Rusty Wallace Credit: Autostock

Wallace's fantasy lineup includes Cup, ASA greats

There are 27 races left before Rusty Wallace's "Last Call" tour ends. While his driving career has a finite number of starts remaining, we asked Wallace, that given the chance, who are the drivers he would most like to compete against again.

The names may surprise many nouveau Cup fans; "Young Guns" need not apply. Wallace is as old-school as Dave Marcis' winged-tipped racing shoes, so it came as no surprise that Wallace's wish list would be comprised of those of the same cloth -- racers, in the truest sense of the word.

This week: Fantasy starting lineup

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Wallace's fender-banging partners are a Who's Who of NASCAR and ASA racing -- David Pearson, Bobby Allison, Cale Yarborough, Junior Johnson, Mike Eddy and Bob Senneker.

"It'd be fun to have ol' Pearson, Allison, Yarborough, Senneker, Eddy, all us out there running one time," said Wallace, relaxing in his palatial motorcoach between the morning's practice session and the afternoon's qualifying at Talladega Superspeedway.

"I've raced against Mark [Martin] my whole life, and I've already done that. ... It'd be cool to have those cats out there.

"I would love to run with Junior one time," Wallace added. "I love Junior. I talked with him a ton about things he's done in the past."

Pearson and Johnson already had hung up the helmets before Wallace entered the Cup scene, but he did compete in the series against Allison and Yarborough. In fact, both were in the field when Wallace debuted in the season-ending Atlanta 500 in 1980.

"A couple guys that I'd like to run with here that never did make it to Cup -- which they didn't want to make it to Cup [but] they had all the talent in the world and all the smarts-- was a guy named Mike Eddy and another guy named Bob Senneker that I grew up with in the ASA series."

Allison, left, and Yarborough

Head-to-Head Wallace vs. Bobby Allison   Wallace Allison Wins 5 7 Top 5s 25 40 Top 10s 56 70 Avg. Finish 15.7 13.8 Total races: 138 First race: 1980 Atlanta 500 Last race: 1988 Miller High Life 500 Wallace vs. A.J. Foyt   Wallace Foyt Wins 3 0 Top 5's 7 1 Top 10's 18 1 Avg. Finish 17.4 30.6 Total races: 42 First race: 1982 Daytona 500 Last race: 1994 Brickyard 400 Wallace vs. Bob Senneker   Wallace Senneker Wins 0 0 Top 5s 0 0 Top 10s 1 0 Avg. Finish 6.0 21.0 Total races: 1 First race: 1981 National 500 Last race: 1981 National 500 Wallace vs. Cale Yarborough   Wallace Yarborough Wins 3 5 Top 5s 14 26 Top 10s 36 36 Avg. Finish 15.6 17.7 Total races: 83 First race: 1980 Atlanta 500 Last race: 1988 Atlanta Journal 500 • Cup starts only

A seven-time series champion, Eddy racked up 58 ASA victories -- second only to Senneker's 85 -- but never raced in a Cup event. However, Wallace and Senneker did compete in the National 500 on Oct. 11, 1981, at Charlotte.

A native of Dorr, Mich., Senneker made eight career Cup starts, including five in 1983. Three of his starts came at Michigan, where he posted two of his four career top-20 finishes.

"These guys were really, really good drivers and really smart drivers, and they were drivers that wanted no part of the work that goes behind maintaining all the sponsor relations, the media relations, sometimes the politics ... they didn't want no part of that. And they enjoyed their own thing they did, and my hat's off to them."

While flipping through his mental Rolodex, surrounded by the trappings of a 22-year Cup career that includes the 1989 series championship, Wallace bolts on another name to the list.

"I should throw A.J. Foyt in there, because I've beat him a couple times," Wallace said. "Man, he used to beat on me all the time [in the USAC series].

"He and I went to Texas World Speedway, and we were going for the championship that year, 1980, and they interviewed me -- and I was a young, cocky kid back then -- and Texas was his state; that was A.J.'s place right there. They said, 'Rusty, what do you think about this last race? Do you think you can beat A.J.?'

"And I said, 'I don't know why I can't. I beat him all year long.'

"You never say that in the state of Texas. I learned that the hard way. But he's a friend of mine, great guy. ... Those guys made it the hard way, really the hard way, and I really respect those guys."

• Last week: The ABCs of Wallace