The 700 Club: Ricky Rudd sets a standard for endurance as his streak of consecutive starts reaches another milestone

Sporting News, The, August 4, 2003 by Lee Spencer

Ricky Rudd and Cal Ripken Jr. share more than the distinction of being Iron Men who hold longevity records for their sports. They are also excellent role models and ambassadors.

The striking difference is that at 46, Rudd still is going strong in NASCAR's top division, Winston Cup. Last Sunday at Pocono, Rudd extended his record consecutive starts streak to 700, dating to January 11, 1981. Rudd, who has raced in 29 different seasons, drives the No. 21 Ford for Wood Brothers Racing. He has 787 starts, 23 wins, 28 poles, 189 top fives and 358 top 10s--a top 10 percentage of .455.

"Making my 700th consecutive start is a pretty neat deal," says Rudd, who made his first stock car start in 1975 in the spring race at Rockingham and finished 11th. "We did the 656 to break (Terry) Labonte's record, but 700 seems like a lot to me, especially all in a row."

Although Rudd hails from Virginia, he did not rise through the stock car ranks like most southern stock car vets. Rudd's formative racing years were spent in go-carts, in which he developed an appreciation for road courses. He won his first Winston Cup race on a road course, in 1983 in Riverside, Calif. Road courses remain his favorite tracks.

"It was special because not only was it my first win, it was the first win for Richard Childress as an owner," Rudd says. "I feel right at home on road courses. It feels very natural for me to run on road courses. It did from Day 1.

"To me, racing is when you have to get on the gas, got to get on the brakes, you've got to make hard turns. Daytona isn't as bad as Talladega. Daytona handling is a factor, especially in July. But the other (restrictor-plate) races where you just lay a brick on the throttle and drive around, to me, it's not challenging, and I've always enjoyed a track where you had to work on the car to get better."

Rudd is a racer's racer. One of his most treasured accomplishments is winning the 1992 IROC title. He also won at least one race a year for 16 consecutive seasons. Perhaps the biggest win came when he was an owner/driver, in the 1997 Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a track he loves. That was the most recent win for an owner/driver, and in this age of multicar teams, chances are good that it will never happen again.

"There was something about that track that has always been special to me," Rudd says. "The first time I saw it, it reminded me of an old-time baseball stadium."

A streak of Rudd's longevity requires luck, talent and perseverance. What stands out about Rudd is his tenacity, best exemplified by his refusal to succumb to pain. His most horrific crash came in the 1984 Busch Clash. The next week, with his eyes so swollen he had to use duct tape to keep them open, he ran in the Daytona 500. He won at Richmond the week after that.

"It was the worst wreck of my career," Rudd says. "The way the injuries lingered, I didn't think I'd be able to make it 400 miles. But back then you didn't have standby drivers, and I didn't want to let the guys down. I kept going."