Pocono 500 - Rusty Wallace Notes

WALLACE SAYS "ALWAYS EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED AT POCONO"
Miller Lite Dodge Driver Recalls The 1994 Pocono 500 As "His Most Dominating Weekend Of Racing At Pocono"

LONG POND, Pa. (June 7, 2005) - Miller Lite Dodge driver Rusty Wallace will be participating in his 43rd career NASCAR big-league race at Pocono Raceway this weekend and after 21 seasons of tackling the tricky triangular track, he still doesn't know quite what to expect.

"You pretty much come into the Pocono races always expecting the unexpected to happen," Wallace said with a chuckle as he thought about his four career wins and three career poles on the 2.5-mile layout. "It's a really demanding place, with the long frontstretch and that tunnel turn separating two other straightaways.

"You always know that the competition will be fierce and there's always the chance of it coming down to fuel mileage at the end," Wallace contends, "but there always seems to be the weird things happening there, too.

"I've been racing there long enough to see stuff happen that I've never seen happen anywhere else before," said Wallace, whose fifth-place finish Sunday at Dover, Del., launched him back up to seventh in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup point standings. "Where else have we raced when the caution flies for deer on the track? I'll never forget when Neal Bonnett hit one while driving for Junior Johnson. They had to throw the red flag during the practice session that day and Neal drove his car back into the garage with the antlers hanging out of the grill.

"It wasn't too many years ago there where we had an extended caution period while NASCAR officials chased and cornered a rabbit on the frontstretch. That was pretty weird, too.

"The track is just so big and so unusual - up there in the mountains and with all the wildlife in the area," Wallace continued. "Back during my rookie season (1984), we were racing there when a thunderstorm struck. NASCAR wasn't too quick to throw the red flag and by the time we'd gotten down the Long Pond stretch, it was like a monsoon had hit over there. It was so bad that Bobby Allison hydroplaned into the tunnel turn wall and totaled his car out before we could get back around to the frontstretch and stop our cars.

"And the weather there - it can be different as night and day. It can be so foggy that you can't see 20 feet in front of you. At the same time, you can drive down the road a few miles and it'll be crystal clear. I always keep a jacket and an umbrella handy when we go to Pocono. That's really strange when you consider that their races are in June and July and it's normally dryer and hotter than heck everywhere else that time of year. I remember a couple of years ago when we had water seepage on the track and couldn't get practice or qualifying in.

"There have been plenty of wild crashes there through the years and I've even had a few," Wallace continued. "The crash we had several years ago (in June 1999 race) when I blew a right-front tire going into the first turn. I hit that wall a ton and said at the time that it was the hardest hit I'd had in my life. I'll say this -- it was a hit like you wouldn't believe and knocked me goofy and into another time zone for a few minutes.

"I'll always remember that crash Davey Allison had over in the tunnel turn. His car got up on the old guard rail on the inside and flipped wildly. The videotape showed Davey's arms all flinging outside the driver's window and it was amazing he wasn't hurt any worse than he was.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not slamming the track or nothing like that," said Wallace. "It's just the location and configuration of the track is so different from anywhere else we race and that's just fine with me. It's always a nice change of pace to come and race at Pocono and the Mattioli Family does a tremendous job to make us all feel at home there. But you could certainly write a book about all the weird stuff that's happened there through the years."

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Aside from all the weirdness that has occurred at Pocono Raceway, which June race stands out in his mind as most memorable?

"Man, that weekend we had there in June of '94 would be hard to beat," offered Wallace, as if it just occurred recently. "Things don't get much better than that, when you win the pole with a new track record and then go dominate and win the race like we did. But you'd never know that whole story if you just looked at the record book.

"That was during a three-week period where we stayed out on the road," recalled Wallace, a four-time Pocono race winner. "We'd won the race in Dover and gone to test at Michigan, before coming back to race at Pocono. We didn't go home until after that race. We had so much success that Todd Parrott (team chassis specialist at the time) called it our 'magical mystery tour.' We were really in a zone during that stretch.

"I remember that we really blew 'em away in qualifying with that new track record," said Wallace of his lap of 164.558 mph (54.692 seconds). "The race was late getting started because of the weather that day, too. When they threw the green flag, we just took off.

"We just totally dominated the thing (leading eight times for 141 of the 200 laps), but we almost lost it at the end. We were out front by a mile (had a 20-second lead over Dale Earnhardt) when the caution came out (on Lap 194 for debris after Mark Martin cut a right rear tire). Buddy Parrott was the crew chief back then and he called me down pit road for four tires. Earnhardt came in and he got only right sides and had the lead for the restart. There were several cars on the tail end of the lead lap and NASCAR was having a problem lining them up in their proper order.

"There I was, thinking that we were gonna' end the thing under yellow and Dale was gonna' steal a win like that from us. Buddy was down there screaming in the official's face and we finally got to go back to green with one lap remaining. With my four fresh tires, I was able to get underneath Dale going into Turn 1 and then hold him off the rest of the way around and won the thing by about two car lengths. I had no idea what all the confusion was about during the caution. I just knew that Dale was the leader and I had to get back around him. If it hadn't gone back to green that day, 'ol Rusty would be sitting here today looking at 54 wins and not 55."

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This weekend's "impound schedule" calls for Friday practice beginning at 1:20 p.m. Saturday's 12:10 p.m. qualifying session will determine the 43-car starting field, with the cars impounded at the conclusion of time trials. Sunday's Pocono 500 has a 1:40 p.m. EDT start and features live coverage by FOX-TV and MRN Radio.

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