Sirius Satellite Radio at the Glen - Rusty Wallace Notes

RUSTY WALLACE WANTS SPECIAL BIRTHDAY PRESENT AT WATKINS GLEN

Miller Lite Dodge Driver Turns 49 On Sunday In Final NASCAR Road Course Race Of His Illustrious Career

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. (Aug. 9, 2005) - Miller Lite Dodge driver Rusty Wallace turns 49 years of age this Sunday and he's hoping for a special birthday gift this year.

"Yeah, that'd be really cool to win this weekend at the Glen in the final NASCAR NEXTEL Cup road course race of my career," Wallace said of Sunday's race. The Sirius Radio @ the Glen is the 46th and final NASCAR road course race of Wallace's illustrious 22-year NASCAR NEXTEL Cup career. "Sunday is my birthday and I can't think of a better present, can you?"

After competing in 45 prior road course races, 19 of which have been run on the winding Watkins Glen International circuit, Wallace has amassed quite an impressive record on those tracks. Entering this weekend's NASCAR road course racing finale for Wallace, he has posted six wins, 19 top-five finishes, 24 top-10 finishes and three pole positions. His career earnings on road courses entering this weekend's Watkins Glen race total $2,025,342.

What has led Wallace to be thought of as one of greatest road course racers in NASCAR history?

"Having great equipment and working with the top teams I've been associated with certainly has been key," offered Wallace, who finished 25th at Indianapolis last Sunday, yet maintained his fourth-place position in the NEXTEL Cup point standings. "Attitude has really had a lot to do with it, too. I really like racing on the road courses. For me and several others out there, it's a nice change of pace from what we normally do. It's always a big personal challenge that I always enjoy.

"Learning to like what you're doing is important going into these races and I learned that a long time ago back when I first went to drive for Blue Max Racing (in 1986) and began to get pretty good at it. There are some guys out there that don't care for the road races and they are very vocal about it. They enter the weekend with a negative attitude and they are already defeated before they get to the racetrack.

"We started to understand the importance of liking road course racing years ago and I think it really helped us overall," said Wallace. "The bottom line is that until NASCAR schedules the races somewhere else and Watkins Glen and Sears Point (Infineon Raceway) are not on the tour, you better learn to like 'em. You better come to grip with the fact that as far as the points and big scheme of things go, these things are just as important as any of them. A win in last weekend's Brickyard 400 might be a lot more prestigious and the purse is a helluva lot more, but come Sunday afternoon when the checkered flag falls, the cat who is sitting there in Victory Lane at Watkins Glen has earned the exact same number of points.

"We're determined to make it into the Chase this year and that's where our full attention is focused," Wallace said. "With the points being so tight and our strategy of looking at each race as the most important race of the year, it'll be hard to get all wrapped up in the emotions of this being my final road course race."

But, still, there will always be a special place in Wallace's heart for the road courses, and especially the winding strip of asphalt on the rolling hillside overlooking Lake Seneca.

"We won the last two races ever held on the old Riverside (Calif.) road course and we won twice during our years of racing out at Sears Point (Infineon Raceway near Sonoma, Calif.)," Wallace offered. "But, yes, I really do have a lot of special memories of racing at the Glen.

"Back in the late 80s at Blue Max, we realized the need to build a special car for the road courses and we did just that," continued Wallace. "It really paid off as we won our first road course race back in 1987 (9/9/87) at the Glen. We were the first team that named their cars way back then and we named that car Glenda after that win because of where we won that race. Terry Labonte was driving for Junior Johnson back then and he was about the toughest guy on the road courses at that time. We started second in that race, with Labonte on the pole. We wound up making all the right calls in the pits and really snookered them there at the finish. We wound up beating Terry by something like 12 seconds.

"We came back and won again at the Glen during our championship year in '89," Wallace continued. "I remember that was such a cool win because it came down to a battle between me, Mark (Martin) and Dale (Earnhardt). Geoff Bodine was the local hero and he was driving for Rick Hendrick back then. He had a really strong car before he crashed out of it. Anyhow, we were able to pull off the win and those guys finished right behind us." (Wallace won by 1.06 seconds over Martin, with Earnhardt finishing third and the late Davey Allison fourth.)

While Wallace has had an impressive NASCAR racing career at Watkins Glen International, posting two wins, seven top-five finishes, nine top-10 finishes, one pole position and track career earnings that total $846,214, one of his most fond memories of racing there came outside the elite NASCAR series.

