WALLACE & MILLER LITE TEAM CALLING ON NEW CAR FOR 600; LOWE'S RECORD REFLECTS RECENT BIG PICTURE

CONCORD, N.C. (May 22) Miller Lite Team Penske driver Rusty Wallace and his Bill Wilburn-led team are calling on a brand-new race car to get the job done in this weekend's Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

"Our record at Charlotte (Lowe's) has really been a situation of many 'woulda-coulda-shouldas' through the years," said Wallace, fifth in the NASCAR Winston Cup point standings entering this weekend's 12th points race of the 2002 season. "We've been relying on the car we call 'Mad Max' for what seems like forever at Charlotte (Lowe's). We've had some strong runs with the car and we know it can win because we've won races
at Michigan and California with it.

"But the fact is that being close just isn't good enough for our team so we've decided to roll out the new (PC-) 43 car for this race," said Wallace, who has two career wins at LMS, along with four runner-up finishes. "Hopefully, this new car will give us just the added 'oomph' we need to get back to winning these things.

Wallace had used the PC-25 (Mad Max) in all the Lowe's races this century. The car debuted in the 2000 edition of the Coca-Cola 600 and in four races at LMS, the car has two top-10 finishes to its credit. Wallace won the August 2000 Michigan race and the April 2001 California race with the same car.

Wallace has a win in the 1990 Coca-Cola 600 and a victory in the fall race of 1988 on his career record at LMS. But he is quick to point out that there are several other races that his team was in a position to win. The record book shows that he has indeed played the "bridesmaid" role four different times at Lowe's.

He led in the late going of the 1997 Coca-Cola 600 only to see Jeff Gordon emerge the winner by using two-tire pit strategy. A year later, Wallace again led in the waning laps only to see Gordon's four-tire late-race pit stop boost him to the front and to another win.

"We've been so close through the years to winning several of the races and have a lot of runner-up finishes in the record book," said Wallace. "For a while there, it seemed like we'd be leading the thing until the very end and somebody would get only two tires and beat us.four tires and beat us.just seemed like whatever we did would backfire and we'd lose the thing in the final few laps. Hopefully, we'll be in a position to win this time around and all the calls at the end of the race will be the right ones and that'll put us back in Victory Lane."

Wallace started 16th and finished 14th in last year's Coca-Cola 600. He started 24th and finished seventh last fall at Lowe's.

"We got up there and led the thing early in the spring race and it got really loose on me.so loose that I thought we had a right-front going flat," Wallace recalled. "When the temperature started changing, the track changed just that much.just incredibly loose. We started adjusting and went a little too far. We got the car pretty good, but had to come back in for loose lugs on a late pit stop. It was a strange day for sure, but that's so typical of the May race. When the thing starts in the daylight and moves on into the night, you've just gotta' chase the track from start to finish.

"In the fall race, we got caught up in a crash on pit road early in the race (involving Ricky Rudd) and got a lap down. It was nobody's fault.just two cars going for the same spot at the same time," said Wallace. "We had to adjust the toe-in and get everything back like it should be. We finally got it right and the thing just took off like a rocket. We got the lap back and came all the way up from 39th to fifth. I thought we'd be able to go from there on up to third or so. Then the last set of tires we put on just got us too tight and we finished seventh."

Sunday's Coca-Cola 600 has a 5:30 p.m. EDT starting time and features live coverage by Fox-TV and the Performance Racing (radio) Network.