Conversation: Rusty Wallace

LOUDON, N.H. -- Rusty Wallace has fashioned a niche for himself in the Hall of Fame for his Winston Cup career, but the St. Louis native is not ready yet to retire from the sport.

Wallace took a break while preparing for Sunday's Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire International Speedway to discuss his own new Busch Series race team, his son Stephen's racing career and the current slump that has gripped his own progress for two seasons.

Q: You're on the verge of making a big announcement of your own Busch team. How much did your son, Stephen's racing career have to do with going that route?

Rusty Wallace: Steve had a lot to do with it because I saw how much he loves what he's doing and I know how much dedication he's got. I tell you what, a couple weeks ago when he went to Hickory and raced against some of the best, he almost won the race.

He finished third (behind Dennis Setzer and Billy Parker) and they came across the start/finish line bumper to bumper -- that really made me proud. Everybody's always telling me how good he is, but right when he was in the infant stage of his career, winning all his Bandolero and Legends Car races at Charlotte, Richard Childress came to me and said, "Man, I want to hire that kid."

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I mean, he (NASCAR owner Childress) looks at all these hundreds of kids out there and he picks Steve, and says, "Man, I'd love to hire that kid when he grows up." That made me feel good, and that offer still stands.

But, I just had the opportunity. I had several sponsors come to me wanting to start a Busch team -- Dura-Flame was the main one. Obviously, when you look down the road at retirement; two, three years or whenever it's going to be, I wanted to have something in place for RWI (Rusty Wallace Incorporated) and my current employees, that they can stay involved in and not just shutting it down when I quit (driving) and move on to TV or whatever it is that I want to do.

So that kind of forced me into the decision, but with the sponsorship being there, me looking down the road and Stephen being there, all three of those things made me think maybe this was the right time to do it.

That's the reason we did it and if anybody knows me, they know I don't do anything in a little way. Everything is first class or no way, so that's the reason everything is brand new, beautiful and nice and great.

It will definitely be the best Busch Grand National team out there. I don't know if we'll run the best, but we'll definitely look the best and have the nicest stuff.

Q: You kicked off the Winston Tribute to Past Champions program at Bristol, with a paint scheme that commemorated Alan Kulwicki's 1992 Winston Cup championship. What was the reaction to that and how special was it to have Alan's parents there?

Rusty Wallace: To be the first guy to do the tribute for R.J. Reynolds at Bristol was really a neat honor. The car looked great and to have Alan's parents there, and to be representing Alan as my partner in that -- to do the reverse victory lap, the Polish victory lap, for the parade lap was really a neat deal.

It was really moving when out of the clear blue, here comes Alan's parents; and they're standing right beside me. You know, they've got some tears in their eyes because they really didn't want to go there.

	Credit: Autostock

They were really scared of that place (because) it brought back nothing except bad memories for them. So I was there and I think I was able to ease some pain for 'em and I think it worked out real well.

As I was driving that car around I was getting goose bumps myself. All the people were standing up. The cameras were going and they were cheering and screaming so it was really, really exciting.

Whenever you get to drive around that racetrack backwards -- that's what I always do every time I win -- and it always makes you feel so good. Honestly, when I did that I felt inside my heart that I was going to win the race that night.

I had no idea I would go out there and get involved in an unbelievable crash with Michael Waltrip, but I had a car that I really honestly felt was capable of winning. We tested, we were prepared and it was driving great, and that happened.

But it was really a fun thing to be able to go to Indianapolis and show those cars (at the Brickyard 400 program unveiling) and then get to Bristol and actually run the real car.

Q: Can you put this season into any kind of perspective, with the highs and lows you've experienced?

Rusty Wallace: I've never in my life had a season like this. Yeah, I've always been winning all the time and (now) I've been on a dry spell. I've moved a lot of crewmembers around trying to find the sweet spot.

We've been trying to find the right crew combo that supports what I need -- not what somebody else has run or needed -- but what I need. We're getting closer and closer. It's been a slow climb, it really has.

Yeah, this has been a tough season. I tell our guys that this reminds me of the 1992 season, where I went out and I did win a couple races, but I finished like 15th in the points and we had a lot of wrecks and crazy stuff happen.

