HANGING IN THERE - FOURTH IN POINTS

TALLADEGA, Ala. (April 17, 2002) Miller Liite Team Penske driver Rusty Wallace enters this weekend's Aaron's 499 at Talladega Superspeedway holding down the fourth spot in the NASCAR Winston Cup point standings. Crew chief Bill Wilburn offers his perspective:

"A lot of people point to us getting involved in that crash at Daytona and then what happened Sunday at Martinsville (problems with the jack during two pit stops and run-in with Mike Skinner on pit road) and want to start talking about the bad luck we've had," said Wilburn. "But the fact is that we've really been blessed with a lot of good luck.

"Maybe it's like looking at the glass and calling it half-full or
half-empty and I'm always the optimistic guy who says it's half-full, but I think we've really carried a lot of good fortune with us so far. When you look at what happened at Daytona and see that we still pulled out an 18th-place finish out of the deal, that's pretty lucky. We could have very well been 35th or worse. We still got back out there, logged some laps and somehow we were running at the finish.

"After all that happened Sunday at Martinsville, we still didn't lose
any laps and finished 16th," said Wilburn. "The collision with the No. 4 car could have very well knocked us out of the race. If it would have, with all the laps remaining, the best we could have finished would have again been about 35th.

"So, when you look and see that we have no DNFs and only two unfinished laps for the eight races so far, I'd like to look at it that we have the luck riding with us and we sure hope that it continues."


Friday's 3:05 p.m. CDT single round of qualifying will allocate all the starting spots for Sunday's 500-mile, 188-lap race. The Aaron's 499 has a 1:00 p.m. CDT starting time on Sunday and features live coverage by Fox-TV and MRN Radio.