Rusty Wallace has seen many safety improvements to the Cup stock cars since 1984. Credit: Autostock

Wallace has seen sport grow on, off the track

After 22 full seasons of Cup racing, Rusty Wallace will retire at the end of the 2005 season. He will leave the sport with more than 700 starts, 50-plus victories and at least one series championship.

Since his debut on March 16, 1980, at Atlanta International Raceway, a lot has changed in the sport. Two decades ago, a "soft wall" was associated with men in white lab coats. Today, it's part of the racing lexicon.

As part of the continuing "Last Call" series, Wallace addresses some of the most noteworthy advancements he's seen through the years:

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"The one change -- one of the big, big changes -- I've seen in the sport are the facilities," Wallace said.

"The infrastructure, the facilities [have] many more grandstands, the way the tracks look; they're looking more modern now -- different road structures inside them.

"There are some tracks we go to that just nothing's happened. Darlington, S.C., nothing's happened. Talladega, Ala., nothing's happened. Small things have happened, administration buildings, things like that.

"Then you go to Texas Motor Speedway. ... Oh my god, that place is beautiful. You go to Kansas City, that place is beautiful. Daytona, great things they've done there; that's amazing."

Indeed the sport has evolved into a modern-age monolith. Of the 15 tracks on the schedule during Wallace's first full season of 1984, four no longer play host to Cup events -- Rockingham, North Wilkesboro, Nashville and Riverside. All of the others have undergone major changes, including Richmond, site of this week's race.

By comparison, of the 22 tracks on the 2005 schedule, 11 were not on the circuit two decades ago.

"We get to go to fun facilities, fun tracks, like Phoenix, Ariz., Sears Point [Infineon]," Wallace said. "You know, a lot of times it's not the racetrack, it's the whole environment.

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"A lot of these racetracks are round and black, and I tell people, 'Would you rather be be in North Wilkesboro or Darlington, or would you rather be in Las Vegas or Phoenix?'

"I'm telling you, I'm sorry: I'd rather be in Arizona with beautiful weather, great place to stay and turning it into a fun weekend besides a great race."

The new tracks' amenities have made the older facilities obsolete, but safety at all tracks has become a priority.

"I've seen the facilities [change], the schedule change, the way everything looks change ... but then, switching gears a little bit, I've seen safety have to change, in a positive way," Wallace said, "because when [Dale] Earnhardt lost his life in Daytona it woke everybody up, it really did.

"We worked on inside the cars, the head-and-neck restraint stuff, and I said, 'Hey, the walls are still hard.' You can only survive so much, but hitting that wall at 200 mph, you've got to figure out how that when we hit that thing it won't feel like you're hitting it at 200

"So they came out with the soft-wall technology," he said, "and I think those guys did a great job. Man, whenever you take one of these old cars and run into the wall and it takes 40 percent of the impact away from your body, from hitting the concrete wall, that's pretty good."

Then & Now Cup series' tracks 1984   2005 Daytona   Daytona Richmond   Richmond Atlanta   Atlanta Bristol   Bristol Darlington   Darlington Martinsville   Martinsville Talladega   Talladega Pocono   Pocono Michigan   Michigan Dover   Dover Charlotte   Charlotte N. Wilkesboro   Infineon Nashville   Texas Riverside   Phoenix Rockingham   Las Vegas     California     Chicago     New Hampshire     Indianapolis     Watkins Glen     Kansas     Homestead

Another positive change, Wallace said, is the way NASCAR has approached races.

"Cutting some of these racetracks back to 400 milers -- and some of the new sign-ons being 400 milers instead of 500 -- has been really, really good," he said. "Dover, Del., going from 500 back to 400 was a good deal that happened 4-5 years ago."

And then there is the recent move to more night races. Last week, Darlington played host to its first full-blown nighttime event, Richmond this week is under the light, the Nextel All-Star Challenge on May 21 at Charlotte is a made-for-TV night event and the Coca-Cola 600 on Memorial Weekend will end under the lights.

"I think night races are just amazing; they're more dramatic," Wallace said. "I compare it to going at a concert. You go to a concert at a big pavilion and imagine having that concert during the day, when you can't see any light -- no light shows going on, nothing going on.

"Then you have that baby at night -- and you see all the smoke, and you see all the lights, and you see all the drama ... that's what a night races does to me.

"I know when I take the lead, I'll look up at the grandstand -- you can't help it -- you're going down the front straight and your eyes glance over there and you see all the flash cameras going off, you see all the cars bottoming out, sparks coming off, the day-glo numbers ... it's just so much more dramatic."

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