Monday, March 1, 1999 | 10:57 a.m.
Rusty Wallace, driver of the NASCAR Miller Lite Ford Taurus, is a former Winston Cup champion. This is the first of six columns he will write for the Sun in conjunction with the Las Vegas 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
I can't believe it has been almost a year since we first raced at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, but I'm really looking forward to coming back to Las Vegas.
First of all, you've got to remember we go to places like Rockingham and Darlington and Martinsville and places like that -- which are all great race tracks. But when we get to go to a place like Las Vegas, it's kind of like a vacation for us.
You've got to admit, Las Vegas is one of the entertainment capitals of the world. So, to come out here and be able to see this brand-new track and be able to run on it and stay at great hotels and be able to dine out at night with my wife and all of our friends, that's pretty cool.
Patti, my wife, doesn't go to all the races but she's going to come out to this one. She also goes to California and Phoenix, some of the faraway ones, and we treat them like a vacation.
Las Vegas is a track that I really ran great at last year. I qualified my Miller Lite Ford Taurus 10th and I led a lot of the race and ended up sliding to third and finished third.
Also, while we were here last year, we had our big announcement with our Elvis Presley-themed car that we ran out here, which got a lot of publicity.
The next time I raced that car with Elvis painted on the hood was in the Coca Cola 600 in Charlotte and I ran second with it; it really ran strong. The very next time I raced it was in Darlington, and I ran seventh with that car. Then I took it straight from there to Japan and I and finish fifth.
It took us two months to get the car home from Japan on that boat and then the people with Elvis Presley Enterprises said, 'We'd love to have the car in Graceland for permanent display.' When I heard that I said, you know what, I don't want to put a show car in there, I want to put the real car in there that we raced in Las Vegas.
We took the car, repainted it and put new decals on it exactly like we had it in Las Vegas and put a new set of tires on it and now it's on permanent display for ever and ever and ever in Elvis' museum in Graceland.
Let me tell you what, that car's a real hot rod: I could take that car out right now and that thing would be a threat to win any race.
I put my car in there that I raced and John Force put his actual NHRA Elvis car that he raced in there, too. It's incredible what Graceland did: They built a whole new section on that museum and the first thing you see when you walk into the museum is those cars.
I've got two big appearances while I'm in Las Vegas, and I'm looking forward to those. I've got one at the Flamingo Hilton on Thursday night and then I've got another on Friday night at Sam's Town.
Then, on Saturday night, one of my crew members who has been one of my key crew members throughout my entire career, David Munari, is getting married.
Roger Penske, my car owner, is flying in for the wedding. All the team guys are going to be out there, my wife and I and all our friends will be there, too, so Saturday night we're all going to go support him.
I'm getting excited just thinking about it and I can't wait to get back to Las Vegas.
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