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
Sometimes bad things can bring on good things. This brought about a whole era of safety. It took something dramatic before they started thinking and looking out of the box.
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.
Carl is a darn good one (driver), no doubt about that,
I have a really good feeling about our chances this weekend. I really do.
I feel good -- I'm in the Chase and ready to run for the next 10 races,
It's my best chance to get caught up, ... I feel real good about my chances here. I like it. We brought a good car and it's got a good feel to it.
I've got three more chances to win, ... Phoenix is a good chance, and Homestead is a real good chance. Last year at Homestead I led a ton of laps and ran second most of the day, me and Biffle, back and forth. He put four tires on at the end; I did two for track position. He won and I finished seventh. I should have put on four.
It was a good run, a real good run, ... We qualified really bad but got from the back up to the front and it turned out real good. It was just a long day, but I really had pretty smooth stuff all day long, only a couple of little things happened. The jack broke early but we got that right back. And then, at the end, I just, the lapped cars were really tough to get around on the get go and that got me way behind. Other than that, it was a good day.
The crazy thing is I am probably driving right now better than I ever drove in my life, ... I guess I don't need to be retiring, but hey, I've made the decision to do that. Still the thing I want to do is go out on top of my game, and I think we're doing a good job out there for these fans. I really love these fans and I appreciate the job they're doing, pulling behind me.
We still had a pretty good position going. I had a pretty clean stint myself. We were running third and fourth and kept our car running there. (I was) just getting ready to pit and coming down pit road and got out of the car and it was just really overheating bad.
This stuff is really cool. I got to meet a whole new group of people. And I'm just having a good time. I don't have to worry about a stupid shock absorber or spring or a tire pressure. I'm having lunch and having a good time.
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.
I'm going to do it all year long in the two-seater, run all the tracks and get a good idea of what's going on.
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.