Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500 - Rusty Wallace Notes

RUSTY WALLACE LOOKS BACK AT ATLANTA CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

-Miller Lite Dodge Driver "Could Fill A Book" With His Racing Memories At Atlanta Motor Speedway-

HAMPTON, Ga. (Oct. 25, 2005) - Miller Lite Dodge driver Rusty Wallace took a big hit in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup points in Sunday's Subway 500 at Martinsville Speedway, even though he climbed from seventh to sixth in the standings.

Wallace's Atlanta Motor Speedway career record as he enters this weekend's Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500, his final race as a driver on the 1.54-mile track, boasts two wins, eight top-five finishes and 16 top-10 finishes, along with three poles. He feels as though Sunday's race could offer him a great opportunity to cut the distance to points leader Tony Stewart.

"We had a top-five finish all locked up Sunday at Martinsville until we got spun out there at the end of the race," said Wallace of the Lap 482 incident triggered when Wallace was attempting to get by the lapped car of Casey Mears and was tapped and sent spinning by Jeff Burton. "We came in there 92 points out of the lead and now we're trailing by 166. With four races remaining, that was a big hit at Martinsville, that's for sure. Our team has a never-say-die attitude, though, and we'll be right back there going for it all again this weekend at Atlanta."

Wallace's Martinsville late-race spin was costly, with the difference between the fifth-place finish he thought he had locked up and the 19th that he wound up earning meaning a difference of 49 valuable points.

"That was a tough blow to take there at Martinsville on Sunday, but there's absolutely nothing we can do about it now," said Wallace. "We just have to come into Atlanta looking to bounce back with a super strong run.

"We're coming up on some tracks that can be very demanding on engines and the mechanical aspects," said Wallace. "Atlanta has certainly been one of those tracks through the years, especially since it was reconfigured back in the late 90s (for the fall race of 1997). Regardless of what happens this weekend, we've had enough great runs and big-time memories at Atlanta to fill a book. Hopefully, we can end our deal there this weekend on a very positive note."

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Among Wallace's Atlanta racing memoirs:

1.) Wallace's first career NASCAR Winston Cup start -- "I'll never forget my first-ever Winston Cup race," said Wallace of the (March 16) 1980 Atlanta 500 at the Hampton, Ga., track. "Don Miller (Wallace's mentor and now co-owner of Penske Racing South) helped spearhead the deal that saw us get a Chevrolet race car and some support from Roger (Penske) to run the spring race at Atlanta.

"We had a pretty 'rag-tag' bunch that we put together to race that weekend; some of my short-track guys, some of the Penske guys...a bunch of friends and neighbors. We qualified seventh and ran strong all day long. At the end, we wound up racing my hero Bobby Allison and Dale (Earnhardt) for the win. That was a really cool deal. I believe it was Dale's second career win (it was). And there we were finishing second (by 9.55 seconds) to Dale and just ahead of Bobby in our first-ever Winston Cup race. Dale had won the rookie deal the year before and went on to win the championship that year."

The record book shows that Earnhardt was forced to start 31st in his Rod Osterlund Chevrolet

"I remember thinking back then, 'ha, this kind of racing is a piece of cake,' but it didn't take long for us to see just how fortunate we were at Atlanta and how difficult this stuff really is," said Wallace. "We ran Charlotte later that season and Roger was so enthralled in the open wheel racing back then that we put the stock car deal on hold for a while. A crowd of 62,500 saw Earnhardt take the lead from Allison with 29 laps to go and emerge with the win over Wallace. Allison finished third, with Dave Marcis fourth and Dick Brooks fifth.

2.) Winning the 1989 NASCAR Winston Cup championship at Atlanta --"Who'll ever forget the final race of 1989 at Atlanta when we came out on top for the championship? I know we'll always remember it like it was yesterday," Wallace recalled. "You name it and it went wrong that day.

"The deal was that we had to finish within 19 spots of Dale (Earnhardt) to win the thing and gosh, did he make it tough on us that day or what? We started fourth and dropped back. We had something like an 80-point (78 points) lead going into that final race.

