EX-WINSTON CUP CHAMP WALLACE REMAINS KING OF SHORT TRACKS.

Byline: Mike Harris Associated Press 

Rusty Wallace can almost hear the short tracks calling his name.

The former Winston Cup champion has been The Man on NASCAR's tracks shorter than one mile for most of his career, and Martinsville Speedway, the site of today's Hanes 500, is one of his personal favorites.

Why not? Wallace has won five of the last seven races run on the flat .526-mile oval, including this year's spring race. His performance barely fell off in the other two, finishing second and third. In fact, he has won four of the last five races here.

In six short track starts this season, Wallace has two wins, a fifth, sixth, seventh and, thanks to a crash while leading, a 33rd.

``You have to pay attention all day long and be careful not to abuse the equipment,'' Wallace said in explaining his Martinsville success.

``We've seen a lot of guys come on like gangbusters early in the race only to use their stuff up, burning up the brakes, straining the motors, getting too aggressive and crashing out of the thing.

``You have to be patient all day long, whether it's trying to get up to the front or trying to get around the lapped traffic,'' he added. ``What really helps a lot is to have a crew chief like Robin (Pemberton) there on the radio, reading off lap times, keeping me calm and reminding me to go easy on the brakes.''

Wallace, coming off a second-place finish on the one-mile oval at Dover, Del., said, ``I hear a lot of people talking about Martinsville being a finesse kind of race track. Call it patience, call it finesse, all I know is that you're faced with running 500 laps down what is basically two asphalt drag strips connected by two concrete turnarounds.

``You have to be aware of that all day long and take into consideration what it'll take to be around at the end.''

Pemberton, who came to the team late in 1994 and recently signed a three-year contract extension with Miller Team Penske, said, ``Just since I've been here, I've noticed that Rusty has gotten smarter and smarter and a whole lot more patient.

``I think Sunday's race at Dover showed just how patient he can be. We almost overheated once. We had a set of tires on the car that made the car absolutely a terror to drive, but Rusty hung on.

``We came within a couple of laps of going a lap down, but Rusty was still able to stay focused and get a 100 percent out of it,'' Pemberton added. ``I said that he drove the smartest race he's ever driven when we won at Bristol last month. It wouldn't surprise me at all if I have to eat those words Sunday.''

Practice and qualifying began Friday.

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