Crew chief: Wallace's winless streak is 'two'

MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- It's hard to get veteran Rusty Wallace to talk about the most vexing and beguiling streak of his 24-year career in NASCAR's premier series.

But after Wallace's winless drought reached 100 races following the most recent Nextel Cup Series race, last Sunday's Subway 400 at Rockingham, Wallace's head wrench said he saw some light.

ALSO Rusty believes his luck is about to change Play video  •  Join Rusty's Fan Club  •  Larry Carter named crew chief for No. 2 Dodge

"He hasn't discussed that with me," Penske Racing crew chief Larry Carter said of the streak. "As far as I'm concerned my streak with Rusty is 0-and-2, so it isn't really messing with me too much."

Wallace is 13th in the standings after two races and, even though he's yet to lead a lap this season, he's satisfied his team has made progress.

"Larry has done a great job with this team, and (I feel) all the pieces of the puzzle are in place," Wallace said. "We really clicked from the very first time we hit the track and I'm really proud of the relationship we've already been able to develop."

Wallace, who has 54 victories in his career, has more or less gotten over the pain that came with failing to win a race in 2002. Before that, Wallace had at least one Cup victory per year for 16 years.

The current winless streak for the 1989 NASCAR champion is only the seventh longest among active drivers that are previous winners. Ken Schrader has the longest, 409 races.

But that makes neither Wallace nor Carter any happier.

"We're not really concentrating on that (streak)," Carter said. "What we've been working on is running good every week and trying to post good finishes so we can stay high in the points because our main goal is to be there at the end when they get down to this (Nextel Chase for the Championship) shootout. We want to be in the top 10.

"Whether we win a race between now and then would be great. I think we will win, but I think that a lot of this program had already gotten turned around before I ever came here.

"If I can help be a part of that, that's great; but I think it's just a matter of time before Rusty wins a race anyway."

Wallace is on the same page, there.

"What really has my faith up so much is the great chemistry I have already witnessed growing within my team," Wallace said. "We are communicating so well -- Larry and I get along great and we seem to speak the same language about the chassis and all.

"We have a lot of well-qualified new personnel on our team who have fit in so favorably with all our talented guys we've had for years, like our car chief Jeff Thousand and shock specialist Tom Hoke.

"We have definitely put together a championship caliber team this season."

Carter, the nephew of former championship winning crew chief and long-time car owner Travis Carter, responded well to the challenge of stepping into a new team, but even more importantly taking over the chief mechanic's role for a veteran driver.

From the season's first test, at Daytona International Speedway he established a solid rapport with Wallace and the crew of their No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge. In the process, he's gotten Wallace's confidence and in turn, the driver has loosened his death grip on his team's fortunes.

	Wallace's No. 2 Dodge finished seventh last weekend at Rockingham. Credit: Autostock

"It's kind of hard for a guy who's accustomed to doing things a certain way to change," Carter said. "Rusty is still real involved in what we put in the car, spring, (sway) bar and shock-wise. He's very involved in that.

"I think on Sunday if he's got a guy that he's comfortable with and he feels is making the right calls and doing a good job, that he'd a whole lot rather just sit back and drive the car and let somebody do that part of the work for him.

"I feel like if he would do that, that it would help him as far as concentrating on driving the car rather than worrying about what we're going to do on the next pit stop."

Carter claims all the credit isn't his, and that some of the moves that have led to the team's fortunes began last season, such as securing lead engineer Roy McCauley from PPI Motorsports.

Wallace admitted late last season that the sport's move toward more technology often had him dazed and confused. But the team had the right steps in place, even at that time.

"I think maybe last year it (technology) had Rusty confused a little bit," Carter said. "Obviously, I wasn't here, but Roy (McCauley) was and he has played a big role in getting Rusty to step into the future, you might say.

"We're really running a lot of different set-ups in the cars than Rusty was ever used to running before, and he's been amenable to trying those kinds of things. We continue to change the set-ups on the cars, as we need to.

"I think that's enabled us to start turning things around a little bit, and they even started that at the end of last year."

A decent test in January at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the series' next venue, has both men pretty optimistic.

"Man, it'd be nice to put an end to the streak we've been trying to shed for so long," Wallace said. "I'm as pumped up as I have ever been (and) I'm definitely enthused about our chances of having an extremely successful year."