THE SIDELINES : Wallace Asks Out of Blue Max Pact

CHARLOTTE, N.C. —  NASCAR driver Rusty Wallace has filed papers in a North Carolina Superior Court, asking that his contract with the Blue Max Racing team be declared void.

Court documents prepared by Wallace’s attorneys say Blue Max breached the contract with repeated late payments of earnings due Wallace. They say Blue Max is thwarting Wallace’s efforts to change teams for 1990, even though “Blue Max has agreed privately and has admitted to Wallace and others that Wallace is under no obligation” to drive for his present team next season.

“I bear absolutely no ill will toward Raymond (Beadle), and our disagreement is strictly business-related,” Wallace said in a statement issued through Don Miller, his business manager for 15 years.

Wallace, in Talladega, Ala., preparing for Sunday’s Diehard 500, told the Charlotte Observer that he “would have preferred that the court papers hadn’t come to light until after the race.”