Rusty Wallace opens up on NASCAR battle of the – Sports News
For a lot of NASCAR Hall of Famer Rusty Wallace’s profession, his Cup Series rides had been emblazoned with Miller Genuine Draft or Miller Lite logos – one thing which inadvertently fueled rivalries on monitor.
The 1989 Cup Series champion and twelfth winningest driver of all-time, with 50 throughout his 25-year profession, Wallace just lately admitted that representing one of NASCAR’s three principal beer manufacturers weighed closely at instances.
In a earlier interview with former Budweiser-sponsored driver and fellow Hall of Famer, Dale Earnhardt Jr., which was just lately rereleased, Wallace was requested by the son of the seven-time champion if he ever raced different “beer cars” tougher than others.
The now-69-year-old was fast to answer, “Yeah, I think I had to a little bit, because, boy, I tell you what, it was like the big three in Detroit. If the Chevy beats the Ford, everybody talks about it. Well, those Miller guys, they did not want to hear that Budweiser car beat that other car.”
Wallace later expanded on his expertise at the coronary heart of this battle of the beers, commenting, “I’m not sugar coating this at all. I know you know what I’m about to say, man. I said, ‘These beer companies, I don’t care what they say, they hate each other. They don’t like each other.’
“Understand what I’m saying right now. Budweiser hates Miller and Miller hates Budweiser. That’s just the way it is. It’s so competitive. It’s incredible on the field. And I’ve learned right away. ‘Man, you guys are mean, dude. What’s going on here?’”
Wallace then recalled one specific journey to the season-opening Bud Shootout at Daytona – previously generally known as the Busch Clash and now The Cook Out Clash – the place he stated he had a Budweiser consultant come up to him, “And he’s super nice to me and I said, ‘I don’t trust this dude, there’s no way he can be nice,’ because they’ll hate each other. The guy was truly nice to me, but I was having a hard time understanding that.”
Ironically, Wallace received the 1998 Bud Shootout in the No. 2 Penske–Kranefuss Racing Ford, sponsored by Miller Lite.
As of 2025, Busch Light is NASCAR’s official beer sponsor and the title sponsor of Ross Chastain’s No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet – the last of the “the big three” nonetheless standing in the Cup Series.
Elsewhere, Keystone Light was the solely different beer model to sponsor a full-time Cup Series driver during the 2025 season, having taken the place of Miller Lite in 2021, with Austin Cindric in the No. 2 Team Penske Ford taking that honor.
That being stated, the likes of Budweiser and Busch Lite can nonetheless be seen represented on ovals round the nation all through the 12 months, with each Earnhardt Jr. and Kevin Harvick having repped the manufacturers on their late fashions in 2025.
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