Conversation: Rusty Wallace

MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- Say what you want about Rusty Wallace, but don't call him a pessimist. And don't try to kick him when he's down.

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Wallace, the eldest of the three racing Wallace brothers, had a tough year in 2003, stretching his winless streak to 98 races.

In the offseason, Wallace switched crew chiefs, hiring Larry Carter to replace Bill Wilburn.

And Wallace has been heavily involved with building a new NASCAR Busch Series team, completing work on a new shop for driver Billy "Catfish" Parker.

But don't for a second think Wallace has forgotten about his losing streak in the Nextel Cup Series. Nothing would please him more than to disprove the critics who say it might be time for Wallace to retire.

Wallace recently spent an afternoon with Lee Montgomery of NASCAR.com, showing off his new shop, talking about his struggles and showing the fire that helped Wallace the champion he is.

If enthusiasm means anything, Wallace will be back in Victory Lane. Soon.

First off, how was your Christmas and New Year's? How does a guy like Rusty Wallace celebrate the holidays?

Rusty Wallace: My Christmas and New Years was really, really good. I've got to tell you, in the past, I've done - I won't call it exotic - but some really fun vacations.

	Wallace's spanking-new Busch Series garage

Far-out stuff like, for the last four or five years, we've rented boats and went to the Bahamas on Thanksgiving.

We spent a lot of money. The last couple of years, we've went up and gotten sick. The water's been so rough, we threw up, so we'll never do that again.

Last year, my wife (Patti) said, 'Rusty, we are working. This vacation feels like work.'

We left the last race in Homestead and went on vacation. We decided not to get a boat, so we went down to Key Biscayne (Fla.), took all the kids down there to a nice hotel and had fun.

We left there and came straight back up for the Penske Christmas party. Then we had testing, we had all kind of stuff going on, and every single week, there was something.

The whole thing turned into work.

So this year what we did, we didn't do anything. The first thing that's always a tough thing to do, believe it or not - a lot of people consider it fun, but it is fun tough - is going to New York for the banquet.

You've got to get your tuxedo ready, you've got to get your suits all ready, you've got to get your friends and the people that are going with you ready, you've got to get everything all packed up.

Then you go up there, go through it, and you come home and look at your bill and you go, 'Holy s---.' You can't believe we spent all this money.

This year, the way it worked out with the weather, we didn't get to go. I'm sitting at home in my pajamas that morning going, 'That was cool.' I really wanted to go to New York real bad, don't get me wrong. But it was simple. We were there in our home.

A couple years ago, we went out of state, we went skiing out in Idaho and Utah. It was all super, super fun, but it was expensive, it was a lot of work getting all that stuff packed up.

	Rusty (left) and Kenny Wallace Credit: Autostock

We've got a mountain home up in the North Carolina mountains we built seven years ago, and we love going there, so we went up there this year. All the kids came up, and we snowboarded, did a little skiing. It was fun.

Went over to my brother's house, Kenny, for Thanksgiving, mom and dad's for Christmas, then went to the mountains for New Year's, and that was it, and here I am.

As we're doing this interview, RWI, our office is closed until Monday, but I can't keep myself away. I'm itching to get back, but I don't want to get going back yet, cause I'm not totally prepared, but there's a lot of little things I want to get done.

That was my next question. In the offseason, are you a guy who just can't wait for the season to get started? Or as you get older, do you appreciate the break a little bit more?

Rusty Wallace: Before, I couldn't wait for the season to get going. I will tell you, I can't wait to get back in the car, because I'm dying to see how it's going to do.

But on the other hand, I want to get a little better organized yet. I want Larry Carter, our new crew chief, to have some more time to get organized.

I want to have a little more time getting in the wind tunnel yet, I want to have a little more time with the Busch car, getting it going.

I want to get my P's and Q's lined up a little better yet before we hit it. Because when we load all the s--- up and head to Daytona, I want to feel totally organized. I'd like to have a little bit more time.

I guess if anybody is looking forward to this season in Nextel Cup - I almost said Winston - it would probably be you.

You're finally getting what you've been wanting for several years: softer tires, less spoiler. How excited are you about that prospect and how it's going to affect you?

Rusty Wallace: I'm hoping that it's going to affect everybody in a better way. I will tell you, I'm the one getting all the ink about, 'Rusty wants this, Rusty wants that.'

I am the one that raised the first question about it. I hope that there's enough downforce off the cars that it won't tear these tires up. We want softer tires, but we don't want softer tires that blister.

	Wallace: "My peers consider me as one of their leaders."

Let's put these tires in steps: one being hard, two being harder, three being extremely hard, and four being like concrete. These tires, in some places, were four steps too hard.

