ran a three-race stint in Xfinity with JD Motorsports, all on road courses.

Mike Wallace himself headed over to social media to express his sadness. “Daytona 500 NON update! To my utter shock and devastation at 4:00 today NASCAR competition director Elton Sawyer called me to inform me that NASCAR has decided not only to not approve me for Daytona 500 but at this time not approved to race in the Cup, Xfinity and Truck series in 2025 but could go through there process to possibly get approved for 2026.” 

This comes as a crippling shock for MBM Motorsports as well.

Bitter news for a struggling team

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Besides axing Mike Wallace’s ambition, NASCAR also placed his team in a jittery situation. Carl Long-owned MBM Motorsports has competed in the Xfinity Series since 2015 on a part-time basis and has always struggled with sponsorship. Back in 2019, Long admitted to a lack of hardworking, dedicated employees that did not allow him to expand his team. Fast forward to 2025 and the situation is a little different. The team hoped to field cars in the Xfinity Series’ Daytona race – but failed to do so due to sponsorship hurdles. Wallace and his ambition to return to the Daytona 500 presented the only hope for Long – now even that is lost.

Mike Wallace sent out an appeal for the struggling team: “Please show your Love and support to Carl Long and the complete MBM Motorsports team as this has now put them in a terrible position.” MBM Motorsports said in an official release: “We are devastated for Mike and the Wallace family that this opportunity will not come to fruition.” The team continued that it would keep trying for its Daytona appearance nonetheless. “For MBM, we must regroup at this late stage with the loss of our driver and sponsor for The Great American Race. Our team is working swiftly to sign another funded driver for Speedweeks in order to still attempt the 67th Daytona 500.”

Evidently, NASCAR has delivered harsh blows to both the driver and the team. We will have to wait and see how this situation develops.