Mike Wallace heads into the season finale looking to lock up second place.

When Wallace and his No. 2 Team ASE Ford crew head to California Speedway for the Motorola 200 later this month, they do so armed with the knowledge that they are solidly in the hunt for second in the final series standings. It could have been better, but it also could have been worse.

Wallace went to last Friday's O'Reilly 400 at Texas Motor Speedway still thinking he had a shot at overtaking Greg Biffle for the driving title. Instead, Wallace experienced problems before the green flag even flew. A faulty clutch that was discovered while he sat on the starting grid meant Wallace had to be pushed behind the pit-road wall while the rest of the field prepared to start the race.

The bad news was that the time required to repair the truck mathematically eliminated Wallace from title contention. The good news is that it took only 33 laps for the Team ASE crew to replace the clutch, enabling Wallace to get out on the track and salvage a 21st-place finish, keeping him in the hunt for second place in the series.

"I'm looking forward to going to the final race at California knowing my Team ASE guys are giving that kind of effort every week," Wallace said.

Biffle crashed at Texas but still wrapped up the driving title. Kurt Busch and Andy Houston used strong performances to vault past Wallace in the standings. The result is that heading to the Oct. 28 event in California, Wallace is fourth in the standings, just three points behind Houston and 33 in back of Busch for second.

"We're going to have to end the season on a high note at California because after what happened here at Texas, we're fourth in points," Wallace said. "We got bit by some freak luck tonight and hopefully, we're done with that now. We haven't had a lick of those kinds of problems all year long. There's nothing that I can do or say that's going to change that. Now it's up to us to go get that back with a win at California."