For weeks, Rusty Wallace and Ryan Newman have been at odds, with Wallace calling out his younger teammate and publicly demanding respect.

There are a lot of reasons the two Penske Racing South drivers don't get along. But there is one key factor that irritates Wallace: Newman is winning and consistently running up front; Wallace is not.
That, understandably, irks a guy who has 55 career victories and won the 1989 Winston Cup championship.

Wallace snapped a long winless streak last season, but he still had just three top-five finishes and finished 16th in points. More important, he was never much of a threat to make NASCAR's vaunted Chase for the Nextel Cup.

Newman, meanwhile, continued his climb toward stardom. Though his 2004 performance was far off his eight-victory mark of 2003, he still won two races, finished in the top-five 11 times and wound up seventh in points.

In just three seasons as Wallace's teammate, Newman has 11 victories and has finished in the top 10 in points each season. Wallace, meanwhile, has just one victory in Newman's three years.

While Newman is on the way up, Wallace is on the way out, choosing to retire after the 2005 season. Wallace wants nothing more than to go out a winner, and he knows he could use the help and support of his teammate to help him get there.

Nothing could be more disappointing for Wallace than to struggle in his final season, fail to win a race and fail to make the championship Chase, all while watching Newman win and contend again.

Regardless of whether he and Newman iron out their differences, Wallace is more determined than ever to bounce back. That's why the outspoken, sometimes brash Wallace has been as confident and cocky as ever during preseason testing at California Speedway this week.

"I haven't seen anybody outrun me yet," Wallace said Tuesday. "My car is flying."

Wallace's source of optimism is two-fold: One, he believes the new Dodge Charger will create more downforce, making it faster at the majority of tracks; and two, he believes NASCAR's new aerodynamic rules favor veteran drivers with the most experience.

NASCAR's rules for this season call for a smaller rear spoiler and softer tires, a combination Wallace has been calling for the past few years. It's a combination that is supposed to make the car feel and drive like it did in the days when Wallace was dominating.

"I remember last year in the first five races everyone was screaming about how hard the tires were and the competition wasn't good," Wallace says. "The whole goal right now is when you put four tires on, the tires start to wear and the cars start sliding around, and the only way you can do that is to soften up these tires a little bit. These guys are rim-riding along the bottom all day long and not changing tires.

"We used to run in the middle and top of that track all the time, but these tires are so hard you can't get up there right now. I think since these tires are soft the tracks are going to blacken up and the second and third grooves are going to start coming in. I believe it's going to be for the better. I really do."



Of course, that's what everyone said six years ago when NASCAR tried a similar aero package. The so-called "five-and-five rule" (five-inch spoilers and five inches of front ground clearance) was supposed to make the cars looser and harder to drive, supposedly favoring veteran drivers used to such a feel. Many even called it the "Earnhardt rule" after seven-time champion Dale Earnhardt. Guess what happened?

Earnhardt and many of the veterans struggled while Jeff Gordon, 27 at the time, won a record-tying 13 races. Wallace, now 48, won just once but had 15 top-five finishes and wound up fourth in points that year.

Guess who is nearly as excited over the new rules as Wallace?

"The more they cut off the spoilers, the better us old guys are going to be," Gordon says.

Gordon, of course, is just 33.

Wallace's focus now is on beating Gordon in another race -- the Feb. 20 Daytona 500, a race he has never won. In fact, he has never won a points race at Daytona.

Few things could make his final season more complete than finally winning NASCAR's biggest race. That, he says, is the big "void" in his otherwise stellar career.

"I'm possessed on winning that race," he says. "I know I've got one shot left. ... I'm going down there with a lot of optimism."

Wallace is so obsessed with Daytona he has been dreaming about the final lap and his trip to Victory Lane.

"I was laying in bed last night running that last lap through my mind," he said. "I come off four and he makes this high move and he makes this low move. What am I going to do? Am I going to go low? Am I going to go high? Am I going to throttle back and get a run? I was going through that. I did that four or five years ago when I had a real good car. That's the one I led all day long and Gordon ended up getting me on that apron shot. You try to learn from those events and not let that happen.

"I'm going in with a lot of confidence."

Wallace, of course, is always brimming with confidence.

"All I can tell you is my car feels great," he says. "I'm happy."