LOUDON, N.H. - Rusty Wallace is primed for a shot at another championship.

The longtime NASCAR star has dubbed this season "Rusty's Last Call," his final year as a driver, but the 1989 champ of what was then the Winston Cup series, is thinking more about another title than his retirement.

"This is my final season as a driver and I want to go out being remembered as a winner," Wallace said as the Penske Racing South team prepared his No. 2 Dodge for Friday's opening practice at New Hampshire International Speedway.

Wallace is one of the 10 drivers in the second Chase for the Nextel Cup championship. It begins Sunday with the Sylvania 300 and carries through nine more races to the season-ending showdown in Homestead, Fla.

The points have been reset for the 10 title contenders with just 45 separating leader Tony Stewart from 10th-place Ryan Newman. Wallace is third, 10 points behind Stewart.

It's been a fun season for the 49-year-old Wallace. He's been competitive in nearly every race and comes to New Hampshire with seven top-five finishes and 14 top-10s in the first 26 races. Just as important, he's the only Cup regular who has been running at the end of every race this season.

The one thing Wallace is missing in 2005 is a victory, as are fellow contenders Mark Martin and Newman, Wallace's Penske teammate.

No driver in NASCAR's 56-year history has won a championship without visiting Victory Lane at least once.

"You could win the title without winning a race, but that's not the way I want to win it," said Wallace, who has 55 career victories, but none in the last 54 races, dating to April 2004 in Martinsville, Va. "Would I be disappointed to win the championship and not win a race this year? That's not a real easy question to answer."

A year ago, Kurt Busch, also eligible - along with Greg Biffle, Jimmie Johnson, Jeremy Mayfield, Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth - to race for the title, got off fast start in the inaugural Chase by winning at New Hampshire. Busch went on to record nine top-10s in the final 10 races, holding on to win the title by eight points despite four wins by Johnson in the last six races.

"That just shows how important consistency is, and it's our consistency that has gotten us this far," Wallace said. "There's really no need to be looking for some other game plan.

"What we have to do is keep that top level of consistency going. We have to be there at the end of all 10 races and get everything we can out of each and every one of them."

Wallace noted he won six times in his championship season, but failed to take the title in is his most prolific seasons. He won 10 times in 1993 and had eight victories in 1994.

"The truth is that some of the races this season were won by drivers who didn't deserve to win and some guys who deserved to win just didn't, for one reason or another," he said. "It's not like some guy's out there stroking around (and) just so happens to come out with the most points.

"Let's not forget we've already had a pretty incredible season, and that shouldn't go unnoticed. We still have plenty of time to win a race or races, but our team deserves a lot of credit for the consistency we've had."

Crew chief Larry Carter agreed.

"That's the goal every week, to win," he said. "I think going into the last 10, you need to be consistent, but you're also going to have to go for it, too. It's not going to be a matter of just being consistent and finishing seventh or eighth or fifth."