Daytona 500 2000 - Rusty's holding his own, but that's hardly enough

Rusty's holding his own, but that's hardly enough
ESPN The Magazine

'99 EARNINGS: $2,167,429 | POINTS: 8th | WINS: 1 | TOP 5: 7 | TOP 10: 18

RUSTY WALLACE

What Makes Him Go: Wallace knows cars as well as any driver. He can read his chassis and recommend changes during a race. His wealth of experience stretches back to his teens, when he built and maintained his father's race cars, as well as his own. To afford to race for a living in his 20s, he started his own race car shop, Poor Boy Chassis Co., and built several dozen cars.
What Makes Him Slow: Wallace's obsession with excellence sometimes takes him down ill-advised paths -- the engine gets tuned just a bit too high or the air pressures on the tires are reduced just a tad too much. That leads to the inconsistent finishes that have plagued Wallace the last few years.
Key Stat: 15 That's Wallace's average finish for the 1999 season. It was good enough for eighth place in Winston Cup points. But he needs to cut that number by half if he expects to win a second championship. The Cup winner usually checks in with an average finish of about 8.

Ever flown into Atlanta at 5 in the afternoon? Then you know about holding patterns. So does Rusty Wallace, whose career has been circling for three seasons.

But while Wallace hasn't come close to duplicating his finest NASCAR seasons, his record hasn't been bad enough to warrant wholesale changes on his No. 2 Miller Lite Ford team. Wallace has won a single race in each of the past three seasons, a paltry total considering that he had averaged more than four victories a year from 1986 to 1997.

Why the slump? Well, the competition today is a lot tougher -- and Wallace is struggling with the side effects of becoming a NASCAR superstar.

Like other top stars, Wallace is constantly on the go. He has his own air force, a twin-engine Lear jet and a Bell helicopter, at his beck and call. At the Miami race last November, Wallace stayed in an exclusive resort on Key Largo and shuttled back and forth to the track on his helicopter. Sitting in his luxurious motor home one afternoon last year, Wallace reflected on how success has made it that much more difficult to win.

"Nowadays, if a crew guy gets a non-smoking room instead of a smoking room, he's upset," Wallace said. "Before, we used to put four guys in a room. I tell you what, if we could ever get back to where I didn't have all this stuff on my mind -- if I was just driving the race car, like I used to, and all the guys wanted to do was win -- we could probably win more races."

Despite recent frustrations, Wallace still retains the passion that allowed him to escape the backwater short tracks of his native St. Louis. And while he has all the resources that car owner Roger Penske can afford, the 1989 Winston Cup champion seems to be at a crossroads.

At 43, he vows to drive at least another five years. He could fashion a resurgence. He could slip further back in the field -- another veteran overrun by youth. Or, most likely, he could just hold his ground.

When Ricky Rudd's record of at least one victory per year ended at 16 seasons in 1999, Wallace became the holder of the longest current string -- 14.

Does anybody really want to bet against Rusty extending that streak in 2000?

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