Wallace has plans to take family team Cup racing (cont'd)

That's led to Rusty Wallace and his drivers highly anticipating a year they hope will build on the foundation Steve Wallace and his 2008 teammate, David Stremme, built.

Stremme's car (which is now the No. 62) finished 10th in the owners' standings while Stremme, despite starting only 32 of 35 races, was 11th in the drivers' standings with five top-five and 16 top-10 finishes.

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Doing this with Rusty is probably the only way I'd be this excited. He brings that out of me and out of all his guys.

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BRENDAN GAUGHAN

Since starting with a 17-race schedule in 2005, Steve Wallace has improved in leaps and bounds in his two full seasons. He had two pole positions in 2007 but, troubled by wrecks and other DNFs, was only 30th in the standings, without a top-10 finish. In 2008 he improved 10 positions to 20th and had a pair of top-fives and seven top-10s.

Leading up to Daytona's opener, Rusty Wallace had seen evidence of the same things he experienced when Gaughan was his teammate at Penske's in 2004.

"I had a great time when Brendan was my teammate at Team Penske -- we got along wonderful, we laughed and at test sessions we'd swap cars and he couldn't believe I'd do that," Wallace said. "But I always liked Brendan, his enthusiasm, his honesty and his upbeat attitude about everything. He and I always hit it off.

"I think because I was really honest with Brendan all the time and I tried to help him all I could, I think his father, Michael, said, 'Hey, Rusty's treating my kid with respect and treating him good.' Then, when I called Mr. Gaughan and told him the other car was available, to make a long story short, Mr. Gaughan said, 'I really like you, I trust what you're doing and Brendan likes you so we'd love to be your teammate.'

"I think having Michael involved will help us with organization and business contacts and creating a business plan, so there are a lot of positives there. And the guys from US Fidelis are the same way. They're young guys with a young company and they want to go Cup racing, too. And I think we're going to be close and at the right time to move this team on up.

"Mr. Gaughan has always loved the Cup Series and [company president] Darain Atkinson from US Fidelis wants to go to the Cup Series, too, with our team. Mr. Gaughan isn't saying he wants to run this season and then go to Cup, but I think he'd like to see Brendan get back there. Right now he [Michael Gaughan] is pretty content.

"It was pretty gratifying to me to watch the final practice with my two cars out there running together and working well drafting together and when practice was over, Brendan was in P1."

It's indicative of what the team owner has seen so far this year.

"Brendan and Stephen are really getting along fantastic, I like the way they hang out together, like when Brendan told him, 'When we get out to Las Vegas, you're coming out in the desert with me on my sand buggy,'" Wallace said. "That's what I want out of Steve -- I want him to have a big brother partner that they hang together all the time. That's what Steve and David Stremme did a lot."

"Brendan's got a lot of experience, and he'll have my team from last year, with his Truck Series crew chief Bryan Berry, so I think he'll run good and that will help my team, too," Steve Wallace said. "I've had two seasons here, we had some good runs last year and I think I can offer Brendan some insight about what to expect here, and maybe some things to avoid." (Continued)