Rusty Wallace's First NASCAR Winston Cup Race - 1980 Atlanta 500

During the Rusty Wallace episode of the Dale, Jr. Download back in 2019, Rusty briefly went over his first Winston Cup race. I was surprised to learn it was a Roger Penske ride, at the Atlanta 500 televised on ABC as part of their Wide World of Sports program, and finished an amazing second behind another "up and coming" NASCAR star Dale Earnhardt. Rusty ran another race in 1980 at Charlotte with Penske. He would not run full-time until 1984 and he would not run for Penske again until 1990. I also added a short clip of Chris Economaki trying to ask Darrell Waltrip what's wrong with the car, and DW quipped 'it's smoking!"
Excerpt from Dale, Jr. Download Episode 249 - Rusty Wallace: Rival Rusty. Video is for awareness purposes only. All credit to NASCAR and ABC.

[@user-ed1yx2fq7l]

A Penske Chevrolet? 🤯

[@AndrewBlacker-t1d]

Back when Atlanta was a symmetrical one mile oval.

[@MrBurney12]

1.5 actually

[@JoshuaFarmer-bv7ip]

Exactly. It's always been about that length.

[@miqallen6393]

I used to go with my parents along with my aunt n uncle to watch Rusty Wallace race at Tri-City Speedway in Granite City, Illinois (St. Louis area) from about 1977-82 and we all knew that he had potential to make the "Big Show" one day. I was age 3-8 and have fantastic memories of this era.

[@williambowen1771]

Rusty and dale had an out of this world talent level that no other drivers ever had

[@louislepage5111]

I wonder if that car is in a museum? 😊

[@lilolme69]

Yeah, it's smokin! I'm not a big fan of Darrel but that was funny.

[@almattei88]

A Chevy Caprice??

[@russellholt5879]

Yes I think so! You ask me that was a beautiful beast..

[@thomashallman5436]

long live the young itimidator and the young mid west boy and al micheals and sir jackie stewart nascar ain t worth a damn nowadays y all

[@gothard5]

disagree