Banquet 400 presented by ConAgra Foods - Rusty Wallace Notes

RUSTY WALLACE SET TO MAKE 700TH CAREER START AT KANSAS

-Miller Lite Dodge Driver "Eager To Get Back" To One Of His "Favorite New Tracks"-

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (Oct. 4, 2005) - Sunday's Banquet 400 at the 1.5-mile Kansas Speedway will mark Rusty Wallace's 700th NASCAR NEXTEL Cup career start and it will be his final career in his native midwestern area of the country. Both of those facts have contributed to the abundance of confidence the driver of the Miller Lite Dodge has entering this weekend.

"That's a lot of races -- a lot of years behind the wheel of race cars and it make it all the more special that we're running so competitive this season," said Wallace, now on the final leg of his "Rusty's Last Call" season as a driver. "Having the 700th start at Kansas City makes it even more special. The fact that my career started just down the road in Missouri and this being my final race there in the Midwest where it all began, I'm really pumped up about this weekend. Kansas is at the top of the list of my favorite new tracks and I'm really eager to get back there.

"We've only been racing at Kansas for four years now - this will be our fifth race there - and we've had some really strong hot rods there every season," said Wallace, now third in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup point standings, trailing leader Tony Stewart by 76 points. "We've been a factor in all the races at Kansas except last season when that freaky deal with the side window happened. I think we can put the big numbers on the board in Sunday's race and I'm really looking forward to it."

Wallace paused to reflect on his four career starts at Kansas entering Sunday's race, the 691st consecutive race for the 55-race winner and former series champion.

Wallace led the most laps in the 2001 inaugural Winston Cup race at Kansas Speedway and was leading with less than 40 laps remaining. A pit road speeding penalty dropped him from the lead to the 17th spot for a restart with 32 laps remaining. He mounted a charge that got him back up to fourth before the laps ran out. Wallace started 11th and finished third in the 2002 Kansas Speedway battle.

"Now that first Kansas race was definitely one of the big wins that got away," Wallace recalled. "To have led the thing all day like that and have the field covered, then get slapped with a stop-and-go (penalty) for speeding -- it was a hard pill to swallow, that's for sure. Starting way back there just inside the top 20 and coming back strong like that was a heck of a comeback, but it was just so frustrating to get a stop-and-go like that. The track was great. I had a great car all day and the track was super. If I would have had more time, I could have won the thing.

"We continuously fought a tight condition throughout the 2002 race, but still came home with a third-place finish," Wallace said. "We did all we could to loosen it up during the day - threw everything we had at it - and it took every bit of that. We learned a lot from that race."

Wallace started fifth and finished ninth in the 2003 Banquet 400. He led five times for 23 laps during the event.

"We led a lot and had a good car all day," Wallace recalled of that event. "Then I got tight at one point -- just got too tight at the end there. We had a bunch of the fuel mileage strategy that came into play toward the end of the race. I got myself into a situation where I just had old tires and no track position, and it just killed me."

And what about the "freaky deal" with the side window in last year's race at Kansas?

"That was a real shame," said Wallace. "We had a brand new car for that race (PRS-081) and we'd tested it over at Kentucky Speedway in our preparation for the Kansas race. We were really loose at the beginning of the race and the 16 car (Greg Biffle) was leading and just flying. When he got up to us to put us down a lap, we decided to go ahead and short pit and hope to make up the difference.

"We hit pit road and the guys gave me a great stop," said Wallace. "When the car dropped off the jack, I heard a loud pop. The next thing I knew, Larry (Carter, crew chief) was calling me back down pit road to put the side window back in. I guess you could say it was pretty much par for course with some of the bad luck we had last season with the darn side window coming out on pit road."

Even though Wallace and crew went a full two laps down, they 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, he 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 then, 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.

"The sad thing is that we had a top-five car there at the end of the race," Wallace contended. "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. It was a shame that the results sheet didn't show how strong the car really was.

