The Associated Press

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - NASCAR booted Rusty Wallace 30 spots down the Daytona 500's starting grid and fined his crew chief $10,000 for using an illegal carburetor in his qualifying race.

The carburetor in Wallace's car didn't meet the minimum size requirements when it was inspected after his fourth-place finish in Thursday's qualifying race. On Friday, NASCAR disqualified Wallace's finish - stripping him of $28,720 in prize money - and forced him to use a provisional to start Sunday's season-opening race.

Wallace, due to start eighth, now will start 38th. The movement minimally affected the rest of the 43-car field.

"We're just embarrassed about the whole thing," Wallace said. "Mentally, I'm a little down right now. I'm OK with the penalty, I just hate that it happened."

The specifications for restrictor-plate races are different than any other tracks on the circuit, and Winston Cup director John Darby said the carburetor crew chief Billy Wilburn used would be legal next weekend at North Carolina Speedway.

NASCAR didn't dock any points from Wallace; because the season hasn't started, he doesn't have any. That's a break from the pattern it began last season of docking 25 points in the penalty process.

"I don't know if we want to dip into the world of starting somebody out in negative points," Darby said.

Wilburn said the deduction of points was what the team feared most.

"We're just ecstatic they didn't take any points," he said. "We didn't want to start in a hole like that."

The decision was announced four hours after the garage closed Friday, so Wallace's crew was forced to play the waiting game for most of the day.

Wallace made a brief visit to the track, stopping in the NASCAR hauler for an update before walking over to his garage stall and peering under the hood as his team changed the engine.

The frustration was clear on Wilburn's face, though, as he scraped a decal off the front fender. He was unsure of what NASCAR had found wrong with the carburetor and insisted if there was a problem, it was unintentional and not an attempt to cheat.

"We're still in disbelief that it happened," said Wallace, who is winless in 20 Daytona 500 starts. "We just had one of the wrong carburetors on the truck. We didn't check it, and we're paying for it now."

The infraction came in Wallace's first race in a Dodge Intrepid after moving over from Ford this season. In addition, sponsor Miller Lite had promised a voucher for a free six-pack of beer to all fans of legal drinking age should Wallace win the Daytona 500.