What I'm asking is to get the tires two and three steps softer so when it comes time to change tires, you change tires, and you go out on the race track, and it makes a difference.

Because right now, nobody can pass anybody. It's follow-the-leader, it's pit strategy, it's whether you should stay on the track. Everybody felt if they get in the back, there's no way they can get to the front.

Man, that's not the way it's supposed to be. It's not the way it was. If you get in the back, and you've got a good car, you want to be able to drive it through the pack. It's hard to do that.

Yeah, that's going to happen. Yeah, spoilers off the back of the car. I hope it's all going to work. And I lost track of your question. What then hell was it?

About how excited you are about all that.

Rusty Wallace: I am excited about that. On the other hand, I don't want to be the one held accountable for the whole damn thing. But I will tell you, if nobody says s---, nothing happens.

I've been told by people many, many times the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Somebody had to speak up. A lot of my peers, a lot of the drivers said, 'Yeah, yeah, that's what we need. Yeah, that's cool, that's great.' Some of them said, 'Well, they'll blister.'

No, we're not talking about taking tires to where they blister. We're talking softening them up enough that it makes a difference. I hope it works out for all of us.

Do you think some of the chassis setups are going to go back to the way they were three or four years ago, so maybe some of the veteran guys may be back on equal footing with some of the new stuff that's come out the past couple years?

Rusty Wallace: No, I don't think so. I don't think it's going to go back at all. What we've done the last two years, we didn't know we could do that two years ago.

Everybody, the whole entire field's got it figured out now how to run soft springs in the front and get the car really, really low to the ground.

The front of the car hasn't changed at all. They just whacked the spoiler off the back. So it should shift your aero balance to the front, you should have a looser car.

The guys will probably offset it by putting in more left-rear spring, take right-rear spring out, maybe a little bit more wedge, a little lower track bar.

I just see subtle changes to re-balance. But I don't know if you'll ever see the guys putting the real, real stiff springs back in the car.

We didn't know we could get those cars low. We didn't know what to do with all the geometry and things to make the car handle with this soft a spring. No, we won't go back. I don't see it going back to anybody's setup ever again.

Tell me about Larry Carter a little bit, your new chief for next year. And be nice; we're from the same hometown.

Rusty Wallace: I'd seen Larry occasionally, walking around the garage area. (Penske Racing general manager) John Erickson suggested Larry Carter to me.

I said, 'OK, let's go talk to him.' Larry came in the office. I said, first of all, let's see if he's available to go to work before we waste a lot of time. Come to find out, he was interested.

	Wallace (left) with Larry Carter

He came over, and we talked to him. When he walked in my office door, I said, 'That's my guy.' He's a guy who's big and strong and had a huge leadership presence to him when he came through the door.

That really reminded me of my old buddy, Buddy Parrott, reminded me of what he did for me and how many victories he helped me get.

Larry has got that, plus he's new age. He's very, very computer literate. He's experienced a lot of stuff. He builds a lot of shock absorbers, has done a lot of his own shock absorber work.

He's very fluent in that. He's very up on the computer systems that the race teams are using now. He prides himself on making pit calls. Everything I talked to Larry about was what I was looking for.

I really feel like we've got the right guy. I really like the way he talks, the way he looks, the way he leads himself. I am pumped up to get the season started to get working with him.

He's going from a very low-pressure job - I guess there's no such thing as a low-pressure job in Cup - a relatively low-pressure job to a very high-profile, high-pressure job with you. How do you think he'll handle that kind of spotlight?

Rusty Wallace: I really think Larry'll be fine with it. I really do. For one thing, it's not like Rusty's coming off a year where he won the championship and blew everybody away.

I'm coming off a 14th place in the points standings, my worst season in 16-some damn years.

	Bill Wilburn (left) with Wallace Credit: Autostock

Coming off some struggles and some problems. I know he's going to help improve that, I know he is.

I know when we hit the race track, and he makes that first pit call, I'm probably going to have confidence to say, 'Cool.' I'm not going to debate it and argue it and say, 'No we shouldn't do that.' I'm going to believe in him.

Billy Wilburn is probably one of my best friends. He said, 'You've just got to let this guy make the calls.

This s--- is changing.' When you see this 6-foot-3 or 4 guy walk in the door, I believe in him. I'll guarantee I'm not going to screw with him because ... I just won't.

How's Billy doing? I guess you and him are really close friends, and you do stuff with him.

Rusty Wallace: Billy and I are really, really close friends. He's still with the team. He's still doing everything he's done.

He'll be with the team, with the organization. We're great friends. He sat in this chair, and we discussed, and we made a decision that we had to do something. I told him we had to shake something up, we had to get some changes made.

