Mr. Speed

Rusty Wallace has been one of the premier faces of NASCAR for so long. It will be tough to not see him in the duece come 2006. Remember who the chief rival or Dale Earnhardt was throughout much of his career: Rusty Wallace. To accomplish his title in 89 basically as an independent on a start up team is phenominal. Rusty routinely gave Dale a run for his money, winning 18 races in a 2 year span in 93 and 94. If not for Dale, Rusty wins at least 3 driver titles. The perfect ending for Rusty would be Daytona next April. If you ever were to root for a guy who 'deserves' it, Rusty is that guy. Rusty has done so much for racing, that to win this race would be one of the perfect toppers for his career. If he doesnt get it, to finish in the top 10 next year will work out fine also. I wouldnt be shocked to see a black Miller car ran a few times next year, maybe even a Kodiak car a couple times. Here's to you Rusty. Have a great last call and let's finish this season with another win or two.

http://www.thatsracin.com/mld/thatsracin/9535506.htm 'Rusty's Last Call' Rusty Wallace cites Earnhardt's death as major influence By DAVID POOLE The Charlotte Observer DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. ? Bluntness is a Rusty Wallace character trait. So, characteristically, Wallace was straightforward Monday in explaining why he decided to make 2005 his final season as a Nextel Cup driver. "When (Dale) Earnhardt lost his life, it kind of got to me," Wallace said. "It made me feel nervous and it made me think hard about it. I've won a lot of races and I want to have fun in this sport, and I don't want to get hurt." Earnhardt was killed in a crash in Turn 4 on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500. On Monday, Wallace was only a few hundred yards away from that point ? at Daytona USA just outside the track's walls ? confirming that he'll hang up his helmet after the remainder of 2004 and a 2005 campaign that will be called "Rusty's Last Call." There will be die-cast cars and all sort of other merchandise for sale, of course, as he closes out a career that, if all goes as planned, would wind up with his 706th career start at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Nov. 20, 2005. Wallace hopes to add to his career total of 55 Cup victories before that day comes, saying he wants to leave while he goes to the track each week still thinking that's entirely possible. "It's important for me not to have to go through the struggles some of the guys have," Wallace said, alluding to the slow, painful declines some other top NASCAR winners have endured at the ends of their careers. "I've won this year, and it seems like just about every week I am running in the top five and something crazy goes wrong. I know I am on the top of my game and I want to go out on top." He also wants to go out healthy, a topic that kept coming up over and over again. "I want to enjoy a lot of time with my kids," said Wallace, who has three children between 17 and 24. "And I don't want to be hurt ? or killed ? by something that went wrong. "It bothered me a lot when Dale got killed. ...He was the guy who every single time I went to the track I looked at him. Even if he qualified 30th, so long as I qualified 29th that felt good. I felt like I beat the best. "There were a lot of great drivers out there, but he was the one I looked up to. His death was influential in this decision, in the back of my mind. I didn't say much to anybody in my family, but that did bug me, because I was thinking, 'How could that happen?'" Earnhardt was one of the chief rivals in Wallace's NASCAR career, which began when the Missouri native came to Atlanta for his first Cup race in March 1980. Driving a Chevrolet owned by Roger Penske, Wallace finished second ? behind Earnhardt. Wallace's father, Russell, won three championships at tracks around the St. Louis area. His three sons, Rusty, Mike and Kenny, all followed into the sport and have all raced at its top level. Rusty's first race was at Lakehill Speedway in Valley Park, Mo., in 1973 when he was just 16. He won 200 short-track features before joining the U.S. Auto Club stock-car circuit in 1979. He made just nine NASCAR starts from 1980 to 1982, then won the 1983 championship in the American Speed Association before coming to NASCAR full-time the following year. Wallace won the 1984 rookie of the year award driving for a team owned by Cliff Stewart out of High Point. In 1986, he moved to Blue Max Racing when Tim Richmond left that Raymond Beadle-owned team to go to Hendrick Motorsports. Wallace won 18 races and the 1989 championship in his five seasons with Blue Max, but when that team's run in the sport ended in 1990 Wallace went back to his first NASCAR car owner, motorsports mogul Roger Penske, and began a partnership that lasts to this day. Wallace won 10 races in 1993 and eight races in 1994, but Earnhardt won championships in both of those seasons. After winning at least one race in every season between 1986 and 2001, Wallace endured a 105-race drought before finally breaking it earlier this year with a victory at Martinsville. Wallace said Monday there will be no comeback. After 2005, there will be plenty to keep him busy in the sport. As part owner of the Penske Racing South team he plans to have a role in shaping its future. He also has started his own Busch Series team, and his younger son, Stephen, has racing dreams of his own. "It's time," Wallace said Monday, sounding a little bit like somebody who was trying to convince himself of the finality of it all. "I feel it. ?I know it. "It's something I thought long and hard about. I want to go out a champion. I want to go out a front-runner."

