Wallace good, but not good enough at Fontana

FONTANA, Calif. -- Rusty Wallace's winless streak in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series hit 72 races Sunday after he finished third in the Auto Club 500 at California Speedway.

But there were no long faces among the members of the No. 2 Dodge team in the aftermath of Wallace's first top-five finish of the season, which came at the facility at which he last visited Victory Lane, in 2001.

AUTO CLUB 500  •  Results  •  Standings  •  Photo Gallery  •  Wrecks spark plenty of cautions at Fontana  •  Engine problem puts Stewart up in smoke

"As long as you keep on running really good and laying the numbers down the victories are going to come," Wallace said. "Everybody was really happy with how we ran today -- I had the fans going crazy, so I'm pumped up about it."

"This is a winning race team -- we just haven't won yet," crew chief Bill Wilburn said. "There's no doubt in our minds. Performance-wise, we've stepped everything up.

"We didn't even get a top-five last year in the first half and we got seven in the second half. If we get seven in the first half this year and seven or more in the second, we're not going to be 18th in points.

"I'm sure we'll be up near the front and I'm sure we'll win races, too."

Two-time 2003 winner Kurt Busch and Atlanta victor Bobby Labonte finished in front of Wallace on Sunday.

Wallace led 54 of the 250 laps run on the two-mile oval Sunday -- second only to defending Winston Cup champion Tony Stewart, who led 100. Still, Wallace said a mistake while battling for the lead in the late laps cost him the win.

"We went down the backstretch three-wide, and I looked in my mirror and the 97 (Busch) was pushing me down the straightaway," Wallace said. "I got to Turn 3 and just went in there 2,000 miles an hour and I couldn't turn.

"If I would have went into Turn 3 just a little easier and not let that front end slide up, there was a chance I would have won anyway -- but I got in a little hot, tried to save it and that was it."

Busch said Wallace's mistake turned the momentum in his favor.

"I lifted and got behind Rusty going into Turn 3," Busch said. "I noticed that he drove off in there way deeper than I thought he should. He pushed up coming out of 4 and I just got my nose alongside his rear spoiler.

VIDEO CLIPS Rusty Wallace finishes third at Fontana Play video Busch celebrates his sixth career Winston Cup win Play video Bobby Labonte comes up just short Play video The Budweiser crew has trouble in the pits Play video Stewart's day ends with a broken motor Play video Dale Jr. battles a loose car and McMurray leads Play video Sprague and Biffle have problems early at California Play video

"We pulled away from there so it was just having a perfect car at the end of the day."

Wallace said a flurry of late cautions -- three in the last 50 laps -- helped the racing somewhat, but not as much as softer tires would. He also lauded his pit crew.

"The pits were great all day," Wallace said. "The only problem we had all day was we went one lap too long on fuel and I ran out coming down the back straightaway. I couldn't believe it (and) I didn't think we were ever going to get it re-fired."

Wallace and his chief mechanic are enthused about their next race at Richmond, a track at which Wallace has won six times.

"Now we'll go to Richmond, where he should have won last fall when Matt Kenseth won," Wilburn said. "We blew a tire with eight laps to go (while) running second."

Wilburn said the fact that Wallace had last won at California didn't add to the team's ill feelings.

"It's frustrating any time you run well all weekend -- you qualify well, practice and everything goes as well as it did this week -- and then you finish third," Wilburn said. "That's better than not finishing or wrecking or whatever -- but you always want to win."

Wallace has now led 254 laps this season, and that saves his feelings a great deal.

"If you go back through the records, we've only run bad one race (this year), and that was at Las Vegas, where we ended up getting wrecked," Wilburn said. "And even there I think we would have salvaged a top-10 or- 12 out of it.

"We've performed well all year. Our qualifying is up, our racing is there -- we just got caught in the pits three races in a row and got lapped when a caution fell out.

"We're not concerned about performance -- we've just got to get the things to fall right at the end. Obviously, we could lead (today) because we did lead for a while."