"It may sound crazy, but I really think that is a big reason why we do so well at Kansas is because we really, really love racing there," Wallace concluded. "Maybe the fact that it's right there in the heart of the Midwest - a place that was starving for a first-class facility like that - maybe that's a big part of it. But it's not just the location; it's the layout of the track that I really love, too. Away from the track, there are just so many nice hotels and restaurants. We just love our trip to that area to race. And since this will be my last one there as a driver, we're hoping to give them all something they'll remember on Sunday."

This weekend's schedule calls for two practice sessions on Friday (12:30 p.m. till 1:30 p.m. and the final "happy hour" session set for 2:35 p.m. till 3:55 p.m.) Saturday's schedule calls for the single qualifying session for Sunday's battle set for 10:40 a.m., with all cars impounded immediately after making their time trials. Sunday's Banquet 400 starts at 1:10 p.m. local time (CDT) and features live coverage by NBC-TV and MRN Radio.

Notes of interest:

--Sunday's Banquet 400 at Kansas Speedway is indeed Miller Lite Dodge driver Rusty Wallace's 700th career NASCAR NEXTEL Cup race (691st consecutive start). "That's a lot of races -- a lot of years behind the wheel of race cars and it make it all the more special that we're running so competitive this season," said Wallace, now on the final leg of his "Rusty's Last Call" season as a driver and 10th overall in most career starts. "Having the 700th start at Kansas City makes it even more special. The fact that my career started just down the road in Missouri and this being my final race there in the Midwest where it all began, I'm really pumped up about this weekend. Kansas is at the top of the list of my favorite new tracks and I'm really eager to get back there." Wallace will tie Buddy Baker for ninth with 701 starts in the Oct. 16 race at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

--What a difference a year makes! Miller Lite Dodge driver Rusty Wallace enters Kansas third in the point standings, trailing leader Tony Stewart by 76 points. He has eight top-five finishes, 16 top-10 finishes and 23 top-15 finishes (leads all drivers in top-15s). He has an average start of 16.4 and an average finish of 11.4. He has had no DNFs this season. After 29 races had been completed last year, Wallace was 17th in points and a whopping 475 points behind 11th-place Jamie McMurray. He had three top-five finishes and eight top-10s. He had a 15.2 average start and a 19.5 average finish with three DNFs.

--Rusty Wallace has been running at the finish in an unbelievable streak of 42 consecutive races - since Bristol last fall, the longest current streak.

--Rusty Wallace has competed in all four NEXTEL Cup races held at Kansas Speedway. He has scored three top-10 finishes. He currently has a 15.8 average start and an 8.5 average finish on the 1.5-mile track. He is third in career laps led there, leading 140 laps (13 percent of all laps completed so far. He has completed 100 percent of all possible laps there (1,068 of 1,068). He finished 18th in last year's Banquet 400, his first finish out of the top 10 at Kansas. "That was a real shame," Wallace recalled. "We had a brand new car for that race (PRS-081) and we'd tested it over at Kentucky Speedway in our preparation for the Kansas race. We were really loose at the beginning of the race and the 16 car (Greg Biffle) was leading and just flying. When he got up to us to put us down a lap, we decided to go ahead and short pit and hope to make up the difference. We hit pit road and the guys gave me a great stop. When the car dropped off the jack, I heard a loud pop. The next thing I knew, Larry (Carter, crew chief) was calling me back down pit road to put the side window back in. I guess you could say it was pretty much par for course with some of the bad luck we had last season with the darn side window coming out on pit road."

--Miller Lite Dodge driver Rusty Wallace has currently led 19,940 laps in NASCAR NEXTEL Cup competition and lacks only 60 laps to reach an unbelievable 20,000 laps led.

--Rusty Wallace and his Larry Carter-led Miller Lite Team will be racing their PRS-098 Dodge Charger this weekend at Kansas Speedway. "It's almost brand new - only raced her once," said Carter. "We tested the car at Indy, but decided not to race it there. We ran her back through the body shop, slicked her up and took her through the wind tunnel. We finally raced it for the first time out at California back during Labor Day Weekend. We finished 15th out there, but the car was a lot stronger than that. We got lapped while in the pits and spent a lot of the race trying to get the lap back. We did, but there really weren't enough laps left to show how strong the car was."

--One way to get high blood pressure is to go mountain climbing over molehills." -Earl Wilson