Wallace won’t be showing off

Dick Brinster

Sunday, Sept. 26, 1999 | 8:29 a.m.

DOVER, Del. - When the green flag drops Sunday to start the MBNA Gold 400, Rusty Wallace might take off and establish a substantial lead.

But no one should be mistaken about his intentions. He'll be doing what every driver knows is necessary at Dover Downs International Speedway.

The other 42 cars will not be the immediate competition for the polesitter. What Wallace will need to concern himself with is The Monster Mile.

"You have to race the track and the track changes," Wallace said. "It generally gets tighter as the day goes on and you have to keep up with it, keep making changes throughout the race."

Wallace, seeking a career milestone 50th victory and fourth on the high-banked oval, knows attrition and late-race problems might mean those who were strong at the start might not be in contention at the end.

"You don't know who the real competition is until late in the race," he said. "Bobby Labonte didn't think he had a chance to win the last time we were here, but he did."

After suffering though some difficult times with ill-handling and unreliable cars the past two seasons, the 1989 Winston Cup champion is starting to show some of the qualities that made him one of the most dominant cars just a few seasons ago.

The pole Sunday, the result of a track-record qualifying speed of 159.964 mph, is the second in a row for Wallace. He dominated the first half of the Dura Lube 300 a week ago in New Hampshire, but wound up sixth.

Even with most of the agonizing problems of the past little more than a bad memory now, Wallace still doesn't run strong near the end.

"The handling goes away, and we know it," Wallace said. "We used to have trouble qualifying and then run great, and now we're qualifying well and not running like we want.

"We're trying to figure it out. We're trying new shocks and springs, and we're working on it very hard."

Having probably fewer problems now than any driver in the series is rookie Tony Stewart. He got his first career victory two weeks ago at Richmond, Va., and hung on for second with an ailing engine in New Hampshire.

But that's history to Stewart, who starts third Sunday.

"I don't think about the last time we were here, like how well we ran," he said.

Although Stewart qualified third and has been as fast as anybody the past month, he won't try to show off his speed.

"If somebody's good at the beginning of the race and takes off, we've got to let him go," he said. "We can't use up our equipment trying to run him down."

It's called sticking to a game plan, and now that the problems almost inherent to an all-rookie team have eased up as the season has progressed, Stewart is filled with confidence.

Regardless of all the positive media attention he's had this year, the former Indy Racing League champion thinks success is a merger of efforts. In that endeavor, he feels like the junior partner.

"I feel it's 99 percent the team and one percent the driver, but that's not important." he said. "The goal is always the same.

"Every time you leave the race track, the next time you come back you want to be better. Now, we only have a couple of rough spots to get over to make it better."

But not many. No one has scored more points since the halfway mark of the season.

Between Wallace and Stewart on the starting grid had been Jerry Nadeau, finishing out the season for the retired Ernie Irvan before moving next year to Hendrick Motorsports.

Although the second position on the grid matched his career best, Nadeau will have to drop to the rear of the field on the pace lap because he went to a backup after totaling his primary car in the final practice session.

"I think the car's very capable of maintaining itself Sunday," he said earlier. "The car ran great since it rolled off the truck.

"We'll be good tomorrow."