Wallace and ‘Midnight’ headed into Hall

Rusty Wallace will headline the fourth class of the NASCAR Hall of Fame and his famed car “Midnight” will be part of his induction.

Wallace, winner of 55 races and the 1989 Cup championship, will be inducted Friday night in Charlotte, N.C., with champions Buck Baker and Herb Thomas; championship car owner Cotton Owens; and innovative crew chief, mechanic and engine builder Leonard Wood.

Part of Wallace’s display in the Hall of Fame will be the car he dubbed “Midnight” and drove to 13 victories from 1992-94. Wallace led for more than 5,000 laps in the car, which was raced as both a Pontiac Grand Prix and a Ford Thunderbird out of Penske Racing South.

He is arguably the highest-profile recruit the University of Memphis men’s tennis team has added since the late 1970s, when two future top-20 pros, Mel Purcell and Chip Hooper, spent a brief period at the U of M.

Lukas Vrnak, 19, of the Czech Republic, joined coach Paul Goebel’s program in January at the start of the spring semester and comes to the Tigers after a junior career in which he reached No. 19 in the world and played in each of the four Grand Slam junior tournaments.

Vrnak will play in his fourth and fifth matches of the season when the Tigers (1-2) meet Southern Illinois- Carbondale and Murray State on Friday at The Racquet Club. The U of M will play Southern Illinois- Carbondale at 11 a.m. and Murray State at 7 p.m. Murray State is coached by Purcell.

Vrnak, who reached