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
It was twice as wild when I started, because when I started, there was no spoiler rule, ... Guys were running wide-open with only an eight-degree rear spoiler, and cars were out of control, sliding and spinning out, going in the air and flipping upside-down. It was just totally crazy.
No, I'm not frustrated, ... I'm very determined. I'm driving hard, and I'm determined. I'm not in much of a Mr. Nice Guy mood. I just want to get the wins and the finishes knocked for my team, my sponsors and my partners and get it right. It's getting ridiculous right now.
You guys are probably getting sick of seeing me get all this stuff. But I'm enjoying it, even if you aren't.
With D.J. (Jarrett) winning at Talladega, and Mark taking the win at Kansas, maybe there's some kind of trend going on for us older guys uh, I mean us seasoned veterans to be winning the races, ... Heck, if that's the case, maybe it's my turn to win this weekend. I don't think it would come as a super big surprise if we were able to pull it off this weekend at Charlotte.
I told the guys, 'Let's not get crazy right now. We've got a year and a half to make that decision.' We'll look at some guys out there and see what we can do. There's been absolutely no decision made on any driver at all.
Helton will basically tell you there's 50 guys who show up at every racetrack, and he can get the job done with 43 of them, no problem at all,
I don't know if I'd have done it, but I sure do understand the reaction. I hope Ryan learns from this mistake. He can't just go out there and rough these guys up, whether it's a mistake or not. Guys are tired of hearing it's a mistake.
If you sit down with a guy and say 'I'm gonna sign a three-year deal,' and he sells sponsorship for three years based on your being there, you need to be there. You've got to honor it.
The guys were really causing a lot of wrecks by extreme bump drafting,
The guys at Callaway have been extremely generous.
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.
We certainly want to go out on top of our game at Bristol with a strong run and I think we're primed to come in there and do just that. The fact is that we had a car that should have won the spring race at Bristol and looked like we were certainly headed that way until we had a right-front tire go down.
We certainly want to go out on top of our game at Bristol with a strong run, and I think we're primed to come in there and do just that.
I've still got a pin in my wrist that's about 8 inches long from that accident. I got hurt at some racetracks a little bit, but never as bad as I got hurt at Talladega.