---

Rusty Wallace: “The Finest Era of the Snowball Derby”

Before he was a NASCAR star Rusty Wallace was a short-track ace.
If you drew a line in his short-track career until his launch into NASCAR you can see he ran against some of the best in short-track racing and he spoke highly of them.
The clash of the short track titans came each December at Five Flags at the annual Snowball Derby. No matter how good you were you still had to deal with Freddy Fryar, Gary Balough, Darrell Waltrip, Bobby Allison, Jody Ridley and many others.
“When I first started driving (down South) Freddy Fryer was the guy. I mean he had the coolest cars,” said Wallace. “I had a guy named Nicky Prejean that I was driving in the All-Pro Series down south. I had to have the same identical car that I would run up in the ASA series then I would run the All-Pro Series with that with another car but they look the same and I kept one of them up in St. Louis, Missouri that I operated and then I would get on an airplane and fly down to Gonzales, Louisiana and work on the Nicky Prejean owned car and I would run those cars down south most all the time.
“Freddy Fryar showed up with a red number 14 that was owned by Nicky Prejean who I drove for and that's where I first met Freddy, it was through Nicky and he was just such a short track ace and I actually learned a lot from him.”
In 1979 Wallace missed a chance at a Tom Dawson Trophy with a second-place run to Fryar. If you had to lose a race then that was the guy you wanted to lose it to.
“Yeah I was second to Freddy,” said Wallace talking about the memory of that day.
A year later it was Gary Balough who won the Snowball Derby. Another stud driver at the time that Wallace had to race with.
“Balough wanted to hang out and talk. He beat me a lot because of that, I want to hang out and talk to you,” said Wallace. “So we talked a lot about chassis setups, how the bodies were hung on the cars, offsets, all kinds of stuff. If he was here right now, we'd just be talking numbers and we'd be talking design and all that.”
In 1983 Wallace won the ASA National Tour title. He also won a Gulf Coast doubleheader at Five Flags Speedway and Mobile International Speedway (AL) and he could have been looked at as an early favorite for the 1983 Snowball Derby after he won the pole in 1982. It wasn’t meant to be as the 1983 race had a strange late caution mix-up and Wallace never challenged like he had that summer.
In 1984 Wallace was leading with 25 to go when Butch Lindley passed him for the top spot. Wallace finished third. A year later Wallace was on the podium again as he was second to Jody Ridley who won the race after a long dry spell. It was Wallace's third podium, but it was his last dance as a driver at the Derby.
“I’d be lying to you if I told you I remember much about Jody (Ridley) winning that race. The event was so big and it kept getting bigger when I was racing,” added Wallace.
A year later, Wallace would win Rookie of the Year honors in NASCAR and the focus would shift. By 1989 he was doing that famous hood dance on his Pontiac at Atlanta on top of the NASCAR world as the series champion.
19 years later, a Wallace would go to victory lane in the Snowball Derby as Rusty’s son Steven Wallace would pull off the win as a teenager. A special moment for the whole family.
Since retiring, Wallace finds time to make it to tracks when he can. He was the grand marshal for the Tar Heel 250 at Hickory Motor Speedway in May.
“I was at Hickory in May and I showed up and Josh Berry was there and Chase Elliott was racing before the Coke 600 that weekend,” explained Wallace. “You think how can guys do that? When you're a short-track race that’s your mindset. Racers just want to be in that car.”
The same can be said for Rusty, who in 1985 ran the balance of the NASCAR Cup Series schedule, but also made three ASA shows and eight All-Pro Shows. Winning on short tracks was nothing new, but success kinda took its toll on sponsors and expectations.
“It was just in my blood, I couldn't get it out,” added Wallace. “Then it got to where different things entered into it, namely sponsors. They said we are investing a lot of money into you and we can’t afford to have you get hurt at a short track away from NASCAR. So my short-track stuff slowly wound down. I would have raced more if they would have allowed us.”

---

Article Media

Back to News