"We were pretty much in a defensive mode, but I was still driving as hard as I possibly could. We fell back and were among the first teams to pit under green. We went a lap down and then the caution fell for a crash. The day just got crazier after that. We thought we had a flat and didn't, and lug nuts began to tear through the left rear rim. Before we knew it, we're running three laps down and there's Dale up front leading the thing lap after lap. Heck, if it hadn't been for all the cautions (six for 36 laps), he'd have lapped the field that day.

"Anyhow, he won the race hands down...totally dominating the thing...and we came out of there with a 15th-place finish and won the championship by just 12 points over Dale. As sloppy as it looked that day, it was still the biggest highlight of my career. Dale ran us till our tongues were hanging out, but we were able to squeak it out in the points."

3.) The 1993 season finale; battling it out with Dale Earnhardt for the championship in a season which saw Alan Kulwicki and Davey Allison lose their lives -- "Me and Dale had a helluva battle going on all year long, I'll tell you that," Wallace recalled of the 1993 season. "We'd won nine races going into Atlanta and had really closed in on the points until we had problems the week before at Phoenix (blown tire relegated him to a 19th-place finish, while Earnhardt finished fourth).

"Dale had a big lead on us going into Atlanta (only had to finish 34th or better) and we knew we had to throw everything we had at them there that day. I remember that Dale crashed in practice and had to go to a backup car. We did everything possible that day -- led the most laps, won our 10th race of the year and all -- but still came up short to Dale (who finished 10th in the race and won by 80 points) for the points title.

"When we took the checkered flag and the win, we turned that car around and Dale came up beside us. We did a backwards (Polish Victory) lap in honor of Alan (Kulwicki) and Davey (Allison), our fallen heroes that year. It was a pretty emotional deal and the fans went wild. There's still all kinds of pictures floating around everywhere from that day at Atlanta."

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"The place is lightning fast and you really have to stay on your toes all race long," said Wallace. "It's a track where you don't have to necessarily start up front to have a good finish. Track position and clean air is important there, but if you have the horsepower and a good handling racecar, you can motor on back up through there toward the front. The last few races at Atlanta, we've been running up there really strong in the top 10 when weird stuff happened like knocking the battery out of its bracing, getting loose and slapping the wall or having the transmission go out of the thing."

Wallace started 12th and finished 11th in last year's Bass Pro Shops/MBNA 500 and started 32nd and finished 27th at Atlanta this spring.

"Our car was tight in the center of the turns and loose off for just about the entire race," Wallace said of his team's effort at Atlanta last fall. "We kept on adjusting it and adjusting it. We used all the track bar we had and couldn't adjust it any more during the final 100 laps, so we had to rely on continuously making air pressure adjustments. What really took our chances away of a good top-10 finish came during that really long green flag stretch. Mark Martin was absolutely flying and he put all but eight cars down a lap. He'd gotten around us, the 20 car (Tony Stewart) and the 30 (Jeff Burton) when the caution came out. The 30 car got the 'lucky dog' free pass. We were close to getting a free pass, too, but it just never did happen. I made a mistake that put us back at the end of the longest line on one of the late restarts. Then there on the next-to-last restart, we were a lap down and the 12 was two down, but they wouldn't give any courtesy. I think we would have gotten the 'lucky dog' and could have been up there knocking on the top five at the end."

In this spring's Golden Corral 500, Wallace got caught up in a first-lap skirmish, damaged the battery compartment to his Miller Lite Dodge and fell a lap down only four laps into the race.

"We got a little damage on that first-lap deal and ended up losing a lap getting everything fixed, and then we lost another lap changing a shock," Wallace recalled of the race. "We were tight and loose, loose and tight. We kept working on it and never could get our laps back. We learned a lot off of that race and definitely know what not to do there this weekend."