I came back the following year to win 10 races, you know, so it's definitely not typical for me, I can tell you that.

Q: Knowing how much your string of finishing in the top 10 in points for 16 of the last 17 seasons means to you, how nervous are you right now sitting 14th in the standings with nine races left?

Rusty Wallace: I'm real nervous and I'm going to give it hell right to the very end, there's no doubt about that. I've got to pick up a couple hundred points.

I think I can do it. I've got to rely on some people having some bad luck, instead of me having the bad luck. But all I can tell you is God, I hope it works out. I hope it works out.

I said that last year, going into Homestead. We had one race to go to get a victory. I qualified seventh and drove it up to second and the car was running great. I got in an altercation on the racetrack, it bent the fenders in and it didn't happen.

I lost 16 years of consecutive winning, which was real upsetting. Now, I've been on this losing streak for a while. We've just got to get the right people surrounding me to get it done.

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Q: How difficult is it to stay the course and not start doing anything radical trying to shake this losing streak?

Rusty Wallace: The problem is, you can't stay the course. I've been trying to stay the course and I've had to get radical in my thought process.

It's not that I'm getting radical in my thought processes. I see what the competition is doing and it forces me to get radical in my thought processes. When you get radical then sometimes it leads into confusion. There were so many years that I just went with the basic set-up and just tuned on that basic set-up. And it always worked for me every time.

Then all of a sudden you go to a track and you might run a thousand-pound spring in the right front. You come back this time and now you're running a 700-pound spring. You say, "Where the hell did that come from? Why is everything so much different?"

And now, next year it's going to change all again. When they cut three-quarters of an inch off the rear spoiler and soften all the tires up, I think the sport's going to get back to where it's a little bit more mechanical.

The tires are really going to start wearing out and things are going to change even more. There's a lot of things we've done now and the only reason we're doing them is because we've finally figured out how to make it happen.

It was always available -- we just didn't know that we could do it. We've gotten smarter and smarter as the years go on, so it has definitely changed from what it used to be.

Q: From a technology standpoint, have you struggled to stay a seat-of-the-pants kind of guy, a feel of the car kind of guy or have you started to embrace some of the technology that's available?

Rusty Wallace: I've got to. I've got to embrace it, there's no doubt about that at all. I think what's led to some of the confusion, this year, for sure is me giving up on seat of the pants. Trying to rely more on the technical side has led me into confusion.

I know I have to go that route, I have to trust it and I've got to believe in it if I'm going to gain anything out of it. A lot of the younger guys never experienced seat of the pants. They just sit down and go by the numbers and they're having some success with it.

And I'm struggling with it because I don't trust it yet.

Q: Do you see any aspects of your own career in Stephen's Late Model racing and how neat is that, for you, who followed your own father into racing?

Rusty Wallace: It's real neat because now he's off and doing things by himself, instead of every time we went to test or to practice, I had to be with him. Every time we went to the Bandoleros I had to be with him.

Now, he's 16 and him and his buddies are in the truck and they're heading to Virginia or him and his buddies are in the truck and they're heading down here or there. That's what he had the capability to do, because I sure can't do that with this Cup team struggling like it is right now.

I've got to stay right here as much as I can. I've got a business to run -- a lot of things going on. I've had to put a lot of responsibility to different people.

So it's for him to be able to say, "Hey dad, I went to Virginia," or "Hey, I went over here," and to do it with comfort and confidence. I've got Billy Parker going with him a lot. Billy went with him to Virginia yesterday.

Barry Dodson, who was my crew chief when I won my Winston Cup championship in 1989, has helped with this and that and it's cool. I've hired Barry to be my GM at my Busch team because he instills a lot of comfort in me. Barry always makes me feel real comfortable and that's what I've got to have.

Q: Stepping back, as a dad, and knowing what you did growing up with your brothers Kenny and Mike; does that cause you any worries at all with Stephen charging all over the country racing?

Rusty Wallace: It sure does. But I don't want to know half that stuff. What I don't know sometimes is all right. As long as he's not in jail or getting into trouble, being a good student and all that, then that's all right.

I've already got a daughter, Katie, in college and I'm concerned about that a little bit. My engineer, Roy McCauley tells me, "Get ready big guy, because when she goes on to college you won't want to know half the s*** she's doing down there."