Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Rusty still searching for victory No. 50

Friday, Nov. 5, 1999 | 9:43 a.m.

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

PHOENIX -- Rusty Wallace desperately wanted to win his 50th Winston Cup race during NASCAR's 50th anniversary season last year.

After collecting his 48th career victory in last year's Dura Lube 500 at Phoenix International Raceway, Wallace still held out hope that he could win the final two races of the season. He didn't, of course, and entered this season still needing a pair of wins to match Ned Jarrett and Junior Johnson for ninth on the all-time career wins list.

"We really wanted to get our 50th win in NASCAR's 50th anniversary year," Wallace said. "We had a whole big thing planned with our sponsor, Miller Lite, and NASCAR."

Wallace earned his 49th career victory earlier this spring at Bristol Motor Speedway and comes to Phoenix this week -- as the defending race winner -- still in search of No. 50.

His win in last year's rain-shortened Dura Lube 500 extended Wallace's streak of winning at least one race in a season to 13. By winning at Bristol earlier this year, Wallace already has run that streak to 14 years.

Now, he can set his sights on No. 50 -- again.

"We have a great car ready for Phoenix and are going back looking to duplicate what we did last year -- or at least hoping to," Wallace said. "It's the same car that we won the pole at Loudon (New Hampshire) with and used at Martinsville last month. We finished fourth there and the car has been practically rebuilt since then.

"Unlike last year when we finally won at Phoenix and kept the streak going with only three races to go, we've already got that handled this year," said Wallace. "We've kept the streak alive and are still focused on getting that 50th win. I can really identify with what Ricky Rudd is going through trying to keep a streak like that going."

Rudd has the longest active streak of race-winning seasons (16), but has yet to find the winner's circle this season. If Rudd should fail in the final three races to extend his streak, Wallace's streak would be the longest on the Winston Cup circuit.

With a win, five top-five finishes and two poles in 11 races at PIR, Wallace said he is looking forward to returning to the flat, 1-mile oval for Sunday's Dura Lube 500.

"I've loved racing on the Phoenix track ever since we started running out there," Wallace said. "With all the success I had running at the mile flat tracks like Milwaukee, I knew it was only a matter of time (before) we finally won."

* NASCAR: Dale Jarrett can clinch his first Winston Cup championship if he finishes 13th or better in the final three races of the season. He has an outside chance to wrap up the title Sunday if he can gain 126 points on second-place Bobby Labonte and 53 points on third-place Mark Martin. ...

After announcing last week that the the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series was being dropped from the Las Vegas Motor Speedway schedule in 2000, sources say LVMS general manager Chris Powell and NASCAR vice president of administration Dennis Huth have renewed talks this week in an attempt to work out a solution to scheduling conflicts. Huth reportedly was bombarded by complaints from drivers that LVMS would not be on the 2000 race schedule. ...

Bruton Smith, chairman of Speedway Motorsports Inc., will have more than 8,000 cubic yards of dirt trucked into Bristol Motor Speedway next June to turn the world's fastest half-mile paved oval into a dirt track for a World of Outlaws event.

* CART: As first reported in the Sun in September, 1999 Indianapolis 500 winner and 1998 IRL champion Kenny Brack will be formally introduced next Wednesday as Bryan Herta's replacement in Bobby Rahal's Shell-sponsored CART ride.

After learning the Rahal had signed Brack for the 2000 season, IRL team owner A.J. Foyt -- for whom Brack drove the past two seasons -- was quoted as saying he would slap Rahal the next time he saw him.

Foyt bumped into Rahal Wednesday during the SEMA show here in Las Vegas, but the two exchanged pleasantries before walking off for a private chat. ...

ESPN Classic will televise a 4 1/2-hour tribute to Greg Moore Saturday morning. Beginning at 4 a.m., ESPN Classic will rebroadcast the 1997 CART race from Milwaukee, in which Moore earned his first win, followed by last year's race from Rio de Janeiro, where Moore earned the win with a spectacular pass of Alex Zanardi with four laps remaining.

* IRL: Sam Schmidt was released from Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis last Friday and has returned to his Henderson home to continue rehabilitation of injuries suffered in a crash during the season-ending race at Texas Motor Speedway.

Schmidt, who said he expects to be in the cockpit of his Treadway Racing car when the 2000 IRL season opens Jan. 29 in Orlando, Fla., hasn't slowed down since returning home. He made an appearance, in a wheelchair, at the opening of the Race Rock Restaurant Wednesday night.

* BACKMARKERS: Las Vegas Motor Speedway will host a NASCAR Late Model open comp Saturday night on the 3/8-mile paved oval that will feature 60 of the fastest Late Model cars on the West Coast and offer a $5,000 first prize.

The program, which begins at 7 p.m., also will feature ARCA Trucks and Legends cars. Spectator gates open at 5 p.m. Tickets are priced at $10 for adults and $6 for military, seniors, and students with ID. Children 12 and under will be admitted free.