Rusty Wallace

Who is Rusty Wallace?

Russell William "Rusty" Wallace, Jr. is a retired NASCAR race car driver, a former NASCAR Winston Cup Champion, broadcaster, businessman and entrepreneur as well as a charitable fundraiser. He has toured as Lead Studio Analyst for Auto Racing at ABC and ESPN covering NASCAR and the Indycar series. Currently, Wallace serves as Lead Analyst for MRN Radio—the Voice of NASCAR—where he is heard on more than 700 affiliates nationwide, as well as on Sirius XM Radio. Considered one of the finest drivers to ever compete, he is one of racing's most well-known and charismatic personalities, and a member of all three of stock car racing's major halls of fame: the NASCAR Hall of Fame, the International Motorsports Hall of Fame and the National Motorsports Press Association Hall of Fame. As a driver, he won at least one race every year between 1986 and 2001. The 1989 NASCAR Cup Series Champion and 1984 Rookie of the Year, Wallace was a 55-time Cup Series race winner. With arguably his best performance coming in 1993, he scored 10 wins but finished second to longtime friend and rival, Dale Earnhardt, for what would have been his second series championship.

In 2005, he became the first driver in recent history to design a professional racing facility, when he inked the plans for the 7/8-mile Iowa Speedway. The facility opened to rave reviews and currently hosts rounds of the NASCAR Xfinity Series, the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and the Indycar Series. As one of the main protagonists during NASCAR’s meteoric commercial rise of the 1990s and 2000s, Wallace is often credited as being one of the catalysts behind the mainstream appeal the sport enjoys today. At the NASCAR awards ceremony in 2005, he was presented the NMPA Myers Brothers Award, given for outstanding lifetime contributions to the sport of stock car racing.