WALLACE & MILLER LITE TEAM PENSKE BRINGING "TONS OF MOMENTUM" INTO
TROPICANA 400 AT CHICAGOLAND SPEEDWAY

JOLIET, Ill. (July 9, 2002)-- Rusty Wallace and his Bill Wilburn-led
Miller Lite Team Penske, fresh off Saturday night's runner-up finish at Daytona, plan on continuing to turn heads in this weekend's Tropicana 400 at Chicagoland Speedway.

"We're coming into Chicago with tons of momentum, that's for sure," said Wallace, the 1989 Winston Cup champ who has 54 career wins and 35 career series poles entering this week's return to the 1.5-mile tri-oval. "We're really rocking and rolling now. We're back up to fourth in points. We're running and finishing in the top five. This team is ready to win again and don't be surprised if it happens this weekend."

Wallace's spectacular run from a 37th-place start to a second-place finish in last Saturday's Pepsi 400 comes at a pivotal point in the season, according to crew chief Bill Wilburn.

"I'll tell you what, it's a boost like you wouldn't believe," said Wilburn. "Every person in the garage area was aware that Daytona started a stretch of 20 straight races. It was so important to do well there and take momentum on down the road. I know that.Rusty knows that.we all know that. Rusty drove his (rear) off down there on Saturday night and he has our team on fire right now. You just have to be excited with it all. We can't wait to get to Chicago and continue our charge."

Wallace's Daytona runner-up tally was his 37th career second-place finish. His last runner-up finish came at Indianapolis on August 5, 2000. The Daytona run resulted in his 183rd career top-five finish. It was his first top-five this season, even though he does have 10 top-10 finishes entering Chicago. It was his first top-five finish since last September's race at Kansas Speedway (24 races ago).

The Daytona finish moved Wallace from sixth to fourth in the current NASCAR Winston Cup points race. He trails leader Sterling Marlin by 144 points. He is only 67 points behind second-place Mark Martin and trails third-place Jimmie Johnson by a mere 30 points.

While it has been 46 races since Wallace's last win (on April 29, 2001 at California Speedway), Wilburn maintains that it is consistency that continues to top the team's priority list entering this weekend.

"Sure, we want to win and we all know how bad Rusty wants to win and continue that streak of his (currently 16 straight years with at least one win), but winning the championship is the ultimate goal," said Wilburn. "Several of the teams that have won this year have gone on to the next race and just fallen off the map. We have 10 top-10s and something like an 11.5 (actually 11.7) average finish and that says a lot. If you just stop and think about what happened at Sears Point (was challenging for third late in the race when a pit stop miscue and flat tire resulted in a 27th-place finish), you have to be impressed with the ability to bounce back like that.

"It's the consistency and durability that have highlighted the year so far for us and there's nothing wrong with that," said Wilburn. "If we can keep doing what we're doing, the wins will come. Our engine program has been absolutely perfect this year.been just bulletproof. And when you look at no DNFs and just six unfinished laps, you can see why we are where we are in the points. Our biggest push right now is just to keep doing what we're doing."

Wallace is confident that his team will be ready for the challenge that the 1.5-mile Chicagoland Speedway offers this weekend.

"We didn't test at Chicago, but we have a lot of good notes to go on," Wallace said. "I look at the track being quite a bit like Texas and we really had a great shot at winning that race before the suspension problem (led for 37 laps before A-frame bearing problems resulted in an 11th-place finish)."

Wallace started 21st and finished 13th in last year's inaugural Winston Cup race at Chicagoland Speedway.

"We must have run over something during the last caution, because we had a tire going down at the end," Wallace recalled. "That's why we went backwards instead of making up spots. We definitely had a top-10 car there, but it just didn't work out that way for us. Our car just wouldn't go on two tires. We tried that early in the race and it almost bit us, with us chunking a tire. The big thing was that we just couldn't get any speed from the center of the turn out all day long. We think we know what our problem was there last year and the changes we'll make will have us up front this time around."

Wallace and team will be racing their "PC-43" Ford Taurus this
weekend. The car has been raced only once, in the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe's Motor Speedway where it started 31st and finished 10th.

Qualifying for the Tropicana 400 is set for Friday at 3:00 p.m. The final "happy hour" practice session is scheduled from 11:15 p.m. until 12:00 noon on Saturday. Sunday's Tropicana 400 begins at 1:30 p.m. CDT and features live coverage by NBC-TV and MRN Radio.