DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) - NASCAR driver Rusty Wallace will retire after the 2005 season, saying he is concerned about getting hurt and wants to leave at the top of his game. His decision was influenced by the death of rival Dale Earnhardt in a Daytona 500 crash in 2001.

 

"It kind of got to me," Wallace said Monday at a news conference at the Daytona International Speedway complex. "It made me feel nervous. It made me think hard about it."

The 48-year-old Wallace has won 55 races. He made his NASCAR debut in 1980 and has won almost every major race except the Daytona 500.

 

"This is my last shot at the Daytona 500," Wallace said. "The Daytona 500 is still the granddaddy of them all. It's the race I haven't won and I'm going to try my darndest to win it."

 

Wallace, who drives for Penske Racing South, intends to stay in racing as a team owner and mentor for younger drivers after he retires. Brothers Mike and Kenny and 17-year-old son Stephen are drivers. Stephen Wallace was hospitalized overnight last week after crashing at Bristol Motor Speedway during the Hooters Pro Cup Race.

 

Rusty Wallace also owns a Busch team and recently hired Jamie McMurray to drive for him. McMurray is rumored to be the replacement for Wallace in 2006, but currently drives for Chip Ganassi.

 

Wallace also plans to do TV commercials tied to his corporate sponsorships with Miller Brewing Co. and other companies.

 

"It's hard for a great driver to say, 'Look, it's time,"' said Roger Penske, majority owner of Penske Racing South. "But I think that's the position of a great driver to say 'I know when it's time for me to move on."'

 

Wallace became a full-time competitor on the circuit in 1984, when he was rookie of the year. He claimed the series national driving title in 1989 and finished runner-up for the championship in 1988 and 1993. His most recent victory was in April in Martinsville, Va.

 

"It's time. I feel it," Wallace said, referring to his retirement decision. "I know I'm doing the right thing and I feel good about it."

 

Wallace is the first veteran driver to announce such plans, but others probably aren't too far behind. Dale Jarrett, Ricky Rudd and Terry Labonte were all born the same year as Wallace. Bill Elliott, 48, ran his last full season in 2003 and is competing in a partial schedule. Sterling Marlin and Jimmy Spencer are 47, Mark Martin is 45 and Kyle Petty is 44. Martin has indicated that, like Wallace, 2005 will be his last season.

 

"I'm trying to talk him out of it," car owner Jack Roush said. "The way he's driving and the way the team is I'd like to have two more years after next year."

 

Wallace brought an enthusiasm and intensity to racing that helped spread NASCAR's popularity the past 20 years, said Brian France, chairman and chief executive of NASCAR.

 

"Whenever we needed Rusty to help us win the people over ... he would jump on an airplane and do whatever it takes to help us grow the sport," France said.

 

Bill France Jr., co-vice chairman of NASCAR, who handed control of NASCAR over to son Brian last year, said he would miss Wallace's outspokenness "despite all the times he has given us hell about one thing or another."

 

"Whatever his feelings about a particular issue, Rusty always has been interested in the betterment of the sport," France said.

Win the championship then.

NASCAR driver Rusty Wallace will retire after the 2005 season, saying he is concerned about getting hurt and wants to leave at the top of his game.

 

Rusty has had a wonderful career, and is certainly one of the reasons the sport has become so popular. But I hardly think you could say he is leaving "at the top of his game."

 

I do hate to see another driver I have watched for so long retire, but with all the younger drivers making their way up through the ranks, they do have to move some of the veteran guys out of the way to make room.

Sterling next?

 

I don't want to see the vets go.. I'm tired of these punk kids.

the only vet i dont want to see go is terry lobonte

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."

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.