RACE DAY REPORT
POCONO 500
POCONO RACEWAY - LONG POND, PENNSYLVANIA
SUNDAY, JUNE 8, 2003

PRE-RACE NOTES &
RACE INFORMATION:

So it was another Saturday afternoon for Rusty to watch the Golf Channel on TV, rather than having the opportunity to venture out to a local course and play the links.

The precipitation stopped here early this morning, but today's forecast calls for cloudy skies and temperatures only reaching into the 60s. There is still a 20 percent chance of a shower this afternoon.

Without any track time to practice with race setups, Miller Lite driver Rusty Wallace and his Bill Wilburn-led team are giving it their best shot in today's Pocono 500.

"I think we'll be okay and we are in the same boat as most of the teams," said Rusty's crew chief Bill Wilburn in the garage area this morning as his teammates were pushing their Dodge through the NASCAR tech inspection line. "We came here with a base race setup in mind. It's a bit different than we had here last season and it's pretty close to what the No. 12 team has. We have a lot of good notes and all, so we think it'll work well here this afternoon.

"As for the guys who were up here testing a couple of weeks ago - like then 20 bunch (Tony Stewart's team), yeah, that may really pay off big time today. Look at where they qualified (Stewart fourth and his Gibbs teammate Bobby Labonte third). They were already looking like two of the teams to beat. Add to that the fast that they got a lot of laps in race trim and you have to say that it is an advantage. We'll just have to wait and see how it all stacks up about one o'clock (race time) this afternoon."

With the rainy conditions prevailing, there was no better place to be than right here at the track in their coaches last night and that's where the Penske drivers were. Both tuned in to watch their IRL counterparts race at Texas Motor Speedway last night where Helio Castroneves finished seventh and Gil deFerran came home eighth. Al Unser Jr won the race.

Team owner Roger Penske and chief aide Walt Czarnecki made it in this morning to offer their teams support here today.

With the race not starting until 1:00 p.m. and little sponsor-related activity on the agenda here this morning, quite a bit of time was spent by the drivers back in their coaches outside of attending the 11:00 a.m. driver and crew chief meeting.

Today's pit road layout sees pole winner Jimmie Johnson pitting from the first spot up pit road. Rusty's Penske teammate Ryan Newman qualified second and his Matt Borland-led team went with pit spot No. 24. There is an opening in front and the Kurt Busch team pits behind. Rusty and his Bill Wilburn-led team qualified 27th. They'll pit from the 20th spot. The Jamie McMurray team pits in front and the Mike Skinner team pits from behind.

The engines were fired at 1:01 p.m. and the cars rolled off pit road at 1:07 p.m. After three parade laps, the green flag flew at 1:14 p.m.

Pole-winner Jimmie Johnson controlled the lead from the start as his teammate Jeff Gordon cut down and had to hit pit road on lap three. Gordon got the caution he needed on lap seven when Ken Schrader had a grinding crash in turn one, flipping over once and catching on fire.

All the leaders hit pit road on lap nine, with the Penske cars addressing tight conditions. Rusty went with a track bar change and an air pressure adjustment to the left rear tire. The stop took 14.211 seconds. Ryan's was 14.449, yet because many of the cars did fuel only or just right side tires only, the Penske cars lost ground in the exchange.

Bill Elliott had the lead for the lap 17 restart, with Johnson second, Tony Stewart third, Elliott Sadler fourth and Dale Earnhardt Jr. fifth. Ryan was 14th and Rusty back in 32nd.

At lap 25, Johnson led, but Earnhardt was up to second and Stewart third. Ryan was back up to 10th and Rusty was 23rd. Earnhardt cleared Johnson on the outside on lap 31 to take the lead and Stewart passed Johnson for second on lap 37.

Ryan was up to seventh on lap 45 just as Stewart hit pit road to start the first round of green flag stops. Rusty pitted on lap 46 for four tires, another track bar adjustment and a wedge adjustment in 15.111 seconds. Ryan hit pit road on lap 49.

When the stops cycled around on lap 51, it was Earnhardt leading, with Stewart second, Kurt Busch third, Johnson fourth and Dale Jarrett fifth. Ryan was seventh and Rusty 18th.

Jarrett crashed hard in turn one, backing into the outside wall on lap 53 to cause the second yellow of the race. A miscommunication saw most of the leaders pit for fuel only and Rusty get two tires and another bar adjustment.

