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He's no different now than when he first came in the sport. It doesn't matter that Wallace's losing streak has reached 103 races. It doesn't matter that his pit crew has been as slow as a Saturday night street stock team.
Wallace believes he'll win again. And he believes he could win again this weekend.
"I've been going on for two years now with the intensity level pretty strong -- well, my whole career has been like that," Wallace said. "I'm a winner. I'm used to winning, and I'm not getting to where I want. I believe in myself, and I'm trying to surround myself with the right team.
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"You know what, I'm always an optimistic person. I don't want people around me that are not optimistic. I don't want people who give up, people who mope or are moody. People can be happy all the time, they can believe in themselves, and they can be up. I'm one of those people who is up all the time."
Rather than focus on the down side of things -- and there has been plenty of bad things happen this year -- Wallace looks at the bright side. The pit crew? They'll get better. The broken parts? We'll fix them. The poor finishes? We've performed better.
This weekend's venue gives Wallace more reason for optimism. Wallace has won at Bristol Motor Speedway nine times, and from 1984 to 2002 finished in the top 10 in at least one of the races each year.
"When I'm in the ditch or I'm in trouble, I feel like if I go to Bristol, I can get a reprieve," Wallace said. "It's always been a great track for me."
Wallace's well-chronicled slump is the longest of his career, but he insists the team has performed better this year. His best finish has been a seventh at Rockingham, but Wallace said the No. 2 Dodge has run better than that.
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"I feel like I'm driving some of the best races I've been driving," Wallace said. "Atlanta, we ran great, we ran great at Las Vegas, we ran great at Rockingham. Our biggest problem this year has been these dumb pit stops. It's been horrible. Instead of having 13-second stops, we've been having 17s and 18s and 19s."
That's trouble these days, especially when the top teams are dipping into the 12-second bracket. Have four or five pit stops that are six seconds slower, and you're going to get lapped.
"We've had no problem with the speed and the performance," Wallace said. "The problem has been when we hit pit road."
It's gotten so bad that Wallace wonders what will go wrong when the call comes from crew chief Larry Carter to make a pit stop.
"I come down pit road, and I go, 'Oh, my God. I hope this is going to be OK,'" Wallace said. "I used to come down pit road going, 'Oh, this is great,' because I knew I was going to get three or four spots out of this."
The team has tried at least three different rear-tire changers, including Wallace's former crew chief, Bill Wilburn. None have been able to match front-tire changer D.J. Richardson's "bullet-fast" ability.
"I brought Billy Wilburn out and expected a lot out of him, knowing he could do it," Wallace said. "He's been off the road for two years, but he practiced good. Doggone-it if Billy didn't have some problems."
The team tried Cole Chitty at Darlington, and he had a couple good stops but then was slow for a couple more and was replaced temporarily by a member of Brendan Gaughan's crew.
"We've got to find somebody who can knock the 12.80s, the 13-flats out consistently," Wallace said.
Easier said than done, of course.
"I've been doing this for some time, and putting together a good pit crew is not something that happens in three days," Carter said. "We've really struggled with it. ... Really, we're one position away from having a good crew. Hopefully, we'll get that nailed down here in the near future."
Carter said he's tried out 20-25 tire changers, and after reviewing film, has taken three to the track. But none of those is a permanent solution.
"The problem is right now there's not a lot of good tire changers out there," Carter said. "A lot of guys can go on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday out here behind the shop (and do a 13-second stop), but when it's time to do it on Sunday, you seem to lose a little bit of time."
Perhaps the pressure gets to them. But that's part of the deal, Carter said.
"The guys on the 2 car, they probably have been a little shook up," Carter said. "Rusty wanted some changes because the last two years, he really hasn't had the pit stops he's accustomed to. We're trying to get Rusty Wallace the best or one of the best pit crews on pit road.
"Sometimes, yeah, you might have some guys who don't want the pressure or don't want somebody to say, 'What happened?' This year, I can't think of one time Rusty's come on the radio and said anything that I thought was offensive or hurt anybody's feelings."
Wallace admitted to being frustrated with the poor stops and told Carter and the crew recently that "No way I can go to Bristol and have this happen."
"He knows we've got to get it right," Wallace said. "We've got a great crew chief. I feel like I'm driving the car good, and the cars are handling good. We've got easy top-five, top-10 cars every race. We've just got to get these fast stops"
And they will come in time, he said. There's that optimism again.
"I'm optimistic," Wallace said. "You're not going to get that out of me. Being a down guy is not built into me."
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