NASCAR: Rusty Wallace’s Five Most Significant Wins
By Mike Hutton
Number 1: Bristol – April 1986
Significance: First Cup Series win, fist of nine wins at Bristol
Commentary: Mention Bristol Motor Speedway and NASCAR enthusiasts think of Rusty Wallace. Mention Rusty Wallace and they think Bristol. The two just seem to go together. Rusty scored his first-ever Cup series win at Bristol to start what would be a career-long relationship with the high-banked colosseum in northeastern Tennessee. He would end up winning there nine times and his hard-nosed style just seemed to mesh perfectly with the demands of the (at the time) single-grooved track.
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Wallace averaged 89.747 mph in a race that only saw 7 caution flags for 56 laps, and came home ahead of Ricky Rudd, Darrell Waltrip and Harry Gant to score his first of 55 Cup Series wins.