UAW-GM Quality 500 - Rusty Wallace Notes

RUSTY WALLACE TAKES "SEASON OF WEIRDNESS" BACK TO LOWE'S
-Miller Lite Dodge Driver Has Seen The Gamut Of Unusual Obstacles Entering UAW-GM Quality 500-

CONCORD, N.C. (Oct. 12) - Maybe a Saturday night race at Lowe's Motor Speedway is just what Miller Lite Dodge driver Rusty Wallace needs right now.

"I've said many times this year that I couldn't believe all the weird things that have happened this season, but Sunday's race at Kansas really takes the cake," said Wallace of Sunday's Banquet 400, where the scorecard shows Wallace started 36th and finished 18th. "We had a top-five car at the end, but nobody would know that because it was just another chapter in our season of weirdness."

The culprit in Sunday's race at Kansas Speedway?

"During a pit stop, the freakin' side window pops out of the car and falls to the concrete," said Wallace, who was debuting his new PRS-081 Miller Lite Dodge in Sunday's Kansas race. "Tell me how the heck you can lose the darn side window when you're there stopped on pit road."

In Sunday's Kansas race, a loose handling condition early in the race saw Wallace fall a lap down to leader Greg Biffle on Lap 120. His Larry Carter-led team decided to "short-pit" and Wallace was called down pit road on Lap 129. During the stop, Wallace's side window fell out of the car and to the pit road surface. NASCAR officials forced him to hit pit road the next time around to replace the window. The end result saw Wallace fall a full two laps down to the leader.

The team refused to give up and their tenacity paid off. Wallace had lined up on the inside row with the lapped cars on a Lap 218 restart. By Lap 229, Wallace was two seconds ahead of leader Elliott Sadler and he caught a break when Kasey Kahne spun in Turn 2 on Lap 242 to bring out the eighth caution of the race. Running just a single lap down, Wallace got the "Lucky Dog" free pass to return to the lead lap when Robby Gordon spun with 17 laps remaining. He took on fresh tires for the final sprint to the finish and was able to climb from 23rd on the restart to finish in the 18th spot.

"I guess you can add that to what I consider about the weirdest year I've ever had - the darn side window coming out on pit road," Wallace said immediately after the race. "We short-pitted there after getting a lap down and when the car dropped off the jack, I heard a loud pop. The next thing I knew, Larry was calling me back down pit road to put the window back in.

"The sad thing is that we had a top-five car at the end of the race," Wallace said. "The car was just way too loose at the beginning of the race. We got behind because of that and then fell two full laps down with the window deal. We never gave up, though, and came back to make up those laps. I'll tell you what - it was one of the few times that I wished we were running a 500-mile race and not a 400-miler. If we'd had the additional laps, we'd been right there up front at the end of the thing.

"Maybe another Saturday night race under the lights is just what we need about now," said Wallace. "I hope it is a full moon, because that doesn't seem to bother my team at all. Maybe that will help to spread the weirdness out and give everyone else a fair dose.

"As for us overall, when you look back on the season we've had so far, you have to just shake your head in disbelief," said Wallace. "We've had all the normal things go wrong, like flat tires and mechanical failures, but stuff like losing your brakes at Pocono, having a guy like Dale Jarrett take you out with seven laps to go at Loudon - that's pretty weird. I might can even understand that deal of running out of gas at Sears Point (Infineon Raceway) on the last lap, but you don't ever run out of gas on a short track. Somehow, that very thing happened to us at Bristol. It's been a truly bizarre season for me and my guys.

Even though Wallace and crew feel they may have now run the complete gamut of improbable obstacles to overcome, Wallace is quick to make a big picture observation.

"But then again, can you believe all the cats out there who are spinning out on their own?" Wallace asked. "It seems like it's been happening each and every week. That's been very unusual if you ask me. There's nobody within crashin' distance and they're out there just looping the things without any help. So, maybe it's a pretty weird season overall that we're having."

In May's Coca-Cola 600 at LMS, Wallace started 16th and overcame a loose handling condition that put him a lap down at one point to post a solid 10th-place finish.

