RUSTY WALLACE AND TEAM "HAS SAFETY OFF AND PINS PULLED OUT"
-Miller Lite Team Penske Driver Going All Out In Final Three Races Of 2002 Season-

ROCKINGHAM, N.C. (Oct. 30, 2002) Miller Lite Team Penske driver Rusty Wallace says that he and his Bill Wilburn-led team are pulling out all the stops for the final three races of the 2002 NASCAR Winston Cup season.

"We still have a shot at the championship and we definitely want to keep our winning streak alive and there are three races left to get the job done," said Wallace, who is fifth in points trailing leader Tony Stewart by 227 points, entering this weekend's Pop Secret Microwave Popcorn 400 at North Carolina Speedway. "So I guess you could say that we have the safety off on the guns and the pins pulled out of the grenades going into these final races.

"We've been so close this year and it's hard to believe that we still haven't gotten that win yet coming into Rockingham," said Wallace, a five-time winner on the 1.017-mile track located in the Sandhills Region of North Carolina. "This track has been very good for us through the years and we're focused on getting the job done this weekend.

"When you look back on the record and see those wins that got away -- like the second-place at Bristol, at the Brickyard 400 and down at Daytona for the (Pepsi) 400 back in July -- you just shake your head about all the 'woulda-shoulda-couldas,'" said Wallace, whose 2002 record sports six top-five finishes, 16 top-10 finishes and one pole position after 33 races. "So we're focused on winning at Rockingham right now.

"We're bringing the car that has really become the workhorse for us," Wallace said of the PC-54 Miller Lite Ford Taurus race car. "We almost won with it at Bristol, finished in the top-five at Charlotte (Lowe's) with it and should have had a strong run on Sunday at Atlanta with it. I couldn't sleep much on Saturday night at Atlanta and came in and we made some pretty radical changes before the race. It made the car so loose that we wound up getting caught a lap down on pit road. Once we got the chassis sorted out, it was a strong car, much stronger than the
17th-place finish showed.

"Anyhow, it's such a good car that Billy's (Wilburn, crew chief)
getting it sent back through the body shop to get it fluffed and buffed and we'll have it at Rockingham again this weekend," said Wallace, whose Rockingham career record features five wins, 12 top-five finishes, 20 top-10 finishes and two pole positions in 37 races.

Wallace's most recent win at North Carolina Speedway came in the spring race of 1994 and his most recent pole position came in qualifying for the spring race of 2000. His pole run for that race of 158.035 mph (23.167 seconds) remains as the track qualifying record entering this weekend's return to "the Rock."

Wallace started eighth and finished eighth in February's Subway 400 at Rockingham. "Man, I really thought we would have finished higher than that as strong as we were there in the spring," Wallace recalled. "We were just too tight on that last set of tires. We ran strong all day and the good pit stops got us up there in third for a couple of restarts. There at the end, I just really got messed up after the thing went back to green. We were three deep into the turn and I came out on the short end of the stick. The car was tight in the center and loose off for most of the day. I thought we definitely had a top-five car, but all we got out of it was the eighth-place finish."

This weekend's schedule calls for practice on Friday from 11:20 a.m. until 1:20 p.m. Qualifying for all 43 starting positions is set for Friday at 3:05 p.m. Saturday's schedule features practice sessions from 9:30 a.m. until 10:15 a.m. and from 11:15 a.m. until 12:00 noon, in addition to the annual Unocal 76 World Pit Crew Championship competition. Sunday's 400-mile, 393-lap race has a 1:00 p.m. EST starting time and features live coverage by TNT-TV and MRN Radio.