I said, 'Obviously, I've got confidence in what I'm doing, you've got confidence in what your doing. But together, we're not meshing.'

We all agreed, and we're going to announce next week his official position. But everybody will love it. He's a great friend of mine and is a great friend to my family.

Probably one of the things, maybe, that made it so him and I didn't mesh so good is because we're so good friends. He was much younger than me, and I couldn't respect him the way I needed to respect him.

But as a friend, he is one of my best friends. I gotta tell you, nobody knows about I've got this new-found love of golf. This guy is one an incredible golfer.

He golfed in school, and every time I go out, he kicks my ass unmercifully, really blows me away. We're going to golf a lot this year, and we're going to be great friends.

We're going to probably see each other all the time, we're probably going to go to dinner all the time, we're probably going to hang out all the time. You won't notice any difference, except he won't be my crew chief.

There are some critics out there that, especially last year, compare Ryan's record and your record and say, "Rusty's losing it." How do you respond to that?

Rusty Wallace: I've got to tell you, If I was sitting on the outside looking in, I'd say the same damn thing: 'What do you mean? What the hell's up? These guys have the same cars, the same everything. You've got one guy blowing everybody away, and one guy not.'

I guess my response to that is, hey, look. I've been through peaks and valleys. I've been though the peaks where everybody said, 'How in the hell did you do that?'

It wasn't three or four years ago, I won the nine poles, and I won the 10 wins. The last year, I think it was, I had nine poles and four wins, and Robin (Pemberton) quits me.

I get a new crew chief, and everything's all different. All of a sudden, we can't hit our ass with a sledgehammer.

I've got confidence in myself that I haven't lost it as a driver, OK? We just got way whacked out on ... when they go left, we go right.

I really think that our teammate was very, very smart this year on some of the real calculated, ballsy calls. They did a great job.

You need to print that, OK?

When a crew chief comes across and says, 'We've got 50 laps to go, but we've only got 30 laps of gas left in the tank,' we need to fill it. I'm sold. I've got it.

Nobody can make it. When they can save that fuel like they did and stay out and win many races by doing that ... but then there's other races where they went out and just flat-out hauled ass, like Texas and some other places.

The problem is, when we flat-out hauled ass and we're leading or running second, we just couldn't get it to the line.

I do take offense to that when they say, 'Rusty's lost it' and all that. But I can see why they do that. Yeah, it hurts you and upsets you, it humiliates you. It does all that s--- because I've got confidence in myself.

I'm a champion. I've won these damn things. My peers consider me as one of their leaders. I've got to tell you, when somebody's wanting a rules change, there's about six or seven of them trying to kick me in the ass to try to get me to go into the NASCAR trailer to ask them. 'Hey, Rusty, go do this. Hey, Rusty, go do that.'

I'm in a rebuilding year. If there was ever a slogan that needed to be created or a shirt that needed to be made, it needs to be saying, '2004: The Rebuilding of a Champion.'

That's what I want my 2004 season to be: the rebuilding of a champion. Once you're a champion, you never want to back off that pedestal. You just scratch and claw and do what you've got to do to get yourself back up in there.

I remember when - who was it? - Jerry Punch sat me and (Dale) Earnhardt down in 1996 at Indianapolis. We were having kind of a s--- year that year, him and I both. (Punch) goes, 'Well, are you guys thinking about retiring? It's about over now.'

It made me so mad I couldn't see straight. We went out and won nine poles and four wins. Win, win, win, win.

But, hey, I'm not going to retire for at least two or three more years, not doing that. I can tell you that right now.

	Wallace (left) with team owner Roger Penske (center) and Ryan Newman

We re-signed with the brewery, and I plan on getting back in Victory Lane and showing these guys that this team and myself have got it. We've had two bad years. Last year was a bad, bad year.

Yeah, my teammate and I have got all the same equipment. I will tell you though: I think my teammate is a good, solid guy. He's definitely no flash in the pan.

He can drive, he can qualify. He's got all the same stuff I've got. He had an exceptional year. You ask him, 'Hey, Ryan, 11 poles and eight wins: Would you have ever thought you were going to do that?'

He'd probably tell you, 'I didn't think we were going to do that, but that's my goal.' He'll probably tell you that.

Well, guess what: That's my goal, too. But those things are hard to achieve. I know I rambled on with that answer.

No, that sounds good to me.

Rusty Wallace: It does irritate you and piss you off that people that haven't been in the gutter or people that haven't been in the ditch, people that don't know what a 10,000 bleed hole in shock absorber is are making comments about, 'Hey, you're screwed,' and, 'This is wrong.'

They have that right to go to the Internet or papers and let the whole world know their opinion. That makes it tough.

