Rusty Wallace has made nearly 700 starts in the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series.

He’s won 36 poles and 55 races and one championship.

But nothing comes close to the wide-ranging impact of his lone victory in 1989 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, in what now is known as the NASCAR Nextel All-Star Challenge.

It was significant not just for the reward — the $200,000 he received still is a tidy sum today — but also for its consequences.

Wallace will make his final start in the all-star event Saturday night — another historic stop on his “Last Call” tour this season. Qualifying for the event is 6:10 p.m. Friday.

Wallace’s win in 1989, in what was then called The Winston, was much more than a race, it was a collision between Wallace and veteran Darrell Waltrip, who raised the ire of fans like few others.

At the time, Wallace was a brash 33-year-old driving for car owner Raymond Beadle and just starting to turn heads in the series.

The year before, he won six races and more than $1.4 million while finishing second to Bill Elliott in the race for what was then called the Winston Cup championship.

Wallace had garnered his share of cheers and jeers — some from a run-in with legendary Richard Petty in a previous Winston event — but, for the most part, was generally held in good regard by the fans.

“I was still a young guy on the way up. I’d hadn’t really stirred up any big buzz,” Wallace said.

Darrell Waltrip, driving car No. 17, left, gets bumped by Rusty Wallace, right, during the 1989 Winston race.

Waltrip had been the man many fans had loved to hate. He won championships in 1981, 1982 and 1985 and racked up win after victory.

Entering the 1989 season Waltrip’s illustrious career still missed one critical element — a Daytona 500 victory. He finally captured that prize after 17 defeats at the start of the season.

Even the most anti-Waltrip fan gained a new measure of respect. His legendary helmet spike and dance in Victory Lane are still replayed by the faithful.

Wallace and Waltrip qualified for the 1989 Winston by virtue of wins over the previous year.

“I had a really fast race car and I was one of favorites going into it. In the first segment, I took off and won by a pretty good margin. In the second segment, (Waltrip’s) car took off and my car got real loose.”

Round 1 to Wallace. Round 2 to Waltrip.

Waltrip was leading in the final segment, when Wallace would make one final attempt to take the lead heading to the white-flag lap.

“I finally caught him and he was getting loose. I stuck my nose underneath his left-rear quarter-panel and it started to push a little bit. I was like, ‘Man don’t lift. If you lift, you’re screwed,'” he said.

“I never lifted and that thing started sliding and — BAM — went the quarter-panel, and all hell broke loose.”

Wallace hit Waltrip’s Tide-sponsored car, and sent him flying out of the way. To this day, the move is still referred to as the “Tide slide.” Wallace went on to Victory Lane and Waltrip finished seventh.

The fans in attendance, and the crews in the infield, were not amused by the outcome.

“The whole damn infield was fighting,” Wallace said.

In interviews immediately after the race, Waltrip was fuming: “I hope he chokes on that $200,000, that’s all I can tell him. He knocked the hell out of me. … I got spun out.”

On his way to Victory Lane, Waltrip hit Wallace’s car, which triggered a scuffle among the teams’ crews.

Overnight, Wallace became an arch villain, and Waltrip a hero. Wallace takes full credit.

“I tell him that all the time. He knows it, too. At that time he was a villain,” Wallace said.

“Right around that race is when his wife had a miscarriage and everybody was feeling bad about that. Then ol’ Rusty spins him out — this little cocky kid out of St. Louis.”

In Waltrip’s eyes it may have been an “ugly win,” but in Wallace’s it was a defining moment.

“I don’t think there has ever been, in the history of our sport, a situation where in a split second the roles are reversed like that — totally reversed,” Wallace said.

Much time has passed since that day — including a 105-race winless streak that ended last season — and Wallace has gained back the respect and admiration of many fans.

“I’m just so grateful that I was finally able to get back in the good graces with all the fans,” he said. “I just wanted them to all know that I really am a good guy.”