Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 9, 1993 TAG: 9305090025
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: E7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Last Sunday, for the fourth time in his NASCAR Winston Cup career, Wallace made a 3,500-pound stock car roll like an Easter egg on the White House lawn.
His latest visit to automobile racing's house of horrors featured nine flips down the frontstretch at Talladega Superspeedway as the checkered flag flew for the Winston 500. The crash left him with a broken wrist, a black eye, a mild concussion and sixth place.
Wallace, a four-time winner this year, can ill afford to continue losing races in this fashion. It's one thing to lose, quite another to lose disastrously. This is the way Greg Norman loses golf tournaments.
We know drivers usually survive tumbling crashes, although some have been killed. But what about the battering of Wallace's psyche? Drivers have been known to escape from one big wreck and never again set foot in the cockpit.
"If that was the case, I should have been scared off three [other] times," he said. "I can honestly tell you it has no effect. . . . "
He has the attitude of a bill collector at a poor house. Unpleasant work, but part of the job. He doesn't take it personally.
"I go through ups and downs in the sport just like all these guys do," he said. "I'm not going to let an accident slow me down. This is what I love doing. This is all I know."
And one thing he knows better than anyone is the experience of surviving the most spectacular type of crash in stock-car racing.
Last February, when we previously saw our human crash-test dummy in action, he emerged from eight rollovers at Daytona with only a scratch on his chin, inflicted by the safety belts that saved his life.
Later, he praised his car's safety equipment and outlined his personal in-car emergency plan.
If you begin to flip, he said, grab the bottom of the steering wheel and hold on for dear life. Bow your head, make yourself as small in the cockpit as you can and brace yourself for the really hard hits.
At Daytona, the really hard hits never came. Still, the mayhem inside that car was tremendous. Wallace's team filled half a 55-gallon drum with the clods of dirt and sod they removed from the car.
Presumably, they now can fill the other half.
Last Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway, Wallace's Pontiac Grand Prix was backward and rising into the air when it crossed the finish line.
"I remember thinking, `Oh my God, I can't believe this is happening again,' " he said. "I'm not afraid to crash, but I gotta tell you, when I'm flipping around and going upside down, yeah, I am afraid. You don't know what you're going to hit. . . . You don't know how hard you're going to hit. You don't know whether one piece of flying metal will fly through your car and cut your throat in half. I do get scared."
The latest crash started when he tried to block his good friend Dale Earnhardt on the bottom groove of the track. Earnhardt rammed into him, sending his car into a quick spin.
Wallace tried to straighten it.
"But when I felt the thing get up in the air, I said, `OK, it's over now.' And I grabbed the bottom of the wheel as hard as I could," he said. "But when it hit, it hit so hard, it jarred my [left] hand off the wheel. And I said, `Aw, crap,' and I was reaching in dead space, trying to locate the steering wheel."
Bam! The car landed again. His head hit, and the lights went out.
Wallace awoke a few moments after the car stopped, on its wheels.
"I heard squealing in my ears, and the dashboard, it changed colors," he said. "It went to a real bright red, with a bunch of stars. And that's when I started hearing all these voices. And after hearing all these voices, I heard, `Rusty, It's Dale. It's Dale. It's Dale. It's Dale.' "
"My hands were real hot for some reason. And I told him, `Pull my gloves off me.' What happened was the arm was broke, and that's what caused the heat. So he pulled my gloves off me."
This crash intimidated even Earnhardt, "The Intimidator."
"He said, `Hey, I'm just sorry. There's no way I can explain to you how sorry I am.' He said it was his fault. But it wasn't his fault," Wallace said. "Down deep I knew I done something wrong that caused that."
No matter.
"I've never been in a major accident that scared me and made it so I don't mash the gas," he said.
Put the bull's eye on his forehead and send him back onto the track. Wallace is ready for more.
by CNB