NEXCUO Dodge Quotes from at MIS June 19, 2004

Saturday, June 19, 2004
Michigan International Speedway
DHL 400 Advance.


 

RUSTY WALLACE (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge)

"I feel real good about the race tomorrow. I was a little surprised when
Larry (crew chief Carter) said he wanted to bring the car I about won
Bristol with. I was walking down pit road yesterday and noticed the
shape of it. It looks good, and right off the bat it jumped up and ran
fast right off the truck. I think we've got a good setup under it for
today's practice session. The track has always been good to me, and I've
got the right car and I think this is the right track to get back to
victory lane.

 

"I didn't like what I had last week. I didn't like the car. I didn't
like the engine combination. I qualified bad. We got it up to the top
five, but it was a lot of work getting it there. The bodies are so close
these days. You put the bodies on the cars and you always go for the max
downforce. It's the same way with the Bristol type car. When he said he
wanted to bring the Bristol car I said, 'that doesn't sound right.'

 

"He said, 'man you've got to see it. You haven't been paying attention
to the body the way it looks.' I looked at it and it's a good looking
car, so I'm confident.

 

"I've got a lot of confidence in Larry right now. He's made me proud.
He's made me feel real comfortable. I took about 16 of them out to
dinner last night, and they were all listening to Larry. 

 

"My dad (Russ Wallace) did so much for us it was unreal. He won every
championship there was to win in the St. Louis area. I think he won over
100 races and seven track championships. Myself, Mike and Kenny helped
him on the cars. When it came time for us to race he said it was too
much worked and stepped aside. He said he was just going to watch us.
After we left St. Louis and went to North Carolina, dad retired from the
family business and moved to North Carolina. Right now he's driving
around in his motorhome, and it's not unusual to see him driving around
in the front of his house on his John Deere tractor.

 

"He goes to a lot of Steve's (grandson) races. He's the first to say
Steve drove a great race and it wasn't his fault that that other guy got
spun out. Steve's a pretty aggressive driver, and he's always sticking
up for him. He's doing really well. I just got him another car, so he's
got two short track cars. He's got his posse of people that help him.
He's got four or five kids that are helpers and want to go racing. He's
assembled a pretty good crew. He's running all over the country. He's
run in Newport, Tenn., Greenville, S.C., down in Georgia. He's doing a
lot of short track racing, and I haven't got to see any of them this
year. I call up and ask him how he's doing, and he says 'practice went
good 

 

 

 

dad.' I ask him how he did in the race and he says 'we were doing this
and this.' I say, 'no, no, no, how'd we do?' There's always but, this
happened or but, that happened. He's got a bunch of top fives. He hasn't
won yet, but he's got a couple of second places.

 

"We've really been running strong. We've had some really screwball luck
like last week at Pocono. We qualified 30th and I wasn't happy with it
at all. We kept working on the chassis and got it up to fifth, then we
lost the brakes coming across the tunnel turn and I got into Little
Waltrip and got into a big wreck. Other than that, the performance of
our car has been strong. I'm looking forward to this race. I've got a
good finish targeted for this race, and I'm really looking forward to
the road race in Sonoma. We had a good test out there the other day and
the car really ran strong. We broke track record by a second and a half
out there in the test session. It's a brand new car, and I'm itching to
get out there to put that baby through its paces.

 

"I've got a lot of confidence in my crew now. We had one bad pit stop
last week and the phone was ringing on Monday. One of my crew guys
called me and said, 'Rusty I want to apologize for that bad pit stop. It
won't happen again.' I couldn't believe he was apologizing for one pit
stop. I thought he was going to tell me he had a better job and was
going somewhere else. I've got a crew that is really fired up. Our
engines have always been rock solid. We got a big wake-up call last
weekend. We took a car that we thought was pretty good and we got our
doors blown off. We've got to work hard to get it right. We had a little
slack on the engine going into Pocono, a little slack on the body. It
showed up big. It was kind of a good wake-up call. It let the guys know
what can happen if they screw up.

 

"I think I've got five victories here. It's been a good track for me.
I've always had good top-10 runs, good solid runs. It means a lot. This
track is three lanes wide. You can slide and maneuver all over the
place. We've got to step it up for these next 12 races. We've got plenty
of time, but we can't afford to wait to make a move toward the top 10.
We definitely need to make the cut for those final 10 races. We're 101
points out of 10th place right now, but we just don't want to get to
10th. We need to get a solid spot in the top 10 and get ready for those
final 10 races. We've got everything in place to make a run at it, but
we've got to get there first. It looks like only 10 teams are going to
make the cut, so that's going to leave out some really good teams. It's
going to be exciting, and we want to be part of it."

 

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