Wallace to run 500 with incentive: beer for fans

CONCORD, N.C. -- Rusty Wallace will probably have a few more fans cheering for him in this year's Daytona 500. Sure, he's a sentimental favorite since he hasn't won at Daytona in 39 NASCAR Winston Cup races.

But race fans are race fans. And free beer is free beer. If Wallace wins the Daytona 500, all fans in attendance will receive a coupon for a free six-pack from Miller, Wallace's sponsor announced Tuesday.

"This year's Daytona 500, if I win, Miller Lite is going to have people staffed all around the race track, and they're going to give all 160,000 people in the grandstands a six-pack of beer," Wallace said.

Wallace was quickly corrected, however. That's all fans of "legal-drinking age," Wallace was told.

RUSTY WALLACE  •  Driver Page  •  2002 Stats  •  Career Wins    VIDEO CLIPS Rusty Wallace's most recent win was at California in 2001. Play video

"It's going to be a coupon," Wallace said. "You talk about one big leap they're going to make, that's incredible. When I heard about this, I said, 'You've got to be kidding me.'"

Fans, however, won't be invited to Wallace's motorcoach for a post-500 party.

"We're not going that far," Wallace said with a laugh. "I'll let Miller rent a big hauler for everybody to have a big blast."

If history means anything, Miller won't have anything to worry about. Wallace is 0-for-39 at Daytona International Speedway, including an 0-for-21 streak in the Daytona 500. He's had his chances, but something always seems to go wrong.

"I've learned to quit being so bold in my statements going into Daytona," Wallace said. "I'm a little bit more reserved. But I am very confident going into it."

Wallace won't say "this is the year," at least not publicly. But he'll have a good chance. Penske Racing switched to Dodge this season, and Wallace and teammate Ryan Newman had good tests in January.

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The race itself is full of unknowns, from the smaller fuel cell NASCAR has mandated to the nearly common body templates for all four makes of cars. So no one can really know who will win.

Wallace knows all about the unknowns. You don't fail 21 times and not get a little frustrated, no matter how optimistic. The most frustrating race, Wallace said, was in 1999 when he lost to Jeff Gordon.

"The race I thought I had won was (1999) when I was leading with 12 laps to go," Wallace said. "The caution flag came out, and we had a restart. Jeremy (Mayfield) was my teammate then, and he was right on my bumper. His handling went away, and he fell back. Gordon got past him, and we're drafting along, and (Gordon) gets underneath me in the tri-oval and gets down on the apron.

"We have this big race going into turn 1. Ricky Rudd's got his torn-up car, and I had him on the apron. Somebody had to get out of the gas to keep from causing one helluva wreck ... I lost the race right there."

Wallace speaks a little slower and a little lower than usual when he talks about that race. Clearly, he's still a bit bothered by the missed opportunity.

"Looking back at it now, I should've stayed on the throttle, stayed on the bottom and forced him to make some type of maneuver," Wallace said. "That was a frustrating race to lose. I thought I had the Daytona 500 won there."

But like Chicago Cubs fans, Wallace believes this is the year. Maybe he's right. In the last 11 races at Daytona, he's scored all six of his top-five finishes and nine of 16 career top-10s. And he was second last July to Michael Waltrip in the Pepsi 400.

"To win the Daytona 500 would be a huge thing for me," Wallace said. "People say, 'Would you rather win championship or the Daytona 500?' I've got to think about that one hard. I definitely want to win another title, but I've already won one. I've never won the Daytona 500. That would be a big feather in my cap to win that race.

"I think I'd rather win the doggone Daytona 500 than the championship, even though the championship pays a lot of money. I'll probably wake up tomorrow morning and change my mind, but the 500 is such a special race."