"One of my favorite memories of racing at Watkins Glen came back in 1991 when we won the IROC race there," Wallace said of the Aug. 10, 1991 race. "It wrapped up the IROC championship for us that year and we really did it right. There were four races in the series that season.

"We got off to a pretty bad start in the opener at Daytona (finished 10th of 12 drivers)," Wallace recalled. "But, we came back like you wouldn't believe. We won the IROC race down at Talladega that May and had won the race at Michigan just the week before. We got up to Watkins Glen with the hammer really down. Little Al (Al Unser Jr.) had been the guy to beat in IROC at that time and he'd won the last two IROC races in a row there.

"It was a pretty major whipping we put on 'em that day at Watkins Glen," Wallace said of the race in which he won, Mark Martin finished second and Unser third. "We started on the pole and led every single lap of the race. Nobody got close in that one and we celebrated both the race win and winning the IROC title at the same time right there in Victory Lane."

Friday's schedule calls for practice sessions from 1:20 p.m. till 2:40 p.m. and from 4:00 p.m. till 6:00 p.m. The weekend's "impound schedule" sees a single round of qualifying on Saturday at 11:10 a.m. establishing the 43-car starting field for the next day's battle. Sunday's Sirius Radio @ the Glen (90 laps/220.5 miles) has a 1:35 p.m. EDT starting time and features live coverage by NBC-TV and MRN Radio.

Notes of interest:

--Miller Lite Dodge driver Rusty Wallace will be celebrating his 49th birthday this Sunday at Watkins Glen...there's nothing more that he'd like for that special birthday present than a win in the Sirius Radio @ the Glen, the 46th and final NASCAR road course race of his career. "Sunday is my birthday and I can't think of a better present, can you?"

--Rusty Wallace has been running at the finish in 34 consecutive races -- since Bristol last fall, the longest current streak. That streak was in serious jeopardy in Sunday's Allstate 400 at the Brickyard. Wallace caught a big break when Jeff Green's shredded tire brought out the second caution period of the race on Lap 39. A windshield "tear-off" from another car had attached to the front grill of Wallace's Dodge, sending its water temperature soaring. "The gauge was pegged," Wallace offered after the race. "Thank goodness for that caution. We were able to come into the pits twice during the yellow and shoot ice water through the system to finally get it cooled down. That could have been fatal for us. Instead of having the off day we did finishing 25th, we could have very well had a disastrous day and finished close to last with a DNF (did not finish)."

--Rusty Wallace maintains his fourth-place position in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup point standings with 2,705 points entering Watkins Glen. He is 218 points behind leader Tony Stewart and 107 points behind third-place Greg Biffle. He is 59 points ahead of fifth-place Kurt Busch and has a 218-point advantage over 10th-place Carl Edwards. After 21 races had been completed last year, Wallace was 17th in the standings and a whopping 268 points out of 10th. He has scored 16 top-15 finishes this season, tied with Johnson for the most among all drivers.

--Rusty Wallace and his Larry Carter-led team will be racing their PRS-075 Miller Lite Dodge at Watkins Glen this weekend. "We're bringing the same little hot rod that we finished fourth with out at Sears Point (Infineon Raceway) and have a ton of confidence in that car," said Wallace. "We brought it out the first time last summer out there and ran up front all day long. We put that baby on the outside pole out there (in 6/27/04 race at Infineon) and ran in the top five all day long until that very last lap when we ran out of gas. We went back out there back in June and got that solid finish. It'll be a strong car at the Glen this time around."

--Rusty Wallace's PRS-075 Dodge Charger will carry a special Miller Lite/Sirius Satellite Radio color scheme in this weekend's action at Watkins Glen International.

--Rusty Wallace has several fond memories of racing on the Watkins Glen road course and they are not just limited to his 19 races in NASCAR NEXTEL Cup competition. "One of my favorite memories of racing at Watkins Glen came back in 1991 when we won the IROC race there. It was a pretty major whipping we put on 'em that day at Watkins Glen," Wallace said of the Aug. 10, 1991 race in which he won, Mark Martin finished second and Al Unser Jr. third. "We started on the pole and led every single lap of the race. Nobody got close in that one and we celebrated both the race win and winning the IROC title at the same time right there in Victory Lane."

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