With two consecutive top-10 finishes under their belts, Rusty Wallace and his Larry Carter-led Miller Lite Dodge team enter this weekend's Golden Corral 500 here at Atlanta Motor Speedway with ample momentum.

Up to 12th in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup point standings, the team has showed so much potential. The weakest link has been with the "over-the-wall" gang during the races. A pit miscue at Rockingham on the final pit stop cost a sure top-five finish and mistakes on pit road last weekend at Las Vegas saw Rusty fall from seventh all the way back to 16th. Rusty staged a late-race charge all the way back up to a 10th-place finish.

Realizing something had to be done to remedy the problem, Rusty and Larry went to work strengthening their effort. The end result sees former crew chief Bill Wilburn - who until pulling himself out of tire-changing duties was known as the best at that business - back changing front tires for Rusty here this Sunday. Bill will continue his duties with the Brendan Gaughan team here up until Sunday and then will be in Rusty's pits for the race. Donald "D.J." Richardson will move to change the rear tires.

"They practiced together and turned in some very fast stops - and were very consistent at it," Rusty explained to a reporter here in the garage area this morning. "That's the important thing is being consistent. I think we can win some races when we can get this end of the deal all ironed out. The guys are giving me some really great racecars out there this year. We're really getting after it."

The business at hand here today is practice and qualifying for Sunday's 500-mile battle here on this 1.54-mile lightning-fast track.

Beautiful weather conditions were the order when practice began here this morning at 11:20 p.m. Rusty's Penske Racing teammate Ryan Newman, who grabbed both pole positions here last year, showed that his testing here last month paid off. He turned heads right out of the box by turning in a lap of 28.998 seconds.

Rusty was respectable with his first run of the day, turning in a 29.317, the 11th fastest time of the session.

After the first hour, Newman's time was still atop the speed chart and was the only time down in the 28-second bracket.

The final 30 minutes of practice produced some changes as rookie Brian Vickers clocked in with a 28.955-second lap and Kevin Harvick turned in a 28.966 with some 10 minutes remaining.

Kurt Busch crashed with five minutes remaining to bring a temporary halt to the action. After the cleanup crew completed their job, NASCAR officials extended the practice some four minutes. Rusty was able to get in one final run before the time ran out, but he wasn't able to better his early lap.

At the end of the session, Vickers' 28.955 was fastest, with Harvick's 28.966 second and Newman's 28.974 third. Casey Mears' 29.041 and Dale Jarrett's 29.096 rounded out the top five laps turned. Rusty's 29.317 was 17th fastest overall.

The 3:05 p.m. qualifying session was shaping up to be an interesting one as Newman is scheduled out first of the 44 drivers expected to make qualifying runs here today. Rusty is scheduled out ninth. Harvick goes out 30th and Vickers 31st.

Newman was out first as scheduled and put the big numbers on the board for all the other competitors to shoot at - a lap of 28.640 seconds (193.575 mph).

Rusty was out as scheduled and clocked in with a fast lap of 29.035 seconds (190.942 mph) on his first and faster lap.

"Good lap there Rusty," Larry radioed after the run was completed.

"Yeah, we got through (Turns) 1 and 2 really good, but it was just too tight going into (Turn) 3," Rusty shot back on his radio. "It was just flying through 1 and 2 and I just couldn't get what we needed down in 3 and 4. But that should be a pretty good lap for us."

As the session progressed, all the eyes were focused on rookie Vickers, as he appeared to be the chief challenger for Newman's pole bid. Vickers was able to muster a 28.780 and would indeed come closest to Newman.

When the time trials concluded, Newman had won his third consecutive Atlanta pole and Vickers took the outside-front-row starting spot. Rusty will start Sunday's race from the 11th starting position. Jimmie Johnson starts third, with Jeff Gordon fourth, Elliott Sadler fifth, Jarrett sixth,
Dale Earnhardt Jr. seventh, Harvick eighth, Mears ninth and Bobby Labonte 10th.

Sunday's Golden Corral 500 has a 1:00 p.m. EST starting time and features live coverage by FOX-TV and PRN Radio.

RUSTY WALLACE (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Intrepid) - "I thought I did pretty good. If it had turned in three and four like it did in one and two I would have been fast," Rusty told Dodge's Ray Cooper after making his run. "I don't think I could have beat Ryan, but I believe I could have qualified second. We've got our pit crew fixed, so we're ready to race. Billy Wilburn is going to change tires. He attacked the tires in the first pit practice and on the first stop we knocked out a 12.67. We could have won at Rockingham if we hadn't had that bad stop. I don't know if we could have won last week, but we could have finished second. We had three bad pit stops. You can't have 17 and 18-second pit stops. One time I lost 17 positions. The car has been strong, and I like the shorter spoiler and softer tires. I really think that's better."