Motorsports

Wallace's tracks stretch all the way to Kansas

He and some Missouri associates built a trail for other drivers and helped curry favor for a track.

By BRANT JAMES
Published October 8, 2005

Mike Mittler keeps his favorite memento from a noteworthy life in racing hanging in a frame behind his desk in his Foristell, Mo., machine shop. Frozen in black and white is him, then 32, jacking up a Pontiac Firebird at Talladega Superspeedway.

Paul Andrews and Kenny Wallace, then national unknowns - now the crew chief for Nextel Cup driver Kyle Petty and a part-time Cup driver, respectively - change tires as Rusty Wallace impatiently awaits the end of the pit stop.

"1983 ASA Silver Creek Racing Series Crew Member - National ASA Champion Mike Mittler" says the caption on the plaque alongside.

After driving so many laps around the country for so many years, Rusty Wallace has left tracks through some lives. With each lap the 49-year-old completes before his final Cup race on Nov. 20 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, he's reminded of how much he has done and seen since he roared in with a bush of red hair and a hell-raising attitude off the short tracks of Missouri in the early 1980s.

Mittler took some of those first steps with Wallace, when they weren't sure the checks their race team wrote for the long weekend haul from Valley Park, Mo., to Springfield and then Fort Smith, Ark., would clear. A skilled machinist by trade, Mittler eventually formed a race team that competes part-time in the NASCAR truck series and launched Missourians Jamie McMurray and Carl Edwards into Nextel Cup careers. Wallace eventually started a NASCAR career in which he has 55 victories and the 1989 championship in the top series.

Each owes a bit to the other.

"Certainly, with my overall grooming in the racing deal I made it clear Rusty was a big part of it," Mittler said by telephone. "I learned a lot about winning from Rusty. I learned about the determination it takes. So at least secondarily it rubbed off on them from me and so yeah, I give good credit to the years I spent with Rusty, because I learned a lot from him. And I learned a few things probably not to do, too, but we won't go into that."

When Wallace starts for the 700th time in his career at Kansas Speedway on Sunday, he'll turn laps at a place that is itself part of his legacy. Out one window at some point will be two other parts, McMurray and Edwards.

They get the connection.

"Mike helped Rusty a lot," Edwards said. "I heard Rusty Wallace stories, seems like two or three times a week working at Mike Mittler's. I looked at Rusty's picture every day when I walked in the shop. Rusty's presence was always around us, for sure."

Wallace's ascension from Midwestern ASA and USAC hotshot to NASCAR helped McMurray and Edwards dream about the big leagues just as Wisconsin native Alan Kulwicki did for Matt Kenseth. It helped Mittler's race team become the place starry-eyed Missouri kids - or their eager fathers - brought NASCAR dreams.

Wallace and McMurray raced against the godfather of Missouri racing, the late Larry Phillips, before advancing beyond the ASA. McMurray now drives for the Busch Series team Wallace owns.

"I had known Jamie's dad over all the years through a business involvement together and so he kept telling me about his son - Jamie, Jamie, Jamie - and so I said, "Let's try him' and after a few years of saying that, we did," Mittler said. "Carl kind of saw the success we had there and obviously had aspirations of being a race car driver, so through his persistence and my perception that he was a super-decent person, that is how we got today."

Wallace's presence has had an impact on NASCAR in the broader sense, also. His willingness to schmooze on behalf of NASCAR and International Speedway Corp. helped open the prized Midwest market of Kansas City. Wyandotte County officials and local residents were opposed to using eminent domain to procure a large parcel of land for a proposed speedway in 1997, but then-NASCAR CEO Bill France Jr. had Wallace, the favorite son of Midwestern racing fans, rally local support.

"I've tried my darnedest to be the best I could, to almost be the poster child for the media and sponsors," Wallace said.

France referenced the gesture at Wallace's retirement announcement in August 2004.

The Kansas City project was approved, land acquired and the track opened in 2000. It will host its fifth Nextel Cup event today.

"He was really proactive and positive on the project and what it could mean to the community," said ISC vice president Grant Lynch, then president of Kansas City Speedway Corp. "He came in and had real influence, with a lot of enthusiasm, and spoke with the community. He was real upbeat and bubbly about it."

The Kansas City, Kan., site has spurred economic development and given NASCAR a Midwestern candidate for its Hall of Fame.

"Kansas City is only 200 miles from St. Louis. We consider that our second hometown racetrack," Mittler said. "I'm sure that has an impact on him, sort of a home boy coming back home."

He comes "home" for the last time as a Nextel Cup driver on Sunday, but his legacy will circle the place for years.

[Last modified October 8, 2005, 01:26:19]