Rusty Wallace
Rusty Wallace
Russell William "Rusty" Wallace, Jr.is a retired American racing driver, and a former NASCAR Winston Cup Champion. Considered one of racing's most well-known and charismatic personalities, he is a member of four of stock car racing's major halls of fame: the National Motorsports Press Association Hall of Fame, the NASCAR Hall of Fame, the International Motorsports Hall of Fame, the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America and the National Motorsports Press Association Hall of Fame. He also served as the...
ProfessionRace Car Driver
Date of Birth14 August 1956
CityArnold, MO
I want to go out on top, and above all I want to spend a lot of time with Patti and the kids, and I don't want to be some invalid or hurt and killed because of something that went wrong.
Evidently, what they did was within the rules,
It turned into a real wild card. I came in this thing 92 points out of the lead, and I'm still 92 points out of the lead. I don't know what happened, but Stewart going out (briefly) helped everybody.
Then I got to thinking, 'Hey, I could just take those two weeks off and get ready to go!' But I think when you sign up to run all those races, if you take a couple off I think it would void your Winner's Circle program. So if you skip one it just wouldn't work.
That just shows how important consistency is and it's our consistency that has gotten us this far,
It's a mystery to me why the track doesn't already have a Nextel event. It's definitely a Nextel Cup track. It's beautiful. It's wide. It's shaped perfect. It's got the grandstand capability. They've proved they can pack them in with a lot of drama and excitement. It's just a fun place to go.
It's definitely, when we talk about Springfield, I feel that it's definitely an important area for me. The track here played a huge role in my development as a driver. I'd race there on Friday nights, then I'd go on to Fort Smith, Ark., and back to St. Louis on a Sunday.
It's Bristol. I love the place. I always have and I always will. I've always said it felt like my home track.
You guys are probably getting sick of seeing me get all this stuff. But I'm enjoying it, even if you aren't.
You have to have a great handling car and a ton of horsepower and durability. It's a track that usually doesn't have many cautions, and that's what produces the fuel mileage races that the place in known for.
We had a real hot rod today, but ...
As soon as I fired it up and pulled out, I knew I was in trouble. The engine just welded itself shut.
The racetrack said, 'You get a release from the judge, we'll let you race,'
We had the best car, without a doubt. We were able to take the lead and just throttle back. But when the right front went down, the day started to unravel. We led the most laps, even with the problem we had. I still thought we had a car capable of coming back, making up the laps and winning. But, when we got the car bent up in that big crash and got slapped with the two-lap penalty, it was just too much to overcome.