Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Rusty eyes win No. 50 at Penske’s Calif. track

Friday, April 30, 1999 | 11:22 a.m.

Brian Hilderbrand's motor sports notebook appears Friday. His golf notebook appears Wednesday. Reach him at bh@lasvegassun.com or 259-4089.

FONTANA, Calif. -- Rusty Wallace would like nothing better than to win Sunday's California 500 NASCAR Winston Cup race at California Speedway.

First of all, Wallace's next win would be the 50th of his career.

Secondly, California Speedway is owned by Wallace's car owner, Roger Penske.

Finally, Wallace may feel the 2-mile superspeedway owes him something after a disheartening 34th-place finish last year and a 14th-place showing in the inaugural event in 1997.

Last year's California 500 marked a dubious turning point in Wallace's season, which began with such promise and hopes of challenging for the Winston Cup championship. He qualified fourth and was running second when he suffered a blown engine.

"We went into the California race last year on top of the standings and full of steam," Wallace said of his Miller Lite/Penske Racing South team. "We had the engine problem, fell out of the race with less than 10 (laps) to go and went from leading the points all the way back to fourth place.

"We went from hero to hobo in a hurry."

This year, Wallace heads into the 250-lap race sixth in points and with one win (at Bristol Motor Speedway earlier this month) under his belt.

"This time it's almost totally opposite," Wallace said. "We've been down as far as 15th in the points this year and are on our way back up. As incredible as it may seem, we came into Talladega sixth in the points, crashed out of the thing and still came out of there sixth in the points.

"We're looking at the California 500 as the race that can help us continue moving forward in the points."

And, of course, Wallace said he couldn't imagine a better scenario than to capture his 50th career victory at Penske's track.

"It would be great to win our 50th race there on a Penske track, but the most important thing is that we need to leave California Speedway heading upward and not on a slide like we did last year," he said.

Toward that end, Wallace spent two days testing his Miller Lite Ford Taurus last week at California Speedway and came away from the test with one distinct impression about Sunday's race.

"Like most everywhere else we've been this year, we're going to be a lot faster at California, too," he said. "Where we were running lap times in the 39.60- (second) range at California last year, we ran a 39.30 (183.206 mph) lap while we were testing.

"Depending on the weather, we may see even faster speeds this weekend."

* NASCAR: Las Vegan Kurt Busch qualified sixth fastest with a speed of 179.252 mph for Saturday's California 200 NASCAR Winston West Series race at California Speedway. Fellow Las Vegans Brendan Gaughan and Wayne Jacks will start 30th and 33rd, respectively ...

Winston Cup regular Ken Schrader has won each of the first two Winston West races held at California Speedway. ...

Mark Martin is the defending champion of the California 500 Winston Cup race while Jeff Gordon won the inaugural event in 1997. ...

Gordon has failed to finish three of the first nine races this season -- the most since he had five DNFs in 1996. ...

Kyle Petty will make a personal appearance at F A O Schwarz in the Forum Shops in Las Vegas at 1 p.m. Monday as part of his "Kyle Petty Hot Wheels Racing Charity Ride Across America."

Petty's motorcycle caravan will depart Ontario, Calif., at 8 a.m. Monday and is scheduled to make a fueling stop at 10 a.m. in Baker. It also is scheduled to cross Hoover Dam at approximately 3 p.m. after stops at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (which is not open to the public) and the Forum Shops.

* CART: Las Vegas resident Paul Tracy, coming off a disappointing race at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, said he is looking forward to Sunday's Bosch Spark Plug Grand Prix at Nazareth (Pa.) Speedway.

Tracy has two wins (1994 and '97) and two poles (1996 and '97) at the mile oval.

"Nazareth has been very good to me over the years but I hope it's not too cold on race weekend like last year or like at the testing we did in March," Tracy said. "One, I live in Vegas now for a reason. Two, cold temperatures mean more time to get your tires up to temperature.

"Team KOOL Green needs all the track time at speed we can get because of the new wing configuration. With less downforce, there's not as much grip."

CART has mandated a low downforce speedway wing configuration on all domestic oval tracks this season. ...

CART team owner Bobby Rahal logged the first competitive miles of his retirement when he competed in the Tour Auto de France Cenrenarie, a five-day rally event throughout France and Europe last week.

Rahal shared the driving duties in a 1973 Porsche Carrera with former sports car owner Bob Garretson.

* IRL: Sam Schmidt of Henderson was full of optimism as he prepared for Saturday's VisionAire 500 under the lights at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte, N.C.

"I have already done some extensive testing at this track and I really like it," Schmidt said of his Treadway Racing G-Force/Aurora. "It seems like it has been too long since the last race, so I am fired up and ready to go for Saturday.

"We have a great set-up this weekend, thanks to Jeff (Britton, chief engineer) ... so I guess I would call myself cautiously optimistic this weekend."

Schmidt qualified 22nd and finished 14th last year in Charlotte while driving for his own team. Schmidt said his Sprint PCS G-Force/Aurora is about 6 mph faster at the 1.5-mile speedway than the Dallara/Aurora he campaigned there last year. ...

Davey Hamilton will make his third start of the 1999 IRL campaign Saturday with what amounts to his third team. Barnhart Motorsports recently merged with Galles Racing, Hamilton's team last year.

* BACKMARKERS: Regional National Hot Rod Association/Craftsman ET drag racing returns to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway drag strip Saturday night with competition in Pro ET, Sportsman, Street, Motorcycle and Junior Drags divisions. Gates open at 3 p.m. and first-round eliminations begin at 8:30.