"I couldn't believe that the car would be that loose at the beginning of the race," recalled Wallace of the May race, which produced his 21st career top-10 finish on the 1.5-mile track. "We got working on it right off the bat, but with no cautions in the early part of the race, we got a lap down. We started working on the air pressures and the car started coming around. As the laps wore on and the track tightened up, the car got better and better. The guys were giving me great pit stops and Larry was making all the right calls. That got us back in the position to get the 'Lucky Dog' pass and get back on the lead lap. It was a hard-fought top-10, but at least we did get a top-10 finish out of it. I had been a little sick at my stomach earlier in the day and that came back to haunt me there in the race. It felt like I was sitting on a concrete block. I felt great getting in the car. I got crappy feeling and finally I drank enough water and started feeling better, but my doggone cushion in my seat was so thin that it was beating my tailbone to death."

Wallace started 14th and finished 13th in last year's UAW-GM Quality 500. His effort was severely hampered by getting two "speeding tickets" on pit road.

Saturday night's 500-miler will mark Wallace's 46th career start at LMS. His record currently boasts two wins (the 1988 500-miler and the 1990 Coca-Cola 600), along with eight top-five finishes and 21 top-10s.

Qualifying for the UAW-GM Quality 500 to set the 43-car field is scheduled to begin Thursday night at 7:10 p.m. EDT. Friday's final "Happy Hour" practice session is scheduled from 6:10 p.m. until 6:55 p.m. Saturday's 500-mile, 334-lap race is set to take the green flag at 7:00 p.m. EDT. The event will be televised live on NBC-TV and PRN Radio will feature live radio coverage.

Notes of interest:

--Rusty's "season of weirdness" continued at Kansas with the side window coming out on a Lap 129 pit stop (details are in release). According to Miller Lite Dodge crew chief Larry Carter, "It was a case of minor equipment failure. The fact that we were racing a brand new car there on Sunday probably added to the odds of something like that possibly happening. Rusty never gave up after going two laps down. We made both of 'em up and I'm convinced that if he'd had another 25 laps or so, Rusty would have been way up there in the top 10."

--Car 54 at Lowe's this weekend. The car was last raced in the September Dover event, where Wallace started seventh and survived two flat tires and several near-miss crashes to finish 13th. He raced the same car in the June Dover race and in both 2003 Dover races. It has been the workhorse on the one-mile tracks - led most laps & finished 6th at Rockingham spring of 2003 - outside pole & finished 6th Dover last spring - started 14th & finished 10th Dover last fall - raced earlier this year at Rockingham where it started 4th & finished 7th. This will be the first race the car has been used at LMS.

--Steve Wallace's big win at Nashville last Saturday night has him sixth in the current UARA Series point standings, 79 points out of fifth. It increased his lead in the series rookie-of-the-year battle to 65 points. The 17-yr.-old racing son of Rusty and Patti, Steve was impressive in winning last Saturday night's Full Throttle Racing Parts 150 at the Music City Motorplex at the fairgrounds in Nashville. The younger Wallace credited support, advice and information provided by his dad for the win. "Dad raced there quite a bit during his short-track days," Steve said. "He used to haul his car down from St. Louis to run against Sterling (Marlin) in the big NASCAR weekly shows they had. Then when he was racing in the ASA, he kicked their butts several times there. He gave me the setup he used when he won the All American 400 there back in the 80s (1985) and it worked just perfect." "They said that the place hasn't changed much over the years," said the proud dad. "I guess that proves that they were right. Man, that's pretty neat that Steve used my same winning setup from almost 20 years ago and was able to come home the winner last Saturday night."

--The latest round of Mobil 1 Racing team member profiles includes all the interesting background information on Rusty's engineer, Derek Staments, "Rockin' Rodney" Childers, Brendan Gaughan's car chief and "Two Snack Jack" Kurtzner, Ryan Newman's personable and popular transport driver. These bios and more can be found at http://www.mobil1.com/racing/index.jsp or at www.trpr.com

--"Diamonds are nothing more than chunks of coal that stuck to their jobs." -Malcom S. Forbes