For the lap 62 restart, it was Sadler with the lead, Todd Bodine second, Gordon third, Ricky Craven fourth and Matt Kenseth fifth. Ryan was 12th and Rusty 24th.

It was evident that track position and clean air were the most important factors during this portion of the race. Sadler led by as much as 2.5 seconds during the next 20 laps, but when Ryan or Rusty could get a clean race track, they ran lap times as fast or faster.

The next round of green flag stops started on alp 86. Ryan pitted for four tires and fuel on lap 92 (14.829 seconds) and Rusty came in on lap 93 (15.720 seconds for four tires, with two rounds of wedge removed and a pound of air taken out of the left-side tires).

The stops cycled around on lap 97 with Sadler still leading. Kenseth was second, with Sterling Marlin (who had cut down a tire earlier and almost gone a lap down) third, Earnhardt fourth and Craven fifth. Ryan was ninth and Rusty 21st.

Marlin showed strength as he got around Sadler for the lead on lap 102 and began stretching it. He had a 2.5-second advantage over second-place Kenseth on lap 120 as Ryan was battling Stewart for the fifth spot. Rusty was still tight, but reported that the car was the best it had been all race long.

Another round of green flag stops began on lap 121 when Marlin hit pit road. Rusty hit pit road on lap 127 (four tires and minus two rounds of wedge in 14.503 seconds). Ryan had stopped the lap earlier and had a great 14.301-second stop for his service.

When this round of stops cycled around on lap 131, it was Marlin leading by three seconds over Kenseth, with Stewart third, Sadler fourth and Ryan fifth. Rusty was running 19th.

Ryan was on the move and up to fourth with 50 laps to go. Marlin had a 2.2-second lead on Kenseth, with Stewart running third.

Ricky Rudd's Ford broke a transmission and stalled in the tunnel turn on lap 153 to bring out the third yellow of the race. Again the leaders hit pit road (Ryan with a 14.722-second stop and Rusty a 14.677).

Stewart's team got him out of the pits first and he was followed by Marlin, Mark Martin, Ryan and Kenseth for the lap 157 restart.

It was shaping up to be a situation where everyone would have to pit one more time and the strategy played as to when you made that final stop. Marlin pitted with 25 laps to go and Rusty hit pit road at the same time. Stewart pitted with 24 laps to go, Ryan with 23 laps remaining and the Roush cars (Martin and Kenseth) with 22 to go. Earnhardt pitted with 20 laps remaining and that left Jeff Burton, who had yet to pit with the lead.

The remaining cars finally pitted and Stewart regained the lead with 10 laps to go. The total complexion of the race changed, however, on lap 193 when Busch cut down a tire and dropped debris on the track. The cars running 12th and back, including Rusty, took the chance on getting fresh tires and they hit pit road.

Stewart led on the lap 198 restart, with Martin second, Kenseth third, Earnhardt fourth and Ryan fifth. Rusty was 19th.

The three-lap dash to the finish never materialized, however, as contact from Terry Labonte sent Jeff Green careening into the inside wall down the Long Pond stretch to bring out the fifth caution and cause the race to end under the yellow.

At the checkered flag, it was Stewart taking the win, with Martin second, Kenseth third, Earnhardt fourth and Ryan fifth. Marlin, Terry Labonte, Ward Burton, Sadler and Craven rounded out the top 10 finishers. Rusty came home in the 16th finishing spot.

Kenseth (2,115 points) now leads the points by 176 over Earnhardt. Rusty is still eighth in the standings with 1,671. Ryan jumped up two spots to 16th in the standings and has 1,536 points.

The NASCAR Winston Cup tour now moves on to the 2.0-mile Michigan International Speedway for next Sunday's running of the Sirius Satellite Radio 400 on that fast and wide high-banked track.

POST-RACE QUOTES:

RUSTY WALLACE (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Intrepid)
"We had a poor qualifying run, and we made some decisions to keep working on the car and kept getting further back in the field. We probably should have gone for track position more to get up to the front because it was so hard to pass out there. I'd drive right up to the bumper on some cars and that was as far as I could go. It's amazing how that aero push kicked in real bad. We finished 16th. That wasn't a great run, but we didn't lose anything in the points. All-in-all it was a sub-par day at best. Looking at the car right now without any practice, I would have put more rebound in the right front shock, less spring in the right front and a lot of things we should have done differently to give it more grip. We loosened it up so much we probably got it too loose. I'll change a lot of things when we come back next time. I don't know if I'll know where to start or not because it'll probably be a hundred degrees when we come back up here."