>From NASCAR Public Relations


    FORD MOTORSPORT NOTES AND QUOTES
      Tuesday, April 16, 19g6

  MARTINSVILLE ADVANCES--Rusty Wallace
      Weekly Fax Advance


Rusty Wallace will be going for an unprecedented fourth-straight 
victory in Martinsville's spring race in this week's Goody's 500. 
Wallace, a five-time Martinsville winner, broke Chevrolet's 
strangle hold on the 1995 season when he beat Ted Musgrave in last 
spring's rain-shortened event at the .526-mile oval.  So, Rusty, 
what's your secret?

RUSTY WALLACE -2- Miller Thunderbird -- "My Martinsville secret is 
just good handling.  I've worked really hare on the same things 
I've told everybody for the short tracks.  For some reason, I seem 
to be a lot more consistent on the short tracks than I do 
everywhere else.  If I get behind in the points, it seems like I 
can go to the short tracks and make up points i-or some reason,  
I'm a notoriously bad qualifier, and I'm working really hard so 
that, but the race set-ups are usually pretty good.

"At Martinsville, track position is very, very important.  So if 
you get a good pit stop, that's really good.  Track position is 
important at all the short tracks.  So you've got to get a good 
pit spot, on the front straightaway, and get good pit stops, but 
above all, you've got to have a car that handles good.  I'd have 
to say that the races I've won at Martinsville, not one has had 
the exact same set-up as another.

"Starting position doesn't concern me, as long as I'm pitting on 
the front straightaway.  Yeah, you make your life easier when you 
start in the top-five and then you don't have to kill your brakes 
getting to the front.  But this qualifying thing is just getting 
to be a killer,

"I was listening to Terry Labonte on the radio recently and he 
said, 'I can go out now and qualify on the pole or qualify 25th 
and can't tell a bit of difference in the car.'  He says, 'I 
either end up on the pole or 25th.  And you can't get out and say 
the car was awesome or it was not."

Are you saying you can't win from the back pits?  "Man, it makes 
it awful tough.  At Martinsville, they've been known to speed that 
pace car up a couple of times to keep that back straightaway from 
being such a disadvantage.  I remember that two years ago when 
Earnhardt was pitting on the back, I'd be leading the race and I'd 
come out of the pits and he'd be shooting out of his pits right on 
my back bumper.  That's OK but for some reason it doesn't work at 
Darlington or Bristol.  But at Martinsville, for some reasons they 
don't seem to have as much of a problem keeping up."

What's your approach to brakes for Martinsville?  "You've got to 
have a lot of cooling on them and you've got to get out of the 
throttle at the start-finish line all you possibly can.  Whenever 
you've got enough distance that you can breathe the brakes, you've 
got to do it.  It's not technology.  It's driving style.  You've 
got to work like crazy.  If there aren't any cars right on your 
tail, you've got to get off the gas at the start-finish line and 
start coasting in.  And when somebody gets on your butt, you take 
off again,  I do that all the time.  The problem was last race up 
there when I finished third or fourth, I ran the crap out of it 
wide open every lap and I hurt the brakes.  But when I practiced 
Saturday night, I thought I needed to put new brake pads on it 
because it wasn't stopping the way I wanted it to.  Then I 
thought, 'Oh, it will be all right.'  Then on the start of the 
race, they glazed up and I didn't have the brakes I wanted all 
day. And you'll know when you've got good ones: they'll stop real 
fast and squeak just a little bit. then they're perfect.  But when 
you push on 'em and you've got a rock hard pedal and they don't 
stop quick enough then you've got heat and you've got a problem."

"Brakes are important, but driving style is more important.  You 
cannot go out there and run as hard as you can every lap.  You've 
got to get out of the gas and coast that thing in the corner. 
That's how you've got to drive that place."

"I don't think you ever want to see the brake rotors glowing red. 
You should manage your brakes so they never get red.  The only 
time they should get red is if your dogging somebody trying to get 
around him and you don't get any air to the brake ducts.  The 
biggest thing is to be able to have clear air getting to the car. 
If you're behind some guy the whole time...  A lot of times you'll 
see me come off the corner on turn two or turn four and you'll see 
me dive to the inside of the straightaway -- I do that just to get 
air.  Then I'll duck back in behind the guy going into the corner. 
I do that all the time."




Jack Durbin                                   indy500@freenet.tlh.fl.us
Motorsport News International                      jackd@motorsport.com
(Moderators for "rec.autos.sport.info")
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