Dodge/Save Mart 350 - Rusty Wallace Notes

CONFIDENT WALLACE PREDICTING INFINEON RECORDS WILL FALL
-New Miller Lite Dodge & "Super Killer" Recent Test Have Him Optimistic About Road Course Battle-

SONOMA, Calif. (June 22) - Miller Lite Dodge driver Rusty Wallace and his Larry Carter-led team are hoping that a brand new racecar and a recent test session at Infineon Raceway will spell success in this weekend's Dodge/Save Mart 350 on the winding Sonoma Valley road course.

"We have a tremendously fast and sleek new little hot rod ready and we had a super killer test with it out there a couple weeks back," Wallace said of his June 8 test session on the newly repaved 10-turn, 1.99-mile California facility. "The track is extremely smooth and a lot faster. You're really able to get off the turns so much quicker. Based on how we practiced that day, we're confident that the chamber is loaded and ready to shoot us down another road course win this weekend.

"We were there testing along with Robby Gordon, Terry Labonte and several others and were impressed with what we were able to do with the new car," said Wallace, who'll be making his 650th career start and 16th start on the Sonoma road course on Sunday. "The 31 car (Robby Gordon) put a major spanking on all of us (led 81 of the 110 laps) out there last year and that' s a good team to compare yourself with. I guess you could say we were impressed enough with what we had this time around that we'd dare to compare ourselves with the best this time around.

"This is the first new road course car we've had in several seasons now and the guys have done a fantastic job in giving us a new weapon to work with," Wallace said of his brand new PRS-75 Miller Lite Dodge. "I'm itching to get back out and put that baby through its paces."

According to Wallace, the current track qualifying record of 1:16.522 seconds, set by road racing specialist Boris Said last season, will definitely be in jeopardy in Friday's qualifying session.

"We ran a 1:15.5-second lap in our early laps in qualifying trim during the test," Wallace offered. "We switched over to race trim for some runs and then went back to the qualifying setup. We did a taped-up, cooled-down, full-blown 'banzai' run and got it down to a 1:15.250 on our stopwatches. That's absolutely flying around that place.

"Man, there's no telling how fast you'll have to go to get the pole, but it' ll definitely be a new track record," Wallace predicted. "I'm thinking that it'll be about one full second - maybe a tick over that - faster in race trim than it was before. The track will have had more time to cure now, but it certainly has quite a bit more grip than last year and we'll be zooming through all those turns."

Wallace started seventh and finished eighth in last year's Dodge/Save Mart 350. "We had a pretty good run going last year and got off the track," said Wallace, whose six career road course wins rank him second only to Jeff Gordon among active drivers. "We were able to regroup and pull us another top 10 out of the day. We plan on being a ton stronger this time around and be a legitimate threat to win the thing."

Friday's 2:05 p.m. PDT single round of qualifying will award all 43 starting positions for Sunday's race. Saturday's practice sessions are set for 9:30 a.m. until 10:15 a.m. and 11:10 a.m. until 11:55 a.m. Sunday's Dodge/Save Mart 350 has a 12:30 p.m. PDT starting time and features live coverage by FOX-TV and PRN (radio).

Notes of interest:

--Infineon track records in jeopardy? "Man, there's no telling how fast you 'll have to go to get the pole, but it'll definitely be a new track record," Miller Lite Dodge driver Rusty Wallace predicts. "I'm thinking that it'll be about one full second - maybe a tick over that - faster in race trim than it was before. The track will have had more time to cure now, but it certainly has quite a bit more grip than last year and we'll be zooming through all those turns. During the recent test there, "We did a taped-up, cooled-down, full-blown 'banzai' run and got it down to a 1:15.250 on our stopwatches," said Wallace. Compare that to the current track qualifying record of 1:16.522 seconds, set by road racing specialist Boris Said last season. (see release)

--Rusty debuting new Miller Lite Dodge in Dodge/Save Mart 350. "We have a tremendously fast and sleek new little hot rod ready," says Rusty of his new PRS-75 Dodge. "This is the first new road course car we've had in several seasons now and the guys have done a fantastic job in giving us a new weapon to work with."

--"Valve spring failure," said Miller Lite Dodge crew chief Larry Carter on Tuesday morning when asked about Rusty's late-race engine problems which relegated him from the top five to a 22nd-place finish. "It was a situation of bad luck ruining a good run again. But, it certainly could have been worse. The fact is that we dropped a cylinder there with 63 laps still remaining - that's 125 miles of straining it all the way. That's a lot of racing left to have to nurse a car to the finish, but we were able to do it. A bunch of teams were not that fortunate. Rusty got all he could out of it and was still hitting on seven (cylinders) when he came across the finish line."

--Sunday's Dodge/Save Mart 350 marks Rusty's 650th career start on the premier NASCAR racing circuit. Currently, he has 55 wins (8.5 percent), 194 top-fives (29.9 percent) and 327 top 10s (50.4 percent)

--Rusty has started from the top 10 in his last five races at Infineon, winning the pole for the 2000 race and recording a 4.4 average start during that period. He has led laps in eight of the 15 races held to date at Infineon, the most among drivers.

--Next test session for Rusty, Larry & Miller Lite Team is set for Indianapolis Motor Speedway on July 12th & 13th.

--"Fair & balanced method" -- that's the way team shop foreman Gary Brooks explained the allocation of new race cars after Rusty's Miller Lite Team received the new PRS-75 they are racing in the Dodge/Save Mart 350 this weekend. "With Brendan (Gaughan) and his team switching over to our in-house chassis, we are handling the situation quite well," Gary explained. "Brendan's team joins the rotation with Rusty and Ryan - getting every third new chassis. Then, to speed up the process of making sure all three teams are running the same cars, each time the No. 2 or No. 12 team gets a new chassis, they'll also send over one they already have in their stable to the No. 77 team. That's a pretty fair and balanced method of getting the job done."

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