He’s a Little Rusty for Victories

A year ago, Rusty Wallace won the NAPA Auto Parts 500 at California Speedway on what would have been the late Dale Earnhardt’s 50th birthday, then he honored the Winston Cup legend by holding a huge flag with the No.3--Earnhardt’s old number--out the window of his winning Ford Taurus on his victory lap.

Earnhardt, killed on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500, has been gone for more than a year now, and Wallace said Thursday that he no longer thinks of “the Intimidator” every day.

“Sometimes, it’s every other day,” he said.

But he still has that flag, and he wouldn’t mind getting it out and flying it again after Sunday’s race, what with Monday being Earnhardt’s 51st birthday.

“Man, I’d love to win it again and carry that flag again,” he said.

Winning is something Wallace knows lots about. In 22-plus seasons of Winston Cup racing, he has won 54 times and was NASCAR’s champion in 1989. But it doesn’t get any easier and although he’s third in the standings this season, behind leader Sterling Marlin and runner-up Matt Kenseth, he hasn’t motored down Victory Lane since that day here last April.

“These championships now are coming down to very, very tight finishes, and so you can’t afford to give up anything,” he said. “I’m trying to lead more laps on the racetrack so I can build up those points--that’s real important. Consistency’s probably the most important and that’s what we’ve been this year--real consistent.

“We’ve been among the top 10 and top five finishers and finishing the races. My mind is all over the points, but I would like to get a win knocked out real soon and I can’t think of a better track than right here.”

Certainly, the trying will be more fun on the moderately banked two-mile track than it was last weekend on the high-banked 2.6-mile superspeedway at Talladega, Ala., one of two tracks--Daytona is the other--where NASCAR mandates the use of carburetor restrictor plates, which slow the cars, leading to pack racing and, almost inevitably, multi-car accidents. There was a doozy at Talladega, involving 24 cars--the day after a 27-car pileup there in a Busch series race.

“This is completely different,” Wallace said. “You can’t even compare it to Daytona and Talladega. Those two racetracks are unbelievably exciting for the fans, but for a driver, it’s like going to the dentist to get a root canal.

“At the [high-banks], a huge part of it is the car. At tracks like this, it’s more driver and the car. It’s more of a 50-50 [breakdown]. At a restrictor-plate racetrack, it’s 70% car, 30% driver. At a track like this, the driver has a ton more input.”

In a 500-mile race, drivers like that feeling of control.

“If the race is going real smooth, if you’re not having a problem with tire wear or the way your car is handling, you are definitely looking at fuel mileage, looking into fuel windows--how far can we make it on fuel? Can we shortstop this guy?

“The drivers before, they used to kind of say, ‘I’m just going to save my stuff the first half of the race and later on, when it really counts, we’re going for it.’

“But nowadays, the equipment’s so good and everybody’s having such good luck with their engines, man, nobody’s slowing down. They’re running every single lap like it’s a qualifying lap--the whole, entire 500 miles.

“So if you can get that track position, you keep that car up front in that clean air, that’ll definitely make it handle good and make it run better. That is super, super important, track position.

“There is strategy--a lot of strategy goes on--but it changes from pit stop to pit stop. If I had to choose something I really need the most, I’d say it’s handling, making sure the car handles the very best it possibly can. ‘Cause the engine’s a given, the pit stops are a given, so the way to outrun these guys on the racetrack is with a good-handling race car.”

Late-race strategy helped Wallace win here last year. He had a healthy lead when Mark Martin and Ward Burton tangled on Lap 231 of the 250-lap race. At first, Wallace was going to pit, figuring everyone else would go in for fresh rubber. Then he and his crew reconsidered. He stayed out--and so did everyone else. Then he held off a charging Jeff Gordon when racing resumed.

If pit stops are a given, as Wallace observed, he is finding they are not quite the given they were a few seasons ago.

“There’s a lot of conversation going on now during pit stops because of the hardness of the tires,” he said. “Goodyear’s built us a tire that’s extremely durable, extremely bulletproof and extremely hard. Because of that, the tire’s not wearing out and, honestly, it’s been real hard to pass because of it. A lot of guys are not even stopping for tires, or just putting right-side tires on.

“So now they’re looking at softening the compound for the second half of the year.... Racing’s got to be a little bit follow-the-leader ‘cause the tires won’t wear out and everybody’s cars are handling good and it’s hard to pass cars.

“Pit stops have been real tough to figure out lately ‘cause, like I say, some guys don’t even pit [when they normally would]. It’d give you a headache, trying to figure it out, with the cars all running the same and tires don’t wear. You’re trying to figure out whether you need two tires or four tires or just gas.”

Wallace figured it out last year. And he may just have it figured out this year too.

“I have the same car,” he said. “It’s called Mad Max and it’s my favorite little hot rod.”

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California Speedway

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