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Friday's two practice sessions are set from 12:00 noon till 1:00 p.m. and from 1:30 p.m. till 2:30 p.m. The 7:10 p.m. qualifying session will determine the starting field for Sunday's Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500. The NEXTEL Cup cars will be impounded immediately after qualifying. Saturday's track activity is limited to the truck series and the IROC finale for 2005. Sunday's Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500 (325 laps, 500.5 miles) has a 12:40 p.m. EDT starting time and features live coverage by NBC-TV and PRN Radio.

Notes of interest:

--Even though a late-race mishap in Sunday's Subway 500 at Martinsville Speedway relegated Miller Lite Dodge driver Rusty Wallace to a 19th-place finish, he moved from seventh up to sixth in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup point standings. But, the bad news is that the deficit to first grew in the process. "We had a top-five finish all locked up Sunday at Martinsville until we got spun out there at the end of the race," said Wallace of the Lap 482 incident triggered when Wallace was attempting to get by the lapped car of Casey Mears and was tapped and sent spinning by Jeff Burton. "We came in there 92 points out of the lead and now we're trailing by 166. With four races remaining, that was a big hit at Martinsville, that's for sure. Our team has a never-say-die attitude, though, and we'll be right back there going for it all again this weekend at Atlanta."

-- With an Atlanta Motor Speedway career record entering this weekend's Bass Pro Shops 500 that boasts two wins, eight top-five finishes and 16 top-10 finishes in 46 starts, Miller Lite Dodge driver Rusty Wallace hopes that Sunday's Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500 offers him a great opportunity to cut the distance to points leader Tony Stewart. "We're coming up on some tracks that can be very demanding on engines and the mechanical aspects," said Wallace. "Atlanta has certainly been one of those tracks through the years, especially since it was reconfigured back in the late 90s (for the fall race of 1997). Regardless of what happens this weekend, we've had enough great runs and big-time memories at Atlanta to fill a book. Hopefully, we can end our deal there this weekend on a very positive note."

--Miller Lite Dodge driver Rusty Wallace has currently led 19,941 laps in NASCAR NEXTEL Cup competition (ranked seventh on all-time list) and lacks only 59 laps to reach an unbelievable 20,000 laps led. Wallace has led in seven races during the 2005 season and has led a total of 259 laps. However, he has led only one lap since the Chase for the Championship started at New Hampshire on Sept. 18. Points leader Tony Stewart has accumulated a total of 140 bonus points this season, compared to Wallace's 40. During the Chase, Stewart has earned 40 bonus points. However, Wallace has certainly benefited from his team's consistency this season as they have an unbelievable 99 percent lap completion average (9,607 of 9,702 laps).

--Rusty Wallace and his Larry Carter-led Miller Lite Team will be racing their PRS-054 Dodge at Atlanta this weekend. It has been raced only twice this season, in both of the Dover races. Wallace started 11th and finished fifth in the June race. He came back to start sixth and finish third in September's race there. The car debuted on 8/24/02 at Bristol with a fourth-place start and a runner-up finish. It has been the workhorse on the high-banked tracks. In 17 races, Wallace has used the car to record four top-five finishes and nine top-10s. The second-place finish in its debut is the best finish to date. Wallace put this car on the pole at Dover for the 9/22/02 race.

--Rusty Wallace has been running at the finish in an unbelievable streak of 45 consecutive races - since Bristol last fall, the longest current streak.

--Rusty Wallace made his 702nd career start at Martinsville and passed Buddy Baker for ninth in all-time starts.

--What a difference a year makes! Miller Lite Dodge driver Rusty Wallace enters Atlanta sixth in the point standings, 166 points behind leader. He has eight top-five finishes, 17 top-10 finishes and 24 top-15 finishes (leads all drivers in top-15s). He has an average start of 16.8 and an average finish of 11.9. He has had no DNFs this season. After 32 races had been completed last year, Wallace was 18th in points and a whopping 625 points behind 11th-place Jamie McMurray. He had three top-five finishes and nine top-10s. He had a 15.4 average start and a 19.5 average finish with three DNFs.

--"When pessimists think they're taking a chance, optimists feel they're grasping a great opportunity." -Rebecca West