2001 Ad

Sporting News, The, June 11, 2001 by Lee Spencer

Circle June 24 on the calender. That's the day Winston Cup drivers take on the road course at Sears Point. The day Ricky Rudd should visit victory lane--if he doesn't win at Michigan or Pocono--for the first time this season.

You might argue he doesn't remember the way to victory lane. Rudd hasn't won since September 1998 at Martinsville--87 races ago. And the No. 28 car he drives is riding an 0-for-133 streak, its last win coming with Ernie Irvan at the controls in June 1997 at Michigan.

The car is due, and so is Rudd, who has nine top-10 finishes--more than any other driver--this season. Rudd, 44, has knocked on the door many times since taking the wheel of the Robert Yates Ford last season. It'll be no surprise if he breaks it down soon.

Why Sears Point? Just adding 2 and 2. Rudd is one of the circuit's better road-course drivers. He has four poles and one win (1995) at Sears Point. And he has tested twice this season at a 14-turn road course in Kershaw, S.C.

That means he's serious about Sears Point.

"I can see the determination in Ricky's eyes," crew chief Michael McSwain says. "He's got the look. This time last year, we were 149 points out of fifth place. Now, we're eight points out of fifth place, 170 points behind the leader, and we're coming."

McSwain's enthusiasm is infectious, and Rudd has caught the fever. It's hard not to like working with a crew chief who says he'd take a bullet for his driver. These two not only believe in each other, they think this team can make a run for the Winston Cup title.

It didn't look that way early. There was a gear failure at Rockingham, a blown engine at Texas and a flat tire that hurt at Las Vegas.

"The first five or six races in, we sort of wrote the championship off," says Rudd, who drove his first Cup race in 1975 and has 20 career victories but never has won a title. "Now, here we are, I think we're 32 points out of third place. "It's kind of exciting again to see that we're in reach."

Only three years ago, Rudd was near the end of his racing rope and thinking about retirement, even after the win at Martinsville extended his streak to 16 consecutive seasons with at least one victory. He became driver and owner in 1994 and did OK his first three seasons. But the off-track demands started to catch up with Rudd, making it impossible to stay on top of his game. Plus there was little continuity on the team, given its four crew chief changes since 1995.

When the '98 season ended, Rudd considered turning over the driving duties to his nephew, Jason, and focusing solely on managing the team.

He couldn't do it. Rudd decided to give it another try in 1999, but it didn't work. Ten races into the season, Rudd's average finish was 34th, and he was 37th in points. Then his sponsor, after supporting him for a decade, told him it would leave at the end of the season.

There was a silver lining. Rudd's decision to take a chance on McSwain, who was 32 and beginning his third year on top of the toolbox, was a good one. The two hit it off. McSwain was able to restore some of the team's lost confidence, and it showed up late in the season with a surprising third-place finish at Bristol.

That effort and Texaco's blessing were enough to make Yates give Rudd a chance in the No. 28 beginning in 2000. Yates' other team--Dale Jarrett and Todd Parrott--was on its way to the organization's first title in 1999, and he wanted a more mature driver in the No. 28 to bring it back to its glory days.

Rudd didn't win last season, but he improved from 31st to fifth in points in his first year driving for Yates. Rudd failed to finish only one race--he had seven DNFs in 1999--and posted 12 top-five finishes and 19 top-10s. He started from the front row seven times.

With Jarrett and Rudd, Yates has assembled a Winston Cup dynamic duo--OK, they're a little gray around the edges--and he knows his teams might be battling for championship down the stretch. Jarrett has three victories this season and is first in points.

"Ricky is a car owner's dream," Yates says. "He knows the business inside and out. He's well-respected throughout the garage, and he's running real consistently. To see him win would be even sweeter."

Rudd always has steered clear of NASCAR's star-making machine, often turning down appearances and financial reward to spend time with his wife, Linda, and son, Landon, at their Lake Norman, N.C., home. Yates and McSwain "handle all the day-to-day headaches," allowing Rudd to focus on driving.

"It's just a nice, refreshing way to go racing now," Rudd says. "It seems almost like I'm not doing my job because I have a little bit more free time on my hands. I go to the track to race, and I'm there to take care of the loyal fans who have supported me over the years. The rest of the time, my No. 1 loyalties are with my family."

Look for Rudd in victory lane soon. He has the car and the team to do it. More important, he's having fun driving again.

"I think it might've been the Martinsville race," Rudd says, recalling a recent conversation with Yates. "I said if we have a car like this every weekend, I'll pay him to drive instead of the other way around."