Wallace's 16-year win streak comes to end

HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- Rusty Wallace and Ricky Rudd are co-owners of the NASCAR Winston Cup Series' modern era record streak of 16 straight seasons with at least a single victory.

Wallace was devastated after finishing 14th in the Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami. He failed to lead a lap.

Close, but not quite  Rusty Wallace had four second-place finishes, all of which came in the second half:  Pepsi 400, July  Brickyard 400, August  Sharpie 500, August  Checker Auto Parts 500, November

Even worse, to Wallace's intensely competitive mind, was that he fell from a tie for fourth in the standings all the way back to seventh.

"It's probably one of the saddest parts of my life today, I'll tell you that," Wallace said. "To not win and to fall back into seventh in points -- it was just a terrible day -- everything was."

Wallace's weekend of woe started in Bud Pole Qualifying, when he earned the 18th starting position. In the race, in particular, two early restarts in which Wallace made contact with cars and got forced up off the track's only raceable groove into the marbles, nearly wrecking him, spoiled the day.

"I put a lot of effort into this race," Wallace said. "I had a great car all day long, but I got together with a bunch of lapped cars and we got beat all to hell -- we got the fenders torn off of it."

	Wallace's last win came in April 2001, when he won at Fontana. Credit: Autostock

Wallace didn't point any fingers but also said his pit strategy ended up hurting him, as well.

"We stayed out on two stops and it killed me," he said. "That killed me on tires and that was it."

As darkness fell, Wallace knew all too well how badly he felt about his lost chance at sole possession of the record. A week earlier, at Phoenix International Raceway he had said all failing to win would mean was that he would have to go to Daytona next February and win the Daytona 500.

Rudd said he knew what Wallace was feeling.

"You know, it's a record that, as it was building, I never really thought much about it," Rudd said. "You're here to try to win races and to do your very best. I never really looked back and realized how significant that streak was, until the later years when it came in jeopardy of not being able to pull off a 17th year in a row.

"All of a sudden I started realizing it was pretty special and nobody had been able to accomplish it before. It was pretty disheartening when that streak got broken."

Wallace led a list of eight drivers that won in 2001 and failed to score a victory in 2002. The others were Ricky Craven, Jeff Burton, Robby Gordon, Bobby Hamilton, Joe Nemechek, Steve Park and Elliott Sadler.

Burton ended a five-year streak of winning at least one race each season, from 1997-2001.

Richard Petty holds NASCAR's all-time streak of consecutive years with at least one victory, 18, from 1960-1977.