Wallace quietly off to a strong start going into Texas

He hasn't led a single lap this season, doesn't have even one top-five finish and has gone almost a year without a victory. Still, Rusty Wallace has worked his way up to third in the points standings and could be a quiet threat for the Winston Cup title.

In a series that considers consistency equal to victories, Wallace, a Fenton, Mo., native, has put together a solid stretch. With little fanfare, he's tallied four top-10 finishes in the six races this season and completed 99.9 percent of the laps.

He heads to Texas Motor Speedway this weekend trailing series leader Sterling Marlin by 116 points, but critics are wondering why he hasn't won since California Motor Speedway a year ago.

"We're in the mode of taking it one race at a time," said new crew chief Bill Wilburn. "People have been asking 'What's wrong?' and I have to ask them what they mean by that.

"We're racing Winston Cup and consistency is the most important thing when all is said and done. It may not be the headlines and it may not be that exciting to watch, but give me a sixth to ninth-place finish week in and week out, and we'd have a championship team."

That's what the 46-year-old Wallace is banking on. He won his only championship in 1989 and hasn't been thick in the hunt for another one since 1994, although he has finished in the top-10 in the standings the past nine years.

His silent charge to the front can partly be credited to Wilburn, a longtime tire changer for his Ford at Penske Racing. Wilburn took over for Robin Pemberton, who parted ways with Wallace at the end of last year's one-win season.

Wallace has helped ease Wilburn into his new leadership role by encouraging him to be the boss back at the shop.

"We're probably best of friends -- he's been with me a long, long time, over 10 or 12 years, and he works real good with me," Wallace said. "But I've had to make him get more aggressive with the guys at the shop.

"I've told Billy to get in there and if I need a new car and the fabricators are saying they can't do it, just tell them we don't take 'no' for an answer."

But there are still kinks in the process, with Wilburn struggling to put his own stamp on things as Wallace resists change after 18 full seasons of doing things his way.

"Billy might have some different ideas on what he'd like to see done, but there's not a whole lot that I'm going to change," Wallace said.

They tried a little change at the start of the year by trying to mimic the qualifying efforts of teammate Ryan Newman. The rookie has always been a strong qualifier -- he won the pole last year for the Coca-Cola 600, just his third Winston Cup start -- and has outqualified Wallace in five of the first six races this year.

So Wallace and Wilburn tried to copy Newman, with failed results.

"There were two races this year that I tried to run a different qualifying setup than normal and try to learn some of the stuff that Ryan runs fast with," Wallace said. "But I just couldn't get comfortable with that. And because of that, I've taken some provisional starting positions.

"So I shot myself in the foot, and now I've gone back to what I normally run."

Wallace has gone back to his old-school ways of relying on the knowledge and information of a veteran. He's resisted the urge to win at all costs and focused instead on showing improvement on a weekly basis.

Still, he wants desperately to keep alive his streak of 16-straight seasons with a victory, and he admits the year since his last victory has been frustrating.

"I think that things will come around real quick, I do," he said. "Nowadays, when you look at the competition, it just gets tougher every year. And the good thing is, when I look at last year, I look at how the car ran, all the time, through thick and thin."

Wallace was in contention for other victories last season, but bad luck and competition got in the way. He points to that as proof his team is still one of the best in NASCAR.

"The performance is there," he said. "The old hot rod's running up front and leading races. I've just got to bring it home. If I was just out there in the back of the pack all the time, or if I was seventh, eighth, whatever, I'd go, 'Man, this is not getting it.'

"But it's fast. It's been fast."