Longest race in NASCAR. 500 miles is nothing. 600 miles is a test of endurance. Last year Jimmie Johnson pulled off the double by winning this and the all star event the previous week. This year Matt Kenseth won the all star event. Can he pull off the double? Jimmie Johnson is on the pole and Kenseth starts way back in the pack. Will one of these two win? Or will one of the other 41 cars have a little something to say? I would love to see a guy like Jeff Burton win. He is a great driver and needs a great finish. Your thoughts?

Today is the day of one of the marquee races in all of America. For much of our motor sports history, this race was THE race. Many big names have raced and won here. While this race is no longer as big as it once was, due in large to the fued in open wheel racing about 10 years ago, its still a huge race. I'm rooting on Robby Gordon, although the chances of him winning today have taken a dramatic hit due to the early rain at Indy. Your thoughts?

In all of racin, who is your favorite racer? Any series. Both current and all time. Please provide photos as well.

Personally, I am thrilled to see Rusty back in Victory Lane. I am more thrilled that Rusty didnt do what everyone now 'has' to do which is make donuts because that is all the fans love. Thrilled to see Rusty still honoring his late friend Alan Kulculki with the Polish Victory Lap, cause donuts 'are for kids.' Great to see you back Rusty!

http://www.thatsracin.com/mld/thatsracin/8462541.htm [size=14Rusty Wallace takes the win on an odd day at Martinsville [/size] Track trouble interrupts Sunday's race By JIM UTTER ThatsRacin.com Writer MARTINSVILLE, Va. - There were times during his career-long 105-race winless streak when Rusty Wallace admitted he questioned himself. His long-awaited return to Victory Lane in Sunday's Advance Auto Parts 500 at Martinsville Speedway, however, left many scratching their heads. "It's been so long and we've been so close," Wallace said from Victory Lane, on the frontstretch of the short track where Wallace has seven career wins. "The fans have been behind me for so long, and this one is for them." Wallace's improbable win came on a day in which Jeff Gordon - who swept both poles and race wins at the track last season - dominated the field decisively, only to see his chances at victory lost in a pothole. There was a one-hour 17-minute red-flag period late in the race while track crews repaired a foot-long by foot-wide gaping hole in Turn 3 - a chunk of which tore into the right-front of Gordon's No. 24 Chevrolet, all but ending his shot at victory. Capping the day was Jimmie Johnson's inexplicable decision not to pit for tires late in the race while the rest of the lead-lap cars took on new rubber. That left Johnson, who was leading at the time, easy pickings for Wallace, who took on four new tires. Wallace passed Johnson on Lap 456 and led the final 45 laps, holding off a fast-charging Bobby Labonte by 0.538 seconds for his first win since April 29, 2001, at California Speedway. It was the 55th of his Cup career. At 47 years, eight months and four days, Wallace is the sixth-oldest driver to ever win a Cup race. He also moved into sole possession of eighth place in NASCAR's all-time win list. "I felt like I was driving as hard as I could, and I thought if we could get this right or that right we'd get back in Victory Lane, but you know I'm not a quitter," Wallace said. "I've never quit. If anything, I just keep moving things around to compliment what I've got to have." And move things he did. He tried new crew chiefs and a variety of new pit crew members, always searching for the right mix that would translate into victory. Admin Carter, who worked with rookie Tony Raines last season, stepped into the crew chief role this year, and he and Wallace tinkered with the pit crew right up to the weekend's race. "I got really sick of hearing, 'Why aren't you winning?' but it made me look at the pit crew, myself, my driving style. It made me look at a lot of things," Wallace said. "With all the crew changes and everything we did, I adjusted. Sometimes I'd make a suggestion about the shocks and they'd punch me." Sunday, Wallace saw Johnson decide not to head to pit road late in the race and saw an opportunity. "Right there at the end I saw (Johnson) stay out and Ryan (Newman) take two tires. I knew Ryan was doing that for track position, but I was thinking to myself I could win this thing," Wallace said. Johnson "was on old tires. Ryan was on right-sides and I was sitting there with stickers (new tires). I got past Dale (Earnhardt) Jr. and I finally got past (Johnson) and I set sail." Penske Racing part-owner Don Miller said despite the pressure Wallace faced about not winning, it was Wallace who put the most pressure on himself. "He's been doing it a long time so I don't think that pressure was anything like the pressure he put on himself," Miller said. "It's just about time." Although his No. 18 Chevrolet was also working its best at the end of the race, Labonte could not get close enough to Wallace to attempt a pass for the win. "If I could have got to him I would probably hit him and spun him out," Labonte joked. "Seriously, catching somebody here and passing them are two different things." Earnhardt Jr. finished third, Johnson fourth and Newman fifth. Earnhardt Jr. took over the series points lead, with a five-point advantage over Kurt Busch.

