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
We're in the Chase, and that's the big deal. I'm glad I'm not in that mess next week. I've been thinking about that and I'm glad not to be under that pressure.
We've got to put a major importance on handling,
He just said it was part of tradition and something they've always done. I've talked to some of the drivers and I don't think anybody sees the need for it any more.
Kenny went in to use the rest room, and they had the toilet paper roll with the springs on the side, and he kept pulling the paper, and it kept breaking off. He said he pulled and pulled and pulled, and it broke and broke and broke, and the whole time this toilet paper is breaking off I'm in the truck and we're gone. We thought he was there.
He was consistent, and I had a lot of DNFs (did not finishes), and he deserved to win. You don't have to win, but I do want to win. When I'm all done, I want my fans to have that image that I'm a winner. I'm at the top of my game right now. Every athlete wants to go out at the top of their game, and it feels so good right now.
He does seem a little more relaxed. He probably hasn't been as tense as I've seen him in the car before but no real significant change. He's a very competitive person. When things aren't going right he doesn't mind letting you know it and that's good. If we can't identify problems we certainly can't work on fixing them, so I think everything has gone really well.
We brought it home in sixth place, ... We thought we had a better car than that. I just got behind early and that was about it. We had a lot of challenges today, but I was able to get back from them, and that was good.
We've got multimillion dollar sponsors and 150,000 people in the grandstands, ... He just wants all of us to act like men and represent NASCAR in the proper way.
We've got five to go, and I'm still in it.
When I took the plate off, I went 'Holy (smoke), you don't want to do this,'
We got down into turn one and the 66 spun out right in front of me,
We have one last chance remaining and that's this weekend at Talladega. We're definitely coming in there with all our guns loaded and ready to go.
We've been finishing good -- a lot of top-10 finishes. We've made some smart calls to stay out when we need to stay out.
What we have to do is keep that top level of consistency going. We have to be there at the end of all 10 races and get everything we can out of each and every one of them.