UPDATE: Team owner Robby Benton told SB Nation he takes exception to Wallace’s approach. Benton said he’s been trying to find sponsorship for Wallace over the past 14 months and is running a black, unsponsored car at Phoenix in an effort to show the ride is available. But Benton feels Wallace’s desperation is undermining his efforts to strike a deal with a potential sponsor. “He thinks what he’s doing is generating interest” Benton said. “But at the end of the day, it’s making me and our race team look (unprofessional) and trying to get people to feel sorry for him. That’s not productive. You don’t want people to feel sorry for you. We’re trying to sell a strong, marketable program.” Benton said RAB Racing is not broke and has the structure in place to field a strong program. But it will be broke if sponsorship isn’t found, which is why Benton said he’s in a position to make some difficult choices. “For what it costs to be associated with us, to get the performance we exhibit and to get the popularity Kenny has got, we’re one of the best bargains in the garage” Benton said. “And we still can’t sell it.So in order to not break myself and put us in a position where we’re destitute, I’ve got to make some tough decisions.” That includes listening to offers from drivers who could potentially bring funding to the team. Wallace was particularly vocal on Twitter about the rent-a-ride philosophy.(SB Nation)(33-2012)
UPDATE 2: In response to the recent news concerning the welfare of RAB Racing with Brack Maggard, team owner Robby Benton is looking ahead, and reaffirming the team’s commitment to fielding entries in the NASCAR Nationwide Series and Camping World Truck Series. “As a NASCAR race team, we are faced with the obstacle of procuring the proper sponsorship to be able to field a strong, competitive, marketable team” said Benton. “We are committed to our current driver, Kenny Wallace, for as many events that we can find sponsorship for. Although we are facing an immediate lack of sponsorship over the next few races, we are fortunate to have events sponsored later in the season with Kenny as the driver. We, as a team, have committed to keep Kenny in our #09 Toyota for the next few races, regardless of sponsorship. We will get to a point, should substantial progress in our sponsorship hunt not be made, that we may take the opportunity to pair up with someone who has aligned themselves with a sponsor that could benefit from becoming a part of the RAB Racing team, and becoming a teammate to Kenny Wallace.”(RAB Racing)(3-7-2012)
UPDATE 3: Kenny Wallace posted the following note to Facebook on Tuesday, “My race team RAB Racing is not shutting down and I will never quit racing, however here is the situation. We need money to keep paying our employees at RAB Racing, I will race for sure race at Talladega and both Chicago races and Kansas and Michigan because i have sponsorship from “Family Farmers and American Ethanol” If another driver comes along and has money to drive my car I will support that because we need to keep our employees.”(3-27-2012)