Aaron’s 499 - Rusty Wallace Notes

FRESH OFF MARTINSVILLE WIN, WALLACE CARRYING MOMENTUM AT 'DEGA
-Miller Lite Dodge Driver Still Looking For First Career Cup Win At Talladega Superspeedway-

TALLADEGA, Ala. (April 20, 2004) - Miller Lite Team Penske Dodge driver Rusty Wallace's take on racing at the mammoth 2.66-mile Talladega Superspeedway is easily understood -- and illustrated.

"If we can get through the big crashes that the place is known for and be around at the finish, we've got a shot at winning it," said Wallace, fresh off a win at Martinsville on Sunday, which snapped a 105-race winless streak and shot him up to eighth in the current point standings. "And even if we don't win it, just surviving and being there at the end usually ends up seeing us with a solid top-10 finish.

"That's the goal for this weekend at Talladega - staying unscathed until the end and seeing what we can get out of it," said Wallace, still looking for his first Talladega NASCAR NEXTEL Cup victory after 41 attempts entering this weekend's Aaron's 499 "That place has always been about survival and the way our luck has been there, lasting through the race has been about 90 percent of the battle."

One look at Wallace's Talladega record certainly assures that Wallace knows what he is talking about. His performances on the track last season serve as a great example. After getting caught up in a multi-car crash in the early laps of last spring's Aaron's 499, Wallace's day ended early and he was relegated to a 37th-place finish. In last fall's EA Sports 500, Wallace powered to the front after starting 33rd and survived the 188 laps. He led 11 laps and finished ninth, even after getting hung out at the end.

"It seems like it's always been that way for us at Talladega," said Wallace, whose track lap completion average of 81.7 percent is his worst of any track. "At least it has been that way ever since we started running the (restrictor) plates back in the late 1980s. It has definitely served up its share of memories.

"We went through a period where it seemed like we either crashed or blew up in almost every race at Talladega," said Wallace, whose track record shows an incredible 14 DNFs (did not finishes - in 34 percent of his races to date). "But during the last five to seven years, our luck has really done a big turnaround. We've been running strong, led a bunch of laps and really had genuine chances of winning many of the races. That's what we're looking to continue there this weekend."

In Wallace's 41 Talladega races to date, he was running competitively at the end of 24 of them and carries a respectable 10.5 average finish in those races. Crashes ended his day in seven races and engine-related problems took their toll in another seven. In three events, he was involved in accidents and returned to log laps and pick up points.

A pair of sixth-place finishes rate as Wallace's best to date in the spring race at Talladega. Even in those solid finishes exist examples of his topsy-turvy times at Talladega. He qualified 14th in the spring race of 1987 and ran strong all race long to post the first sixth-place finish, but his sixth in the 1993 edition of the spring race came with much drama.

After starting 24th, Wallace quickly made his way to the front and hooked up with the late Dale Earnhardt. Wallace explains what happened then:

"Me and (Dale) Earnhardt had been running first and second for almost the entire race and it looked like it was going to finish that way," said Wallace. "But as my luck seems to have gone at Talladega, there was a caution right at the end. That bunched us all back again for a two-lap race to the finish. We were headed down for the checkered flag with a whole cluster of cars. Earnhardt barely got into me from the rear, but that's all it took. I got sideways and the air got underneath the car. That thing shot up in the air and flipped end over end 16 times before it finally came to rest on down past the tri-oval. I think Dale thought he'd killed me that day and he was happy when he stopped and looked inside the wreckage to see that I'd be okay. I broke my wrist and was beaten all black and blue in that one. The weird thing was that we actually came across the finish line in the air. If it had been a photo finish, we might have been clear out of view for the camera."

Friday's qualifying session at 3:05 p.m. (local CDT) will determine all 43 starting spots for Sunday's 188-lap, 500-mile battle. Sunday's Aaron's 499 has a 1:00 p.m. CDT starting time and features live coverage by FOX-TV and MRN Radio.

Notes of Interest:

--"It's a heck of a trophy to remember my first win as a crew chief with," Miller Lite Dodge crew chief Larry Carter said on Tuesday morning. "Tracy and I will always be appreciative of Rusty and Patti for their thoughtfulness." Turns out that Rusty and Patti made a surprise visit to the Carter home on Monday night bearing a "thank-you" gift -- the grandfather's clock won at Martinsville on Sunday, along with a special plaque commemorating Carter's first big league win.

--Rusty is a featured guest on Dave Despain's "Wind Tunnel" tonight at 10:00 p.m. EDT on Speed Channel.

--"We're looking pretty smart for making that decision right now, aren't we?" crew chief Larry Carter said of the team's move to not use a test date at Martinsville in advance of Sunday's race. "That's pretty cool to come in there with a brand new car -- no laps at all on the thing -- and win like that. What's really great for us now is that we'll be taking the very same car up to Richmond to test on May 5. We'll be going for 2 for 2 with it at Richmond and it will be such a momentum booster to be bringing a proven winning car up there."

--Speaking of that winning car -- the "PC-70" Miller Lite Dodge -- Rusty and team still haven't named it yet. "It's our team tradition to name the cars after their first win and we're all looking for a special name," Rusty said on Tuesday morning while shooting a Comcast commercial in Atlanta. " We'll have a cool name for it before we bring it back out again at Richmond."

--The "PC-66" is the car Rusty and crew will race this weekend at Talladega. It debuted in the Daytona 500, was involved in an early crash and returned to finish 29th. "It's been totally rebuilt since Daytona and we had it back in the wind tunnel yesterday," crew chief Larry Carter said on Tuesday morning. "We didn't have the chance to show the car's full potential down at Daytona and we're hoping to be able to get that done this weekend."

--Special theme & scheme for Rusty coming up for California -- details soon.

--"The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said." -Peter Drucker