NASCAR. The fastest growing sport in America. The Daytona 500 is the biggest event in NASCAR. You could argue almost with this race passing up Indianapolis in terms of prestige, due in large to the rise of NASCAR itself. Tune in, it will be fun. This is racing at its best. Now, Let's Go Racin! Personally I would like to see one of the old guns that have never won this thing to finally find victory circle.

Its that time again folks, its time to go racin. Personally I am hoping to see a guy like Boris Said have a great showing tonight. He has worked hard and this truly is a dream come true for him. Good luck Boris.

http://www.thatsracin.com/mld/thatsracin/7893247.htm Shootout offers drivers a chance to race someone, maybe more Track time in race conditions couldn't hurt By DAVID POOLE The Charlotte Observer DATYONA BEACH, Fla. - NASCAR drivers will tell you they don't get paid to win practice. Saturday night at Daytona International Speedway, one will. The winner of the 70-lap Bud Shootout (8 p.m., TNT), a non-points event that has opened the season in NASCAR's Cup series since 1979, will collect $210,000 from a total purse of $1.066 million. That's not bad for what many of the 19 drivers who'll participate view as a good chance to get in some practice under race conditions to prepare for the challenges that remain during Speedweeks leading up to the Feb. 15 Daytona 500. "What's cool about the Shootout is that you get to start drafting immediately," said Dale Earnhardt Jr., who won this event last year in the No. 8 Chevrolet. "Most of what we do all through the month of January is running by ourselves (testing). You're ready to race somebody. You get some racing in your system before we start qualifying runs and practicing for the Daytona 500. I think everybody looks forward to it." Not everybody gets to play, however. The 19 drivers who will participate either won poles during the 2003 season or are former winners of this event, which was called the "Busch Clash" in its early years. That's why Boris Said, a road-course specialist who won a pole last year at Infineon Raceway, is in the field while defending Cup series champion Matt Kenseth is not. Mike Skinner, now racing full time in the Truck series, competes in the Shootout while Kurt Busch, who won four races but no poles in 2003, will not. "I kind of feel like the drivers who are in the Shootout have a little bit of an advantage because we have one race under our belts before the 125s," said Tony Stewart, the Shootout winner in 2001 and 2002, referring to Thursday's 125-mile qualifying races that will help set the Daytona 500 starting lineup. "Some of the guys who are struggling to make the field only have one chance with the 125s to race their way in." That may not be much of an issue this year, since only 45 Nextel Cup teams are entered in the Daytona 500, meaning only two will go home after the Gatorade 125s. The front-row starting positions will be filled in qualifying at noon Sunday. Saturday's Shootout is set for 70 laps to be run in two parts. After a 20-lap opening segment, there will be a 10-minute break for crews to change tires, add fuel and make adjustments to their cars. The race ends with a 50-lap segment that, with fuel cells holding only about 13 gallons that are used at Daytona, will require at least one fuel stop. Caution flag laps count during each segment, but the race will not end under yellow. That means a late caution could extend the race beyond 70 laps until the field can get a green-white-checkered finish. "It's just a long sprint, really," Stewart said. "You've got a short amount of time to get your work done. So, you kind of throw caution to the wind. If you think you can go, well then, you'd better go." "Racing in the Shootout gives you a little more freedom to go out and try things by using it as a practice session for the (Daytona) 500, because there's really nothing to lose. You try things that maybe you wouldn't feel very comfortable with trying in the 500. If you find things that do work, you use 'em for the 500. If what you try doesn't work, you know what not to do for the 500." The winner of the Shootout has come back to win the Daytona 500 only five times in 25 previous years, but Dale Jarrett is two-for-two. He won this event in 1996 and 2000 and won the 500 in both years, adding them to a 1993 Daytona 500 victory on his resume. "We probably will try to lay back a little at the beginning and try to pit as soon as we can make it to our fuel window so we can spend the final 20 laps getting ourselves in position for the win," Jarrett said. Bill Elliott, who will be running a limited Nextel Cup schedule this year and who is not entered in the Daytona 500, will run in the Shootout to extend his record with a 19th appearance in the event he won in 1987. Mark Martin, the 1999 Shootout winner, will extend the longest current streak of starts in the race to 16. Dale Earnhardt won this event six times in his career. Stewart, Ken Schrader, Jarrett, Jeff Gordon and Neil Bonnett have two wins each and nine other drivers have won it once.