It’s a Carefree Rudd Hitting the Open Road

The difference between Ricky Rudd owning his own race team while worrying about making the payroll and driving for a well-funded team owned by Robert Yates is the difference between 29th place and the front row for the Daytona 500.

Rudd started 29th last year and finished 30th. Today he will be alongside Yates Racing teammate Dale Jarrett, the pole-sitter and defending series champion, when NASCAR opens its 2000 Winston Cup season at Daytona International Speedway.

In 23 years on stock car racing’s premier circuit, Rudd has never won the Daytona 500, nor a Winston Cup championship. His chief claim to fame is winning at least one race in 16 consecutive seasons, a streak that ended last year when the personable driver from Chesapeake, Va., had the worst year of his career.

Seldom has there been such a turnaround so quickly.

After a six-year struggle to operate his team, Rudd lost his Tide sponsorship last year to newcomer Cal Wells and his only alternative was to close the doors at Rudd Performance Motorsports and sell everything he owned at auction.

About the same time, Yates announced that he was dropping Kenny Irwin as driver of the No. 28 Ford Taurus. A Charlotte, N.C., radio station paired up Yates and Rudd, even though nothing had been discussed.

However, engine builder Doug Yates called Rudd and jokingly said, “You’d better come by the shop and fit your seat.”

“If I could have kept my own team going, I probably would not have been interested,” Rudd said. “But I had been just surviving. It wasn’t until I felt like a free man, with no payroll to meet, no worry about having enough money to pay for the tires, that I realized how much owning the team had taken out of me. I was probably only giving about 75% to my driving, and that won’t cut it in Winston Cup.”

Rudd brought eight of his crew to the Yates camp, including crew chief Michael McSwain.

“We had our group of eight and we wondered how they would mesh with [the No. 28] Texaco team and with Jarrett’s team, but the chemistry really clicked well. Michael is working well with Todd Parrott [Jarrett’s crew chief].

“There’s no way I could have been smart enough to plan this scenario. The way the events unfolded it just sort of fell in my lap. It’s nice to sit in a car that goes fast. That’s all I really wanted was a car that goes fast and has a chance to win races.”

There is a special mystique to the No. 28 car, once originally driven for Yates by the late Davey Allison and then Ernie Irvan before Irwin took over in 1998.

“There’s a lot of history in that car, a lot of respect for it in the garage area,” Rudd said. “I inherited a lot of fans, fans who cheer for the car whenever they see 28. I never had that happen to me before.”

Even Jarrett acknowledged that the 28 car was special for Yates.

“We know how much that car means to Robert Yates and he would like nothing better than to get it back in Victory Lane and challenge for the championship,” the driver of No. 88 said. “We want to help him do that. We know he’s much happier when all of that’s taking place, so if we can give him two cars that run up front, I think it will be better for everyone.”

Jarrett, who won the Bud Shootout, and Rudd, who won one of Thursday’s Twin 125 qualifying races, head a strong force of Fords in today’s race. With new spring and shock rules that prevent crews from making changes, the two races Thursday were boring parades, but few expect a repeat of that today.

“I have a good feeling that racing 500 miles for $9.3 million will make for a better race,” said Mike Helton, NASCAR senior vice president.

It may be, but there seems little likelihood that the Fords will be seriously challenged. During the off-season, the Fords were updated while the Chevrolet Monte Carlo came out with a new model that has compared favorably. Only the Pontiacs remained the same.

Fords have dominated, winning the pole, the Bud Shootout and both Twin 125s with Rudd and Bill Elliott. Fords will start in four of the first five positions in today’s race.

Jeff Gordon, last year’s Daytona 500 winner, says he feels the Chevys will match up as the race goes on.

“I think they’ve got us beat a little bit on raw power and speed, but we can draft with them and we can handle with them,” Gordon said. “The air does amazing things when you’re out there drafting. We can make an interesting race when it comes to the draft.

“One thing you need, for sure, is a drafting partner. One car can’t go it alone out there, but two together . . . it doesn’t matter if it’s a Chevy, Ford or Pontiac . . . can make some strong moves.”

Seven rookies, led by Dale Earnhardt Jr., will be among the 43 starters. Earnhardt Jr. will start eighth, alongside rookie of the year Tony Stewart. Dale Sr. will be back in 21st position. Other rookies are former Indy car driver Scott Pruett, Ed Berrier, Dave Blaney, Mike Bliss, Stacy Compton and Matt Kenseth, who warmed up by winning the NAPA Auto Parts 300 Busch Grand National race Saturday.

Several spectacular airborne accidents spiced the NAPA 300, but unlike Friday’s Craftsman Truck race no one was injured.

Terry Labonte gambled on staying with tired tires, while Kenseth took on four new ones on his last pit stop and the new rubber enabled Kenseth to sweep past Labonte as the cars headed for the white flag lap and victory.

Ron Hornaday, two-time Craftsman Truck champion making a switch to the Busch series, led 43 of the first 55 laps and looked like a rookie winner until he had a slow pit stop on Lap 59. When he returned to the track he was caught up in a 10-car pileup that started when Chad Chaffin cut a tire coming through the tri-oval and the car turned sideways.

“It’s a shame, we got behind on that pit stop and that put us back in the middle of the pack,” said Hornaday, who cut his racing teeth at the old Saugus Speedway.

With five laps to go, Labonte and Kevin Harvick, a rookie from Bakersfield, were running one-two. They stayed that way until the next-to-last lap when Kenseth made his move on Labonte and Harvick got shuffled back in a wild scramble for the finish line.

Joe Nemechek edged Labonte by a couple of inches as Jay Sauter pushed Harvick back to fifth.