What's going on with your Busch team? Has that been a nice little - I won't say distraction - but something to keep your mind occupied?

Rusty Wallace: That's another thing. If I had a year like I had, and people knew I had all this going on with this Busch stuff, I'd say, 'There's no damn way in the world that that guy could be focused with all that going on.'

But on the other hand, this has been so much fun for me, it's unreal. I've had a lot of fun times, and oh, my God, there's so much stuff I've learned by doing this.

When you're in an institution like we have, we do things a certain way all the time.

This got me the capability to get outside a little bit by purchasing pieces and seeing some of the new pieces and parts coming out from different people. I'm going, 'Wow, holy smokes, you've got to be kidding me. I didn't know that. I didn't know this.'

I never got involved in that. My team does that stuff, and my team does a great job at it.

But I've had a fun time with the Busch thing. Right now, I'm going to take you on a little bit of a walk down there in a second.

Duraflame's the sponsor. It's car No. 66 - it's my old short track number, which is pretty cool to get that number back.

Our brand new building will be completed in two or three weeks. Right now, we're over at Hank Parker Sr.'s shop. He's got a beautiful facility, about 25,000 square feet, a beautiful place, and the guys are wide-open right now, getting cars prepared.

Two cars have been in the wind tunnel already. We've logged over a 1,000 miles in testing. The kid hasn't bumped it up one time yet.

I like how he talks to the media, I like how he presents himself, I like how he drives behind the wheel, I like everything I see.

My wife told me, 'Rusty, I tell you what. I hope to s--- this kid can drive because I sure like everything else about him.' He's a really class kid.

Yeah, I am pumped up about it. Although, I will tell you, I've got a great crew chief, this kid named Blake Bainbridge.

I don't know if people know a lot about Blake, but Blake was Brian Vickers' crew chief all through his short track career, all through the Hooters Pro Cup and all that short track stuff he did.

And then he went to drive for Hendrick, Blake went over to Cicci Welliver's team with Mike McLaughlin, and then he went over to Rick Crawford, and Crawford's trucks have been hauling ass.

The kid's got a lot of experience. He's the crew chief right now, and he's doing a great job there.

Barry Dodson, my ex-crew chief, is a really good friend of mine. I needed somebody to kind of look over this whole thing and be a general manager, so to speak, when it comes to a lot of help, parts purchasing, overlooking the bills and prices because I will tell you, a lot of people think, 'Oh, Rusty Wallace, race car driver, NASCAR superstar, he can just buy what he wants,' and that's not the truth. Every nickel is coming out of my pocket and the sponsors'.

There's only so much sponsorship money, so the stuff's got to be looked after. Tom Polansky is our team coordinator.

Tom has put all the hard-core pieces and stuff together, but Tom works for me. Tom's doing my schedule and my logistics, so Tom can't be 100 percent on the Busch team.

That's where Barry kicks in. He's kind of like my John Erickson, he's kind of overlooking everything. Blake's running it, but Barry's overlooking it.

Between Polansky and Barry and Blake, I've got it pretty well covered that I think I can start getting way, way out of it and start putting 100 concentration into the 2 car, where it needs to be.

This baby is, like I say, two or three weeks from being totally up and running.

Last question. We miss the Miller Lite girls and some of those commercials. Any chance you can hook us up with that and get those going again?

Rusty Wallace: Yeah, I think we can definitely hook it up. When you get to see the new Miller Lite 2004 posters and all that stuff, you're going to just die.

Six months ago, out this window here, this whole building, we had 1-foot square checkerboard. We glued it like a victory lane all down through here.

I telling you what, they got some chicks out of California in here - we probably had the most beautiful women I'd ever seen in my life. They were the ladies they used for all the stock car and drag car point-of-sales stuff, so you'll see all that.

	Jessica Simpson Credit: AP

On the other hand, I hope these guys can get some new TV commercials going. They've been a little slow at doing that.

They got bought out by a complete different brewery; there were bought out by this South African brewery. They've been doing a lot of rebuilding inside themselves. They're getting things going.

Miller Lite sales are really, really good. Their new advertising with the low-carb stuff has definitely worked. Patti and I were at Brixx (Pizza) last night with the kids, and I'm looking out.

Usually, I see all types of different beers. I told her, 'This is unreal. Everywhere I'm looking, I'm seeing Miller Lite.'

I'd seen all these young kids drinking Miller Lite, everyone drinking Miller Lite. Last night, I'm sitting watching that Jessica Simpson show on MTV - they're all drinking Miller Lite on there. It's all popped out.

Miller Lite sales are really kicking ass and doing good right now. We've re-signed for a couple more years. Now, since they're pretty well up to speed and back on track, I think you'll see the commercials come back. We need to do some cool things again.