Wallace thriving as man with many different plans

Rusty Wallace has spent a lifetime juggling a variety of interests and activities. So why would it be any different in 2010 when Wallace is a principal in Rusty Wallace Racing and Rusty Wallace Inc., an active participant in the NASCAR Foundation, a television personality and a husband and father?

Wallace sat down to talk about his intricate balancing act of being a NASCAR spokesman, car dealer, Nationwide team owner and a future NASCAR Hall of Fame candidate.

Rusty Wallace's championship car from 1989 is part of the Hall of Fame.

Q: When you had a chance to interact with 100 middle-schoolers from Volusia and Flagler counties at Daytona International Speedway, what was your impression?

Wallace: When I went in there I saw the enthusiasm, No. 1. They were really excited to be at Daytona -- they weren't bored or rolling their eyes or nothing -- all of them were engaged. Where this really panned out was how smart these kids were. We split them up into 20 teams of five, and I was curious to know how much they really knew about NASCAR and how quickly they could answer these 20 questions that the staff and Bank of America had put together. Now, some of these questions, to me, were awful hard -- crazy-hard questions that took a lot of calculations.

So each team had a car on a big, round board and each time they answered a question right, they advanced. And these questions that I thought would take them some time, they were knocking off in nothing flat. So not only are they getting a good education, but they knew a lot about NASCAR -- and you could tell they wanted to know a lot about NASCAR. And I think we drove home how important math and technology is to NASCAR. If you don't understand it, you're not going to be successful. It's different than the old days.

When I drove the car, not too long ago -- at the end of 2005 -- I was more of a seat-of-the-pants driver. If the car did this, or did that I would make a call [on fixing it]. But now, they rely on a lot of calculations -- especially calculations with downforce and aero things and tire pressures. So it's all numbers, and we drove home that if you want to be successful in NASCAR, you've got to understand math.

Q: In this technical environment, what's the adjustment been like for you personally, not only with your race teams but also in your media role with ESPN and ABC?

Wallace: For me personally, it's been a real tough sell, because I've been so accustomed to making a lot of my own calls about what I wanted in the car. Look, I didn't build the car, I didn't build the engines and I didn't do the pit stops, but I had a team of guys that always supported what I wanted changed in the car. I've had engineers, but the engineers assisted me -- they never told me what to do. (Continued)