UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 - Rusty Wallace Notes

NASCAR NEXTEL CUP COMPETITION IS "A CONTINUING HUMBLING EXPERIENCE" FOR MILLER LITE CREW CHIEF LARRY CARTER
-With Two Top-10 Finishes, Rusty Wallace & Team Carry Momentum Into Las Vegas-

LAS VEGAS (March 8, 2005) - "What we do out there is a continuing humbling experience," Miller Lite Dodge crew chief Larry Carter said immediately after his driver, Rusty Wallace, posted his second consecutive top-10 finish for 2005 in the Feb. 27 Auto Club 500 at California Speedway.

That statement by Carter may have sounded a little strange at the time, especially coming from the leader of a team that had just moved up to eighth in the point standings. Even more so, considering the team's "over-the-wall gang" had just won the $10,000 prize for the fastest pit work during the race among teams participating in the Checkers/Rally's Double Drive-Thru Challenge competition.

"Out there, the bottom line is that you're only as good as your last race, your last call from up on that box or your last pit stop," Carter later explained. "We had a heck of a day going out there in the pits, but that last one (pit stop) was a bad stop. The good thing, big-picture-wise, was that the four stops that led up to the final one were exceptionally good and that made the overall average good enough to win the award. That may have taken a little bit of the sting out, but it still didn't remove the fact that the last one was a bad pit stop."

Carter, Wallace and team made five four-tire pit stops and one two-tire stop during the 500-mile California race. The first four were clocked at 13.467 seconds, 13.284 seconds, 13.364 seconds and 13.096 seconds respectively. That was followed by a 6.492-second two-tire stop and then, a disappointing 15.705-second final four-tire stop.

"On that final stop, Rusty came in sixth and went out 11th and that really hurt us at the time," Carter explained. "Rusty got on the radio and asked what happened. All I could tell him was that we had a bad stop - no excuses, we just had a bad stop.

"When I came in here as the crew chief at the beginning of last season, Rusty convinced me immediately that a top priority he had for me was getting the pit crew situation turned around. It took us till about last April to get all the right guys assembled in the right places to get the job done. In the past, the crew was pretty inconsistent and bad stops were up in the 17-second bracket. I told 'em back then that the big goal was to get faster and more consistency going and to trim any bad stops we might have down to stops in the 15-second bracket.

"I'm really proud of the guys we have going over the wall," Carter added. "Notice I said 'we have' in that we are all in this together. I think there might have been a lot of finger-pointing done in the past when things went wrong on pit road, but that's definitely not the case around here any more. I think we have the best people out there and when something happens, it's a situation of 'we had a bad stop' and not 'so and so messed up.'

"The great thing about it all is that we'll bounce right back out in Las Vegas this weekend and redeem ourselves and I'm confident of that," Carter said.

For the record, Wallace's crew averaged an impressive 13.783 seconds per four-tire stop at California, even including the final stop up in the 15-second bracket. That came only a week after the team averaged 13.588 seconds for their eight four-tire stops in the season-opening Daytona 500. Their fastest stop of the season so far came in that race, a 12.919-second stop for four tires and fuel.

Wallace, Carter and the Miller Lite team are riding the crest of the momentum entering this weekend's UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 at the 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway. After finishing 10th in the season-opening Daytona 500, they ran as high as third before coming home 10th at California in the second race of the 2005 season. Wallace climbed from 10th to eighth in the 2005 NASCAR NEXTEL Cup point standings (with 268 points).

Wallace has scored four top-10 finishes in his last five races, since Phoenix last November. He has competed in all seven races at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, scoring three top-10 finishes. He finished 10th in this race last year. Wallace ranked 13th in the point standings after two races one year ago.

"It's (Las Vegas Motor Speedway) a great track to race on and we had a super test out there the first of last month," said Wallace, who along with the other two Penske Racing South drivers (Ryan Newman and Travis Kvapil) will race cars promoting the new line of Mobil high-endurance motor oils - which guarantee engine protection for longer intervals - during this weekend's UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400. "The 'Vegas track has a little bit of Phoenix, a little bit of Fontana (California Speedway) and a little bit of Richmond built into one. You can pass at the top, you can pass at the bottom -- you just have to have a lot of horsepower. I'm so excited that our team is off to a competitive start for 2005 and we're confident that our team can be even more successful this weekend out at 'Vegas.

"We've had a lot of good runs at Las Vegas - just a couple of setbacks with some weird crashes," Wallace offered. "In all the races where we've been running at the finish, we've been right up there in the thick of things." Wallace saw accidents take him out of the 2001 Las Vegas race (a Lap 8 incident with then teammate Jeremy Mayfield) and the 2003 event (a Lap 174 encounter with Mike Skinner). He started 21st and finished 10th there in 2004 and has a 9.6 average finish in the five races when he completed all the possible laps.

Wallace, Carter and team will be using the same car they debuted in competition at California - their PRS-086 Dodge Charger. "That was our game plan from the testing out west and all along, to use this same car in both races," Carter explained. "We loaded her back up in the hauler after the California race, took her back home and ran her back through the body shop. 'W.W.' (Dave Munari) and the guys in the paint shop put the Mobil Clean 7500 decals on her and she looks like a brand new race car. I can just hear Rusty now, talking about his good looking, sexy little Mobil 1 hot rod when we get out there."

Friday's qualifying session at 3:10 p.m. local time (6:10 EST) allocates all starting positions for Sunday's starting field. Sunday's 267-lap, 400-mile race has a 12:00 noon local (3:00 p.m. EST) starting time and features live coverage by FOX-TV and PRN (radio) beginning an hour earlier.

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