Wallace gets his wish with win at Fontana

Monday, April 30, 2001 | 10:07 a.m.

FONTANA, Calif. -- Winning a race at California Speedway has been at the top of Rusty Wallace's wish list since the facility first began hosting NASCAR's Winston Cup Series in 1997.

After holding off Jeff Gordon to win Sunday's NAPA Auto Parts 500 at the 2-mile track, Wallace said it was worth the wait.

Wallace commemorated what would have been the 50th birthday of his friend, Dale Earnhardt, with a two car-lengths victory over Gordon before an estimated crowd of 120,000.

"It's a special feeling," said Wallace, who celebrated both the win and Earnhardt's memory by taking a victory lap while holding a large Earnhardt flag.

"It's a special feeling to win the last couple of races in Southern California -- I won the last two races at Riverside -- and then to come out here and win again. For me to win on (Earnhardt's) birthday, that was very special."

The victory allowed Wallace to assume the title as NASCAR's winningest active driver with 54 career wins; he had been tied with Gordon at 53 since Gordon's victory in the UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in March.

"That (win) was for Dale and (his wife) Teresa and the whole Earnhardt family. Dale meant a lot to me and my wife, Patty. We went on a lot of vacations together ... I knew him off the racetrack, not only just on the racetrack."

Dale Earnhardt Jr. marked the occasion with a third-place finish after starting 38th. It was his best showing since he took second in the Daytona 500 -- the same race in which his father died.

"I really hadn't thought too much about (it being my father's birthday) until they said something on the P.A. (system) about it," Earnhardt said. "It's kind of cool; it made me feel good to think about him being 50 today.

"I didn't know what I was going to feel like when his birthday came around and when Father's Day comes around and things like that ... but I kind of want to celebrate a little bit, I think."

Wallace could have started preparing his victory celebration long before the checkered flag dropped. He led 95 of the final 100 laps and had extended his lead to about 40 car lengths late in the race before a pair of caution flags bunched up the field.

"We qualified 19th and about 40 laps into the race I could tell we really had a great car," Wallace said of his Penske Racing South Ford Taurus.

"It moved up to seventh and kept going forward."

Although Gordon was able to pass Tony Stewart for second place after the final restart and close in on Wallace, he said he didn't have the car to overtake Wallace in the final 15 laps.

"I didn't think I was going to have anything for Rusty and then they dropped the green there on that last restart, I got by Stewart and I started running Rusty down," Gordon said.

"I made it look good, anyway, but I really didn't have much for him; he was real, real strong. I definitely used up everything I had there at the end and the only way I was going to get by him was if he made a big mistake and you know a guy like Rusty is not going to do that."

Stewart finished fourth and Wallace's teammate, Jeremy Mayfield, was fifth.

Las Vegas native Kurt Busch fell off the lead lap twice in the race but battled back to finish on the lead lap in 13th place.

There were six caution periods in the race -- the most serious coming on lap 225 when Ward Burton spun in Turn 3 and collected Mark Martin. Burton was awake but disoriented when rescue personnel reached his car so he was airlifted to a local hospital and was admitted overnight with a concussion.

Martin was not injured in the accident.

The only other collision came on lap 153 when Daytona 500 winner Michael Waltrip got loose and brushed the wall in Turn 2. He was examined and released from the track's care center.