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NASCAR BGN: For Wally Dallenbach, Brickyard 400 is the biggest event

1 August 2000

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel

Note: Most NASCAR Winston Cup drivers point to the Daytona 500 as the race they would most like to win. For Wally Dallenbach, it's the Brickyard 400. As a youngster, Wally closely followed his father's runs in the Indianapolis 500 and fondly remembers childhood days spent at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in May. His father, Wally Sr., came close to winning the Indy 500 on four occasions, finishing ninth in 1975, fourth in 1976 and 1977, and fifth in 1978.

Dallenbach spent two days testing with the Galaxy Motorsports team at Indianapolis two weeks ago. Following the test, Dallenbach's Ford went to the wind tunnel. Encouraged by his test session and the wind tunnel numbers, Dallenbach is hoping for a breakthrough run in Saturday's race.

HOW BIG IS RUNNING AT INDY FOR YOU?

WALLY DALLENBACH (No. 75 RotoZip Ford Taurus): "For me, this is probably the biggest. That's just because Indy has been a big part of my life. For me, growing up as a kid, the Indy 500 was THE race. Indianapolis was the place. With my background, that's why. Growing up I spent every month of May at the speedway. That was it."

RECOUNT YOUR FATHER'S NEAR WIN IN THE 1975 INDIANAPOLIS 500.

"All I remember is that we were on our way to victory lane. It was 10 or 15 laps from the end. He had a 30- or a 40-second lead. There wasn't anybody that was going to catch him. I was down to turn four and he got about halfway down there and he coasted into the pits with no motor and smoke coming out of the back. Man, it hurt. I was 12 years old. Bobby Unser won it. My dad took it in stride."

TALK ABOUT YOUR TWO-DAY TEST AT INDY.

"I think it went pretty well. This is really the first car we've built at Galaxy as far as the body and the chassis. It's the best car we have. We'll probably start building more cars like it. It's a different type of suspension, a feel thing. It's more like a Hendrick car. It works for my style of driving. I wish we had about 10 of them. It has good wind tunnel numbers on it, too. It's coming around. We're definitely going in the right direction."

BECAUSE OF THEIR SIMILARITIES, WILL YOU BRING THE SAME CAR YOU RAN AT POCONO TO INDY?

"A lot of people take the same car they run at Pocono to Indianapolis. Pocono is similar, because you have two corners that are fairly flat and you have those same type of corners at Indy. If you have a car that runs good at Pocono, it's usually going to run good at Indy. I don't know how many guys are going to run the same cars at those two races. We're not. But basically whoever has a good package at Pocono will probably have a good package for Indy."

TALK ABOUT THE IMPROVEMENT IN THE TEAM'S PIT STOPS.

"The guys are doing a super job and we're not losing any spots. You can't underestimate the importance of pit stops. It's so hard to pass guys on the race track. If you start giving up all that you've worked for on the race track for 70 or 80 laps, it demoralizes you. It's very, very frustrating. The guys are busting off great pit stops, and hopefully now we've got a crew we can work with to get even better through the rest of the season."

Text provided by Brian Hoagland

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