QUALIFYING DAY REPORT
CAROLINA DODGE DEALERS 400
DARLINGTON RACEWAY - DARLINGTON, S.C.
FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 2003

PRACTICE INFORMATION:

It has been a pretty busy week for Miller Lite driver Rusty Wallace this week as he spent a couple of days back out in Las Vegas for Miller Brewing Company's national sales convention.

It is a story that has become all too familiar weather-wise around the race tracks of America. Another race weekend on the NASACAR Winston Cup schedule and yes, another weekend with rain a heavy player in the forecast. Showers here at Darlington Raceway yesterday played havoc with the schedule. Saturday's Busch Series race starting field was set by points and wet weather hampered the NASCAR truck series from getting in much of their practice.

While the forecast here for today called for mostly cloudy and cool conditions, more rain is expected to move in tonight and tomorrow's schedule could be a total wash.

With all three divisions racing here this morning, the schedule was quite a bit different than the norm. Both practice (started at 10:50 a.m. rather than 11:20 a.m. as usual) and qualifying (at 2:35 p.m. rather than 3:05 p.m.) were set back 30 minutes earlier.

Rusty choppered in and had just exited his coach in uniform when the first car hit the track. "The original schedule they sent out said 11:20 a.m., I'm sure of that," Rusty said as he hustled into the garage.

It didn't take but a single run in practice to see that this old track is as abrasive as ever. The times fell drastically after the first couple of laps on fresh rubber.

Elliott Sadler laid down a fast lap of 29.134 early in the session and that held the top spot on the speed chart even after an hour had passed. At the mid-point of the session, it was Sadler fastest, with Kurt Busch's 29.306 second, Kenny Wallace's 29.332 third, Mark Martin 's 29.360 fourth and Jeff Gordon's 29.460 fifth. Rusty's Penske Racing teammate Ryan Newman was eighth with a 29.499 and Rusty was 14th with a 29.672.

It was as if all the teams were reminded of tomorrow's weather forecast at around noon because most of the teams switched over to race setup, anticipating little or no track time here tomorrow. Rusty wound up getting in a seven minute run at the conclusion of practice, logging a total of 23 laps.

When the session concluded, the extremes saw current points leader Matt Kenseth turning in a total of 55 laps and his Roush teammate Mark Martin 54 laps down to Sadler only tuning in a total of five laps. The typical pre-qualifying practice here would see the majority of the competitors taking to the track for four or five runs and turning in a total of less than 20 laps.

The speed chart at the end of the session still showed Sadler's early laps as fastest. Bobby Labonte was second with a 29.125, Ryan was third with a 29.214, Gordon fourth with a 29.252 and Busch fifth with a 29.277. Kenny Wallace's 29.306 was sixth, Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s 29.332 was seventh, Rusty's 29.334 was eighth, Martin's 29.360 ninth and Sterling Marlin's 29.450 was 10th.

Earnhardt is scheduled out first of the 43 drivers in the 2:35 qualifying session and Marlin will go second. Rusty is scheduled out 18th in the order, while Ryan goes out 26th.

Earnhardt kicked off the session with a 29,241, but Marlin came right back with a 29.130. Marlin's fast lap held the point until Kurt Busch, out 15th, ran a 29.101.

Sadler was up next and he didn't miss a beat from practice. He wowed them with a 28.902 (170.147 mph) and wondered if anyone could better that.

Gordon was fast with his 29.086 and so was Rusty with his 29.178 (168.438 mph). Jerry Nadeau, out 22nd, ran a 29.069 to make things interesting.

All the eyes were focused on Ryan as he took to the track. He mustered a 29.034 (169.374 mph) on his first lap to pose as Sadler's biggest threat. None of the remaining 17 drivers had anything for the top five at the time.

When the dust had settled, it was Sadler with the pole and Ryan on the outside of the front row, Nadeau, Jimmy Spencer, Gordon, Busch, Ward Burton, Marlin, Michael Waltrip and Todd Bodine completed the top 10. Jeremy Mayfield, Matt Kenseth, Rusty (13th) Jimmie Johnson and Ken Schrader rounded out the top 15 starters.

Sunday's Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 has a 1:00 p.m. EST starting time and features live coverage by FOX-TV and MRN Radio.

RUSTY'S QUOTES:

RUSTY WALLACE (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Intrepid)
"That was a good, solid run. I could have worked harder on my qualifying stuff, but I chose to do both, qualifying and race. I was a little loose in three and four, but turns one and two were really good. We're not on the pole, but we split time in practice concerned about rain tomorrow. I did two qualifying attempts early and then we did some race runs and back to qualifying. There was a lot of work going on today, and all in all it was a solid run."