NASCAR Cup
Rusty Wallace Love Richmond Track
Yes, Wallace loves Richmond's race track By Marty Smith SONOMA, Calif. (May 4, 1999) Everybody knows Rusty Wallace loves Bristol, but he likes Richmond, too. They say "Virginia is for Lovers," but Rusty Wallace feels the Commonwealth's appeal ...
Edited: May 8, 2001, 12:19 PM
Copy link
Share on Viber
Yes, Wallace loves Richmond's race track By Marty Smith
SONOMA, Calif. (May 4, 1999) Everybody knows Rusty Wallace loves Bristol, but he likes Richmond, too. They say "Virginia is for Lovers," but Rusty Wallace feels the Commonwealth's appeal lies elsewhere -- namely on the race track. Wallace has piloted the Miller Lite Ford to 15 career NASCAR Winston Cup Series victories within Virginia borders, and had Bristol Motor Speedway been built 10 miles to the east, nine more wins could be added to that total. After taking the upcoming weekend off, NASCAR's premier circuit steers towards Richmond International Raceway, a track on which Wallace has been consistent to say the least. In 30 races, he has reeled off six wins and 22 top-10 runs in 30 starts.
"Richmond is one of my favorite race tracks," said Wallace, who tested at Sears Point Raceway on Tuesday to prepare for the June 27 Save Mart/Kragen 350 at the 1.95-mile road coarse. "I love Bristol, everybody knows that, but I love Richmond, too. Nowadays I like just about all of them (tracks), but every time I go to Richmond it seems like I run good."
He deems it vital to continue that trend next week. The No. 2 team currently stands 7th in the series standings, which to Wallace is insufficient at best.
"I'm further behind than I thought I would be at this point," said Wallace, the 1989 NASCAR Winston Cup Series champion. "We're worse than I want to be, that's for sure. We've had some bad luck too though, things you have no control over."
Wallace has finished 30th or worse three times in 1999. Two weeks ago at Talladega he was caught up in a multi-car skirmish caused when Tony Stewart and Mike Skinner touched on the backstretch, dropping Wallace from contention just 49 laps in.
"I hadn't had a restrictor-plate wreck in a long time, and it just so happened that at Talladega I hit (Jeff) Gordon dead in the door at 180 miles per hour," Wallace said. "The leaders wrecked, and you can't do much about that. A lot of things like that you can't do anything about.
"We went to Fontana (last week) with high hopes of winning, but Gordon was running warp speed again and I went in for a scheduled green flag pit stop running 5th and the caution came out. It's just one of those things."
As has been the case all season, one major difference in this season's Pontiac Excitement 400 at Richmond will stem from the changes NASCAR has mandated to the rear spoiler and front air dam. With higher spoilers and lower front air dams, teams won't be able to utilize the same race setups they did last season due to increased downforce.
This bodes well for Wallace
"The new spoilers and front air dams have allowed us to get back to racing each other side-by-side," said Wallace, who finished 3rd and 7th, respectively, at Richmond last season. "We were living on the edge last year. NASCAR wanted to slow us down, and with the old spoilers and air dams they did that, but the cars weren't as stable. Guys were all over the place.
"Now with the cars more stable, there's much better racing."
Wallace admits he is a bit frustrated with how the season has gone thus far -- minus his dominant victory in the Food City 500 at Bristol last month. He has led more laps (706) than any other series driver has this season, but leading and winning are two entirely different things.
"It feels good to lead laps, but doesn't mean you'll win," he said. "We want to win -- that's the plan at Richmond."
Source: NASCAR Online
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
Take our 5 minute survey.
- The Motorsport.com Team
Read and post comments
Read also :
Share Or Save This Story
Copy link
Share on Viber
Previous article Standings After Fontana
Next article James Ince New Crew Chief for No. 45
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
Rusty Wallace
Roger Penske's NASCAR drivers react to his Hall election
NASCAR Cup
NASCAR Cup
Roger Penske's NASCAR drivers react to his Hall election
NASCAR Hall of Famer Rusty Wallace set to return to the driver's seat
Ferrari
Ferrari
NASCAR Hall of Famer Rusty Wallace set to return to the driver's seat
Roger Penske – always the man with the plan
NASCAR
NASCAR
Team Penske 50th Anniversary
Roger Penske – always the man with the plan
Latest news
‘I’m sideways all the time’ – How Alpine’s feral F1 car plagued Pierre Gasly in Singapore
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1
Singapore GP
1 h
‘I’m sideways all the time’ – How Alpine’s feral F1 car plagued Pierre Gasly in Singapore
Pedro Acosta proposes new idea for monitoring tyre pressure in MotoGP
MotoGP
MGP MotoGP 1 h
Pedro Acosta proposes new idea for monitoring tyre pressure in MotoGP
“Just a disaster” – How Isack Hadjar’s nightmare Singapore F1 weekend unfolded
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1
Singapore GP
2 h
“Just a disaster” – How Isack Hadjar’s nightmare Singapore F1 weekend unfolded
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.
Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here
Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page
Manage Alerts
Subscribe