Daytona 500 2000 - It's just like starting over

It's just like starting over
ESPN The Magazine

'99 EARNINGS: $1,632,011 | POINTS: 31st | WINS: 0 | TOP 5: 3 | TOP 10: 5

RICKY RUDD

What Makes Him Go: Rudd is experienced beyond his years, which is saying something since he turned 43 in September. He enters the season with 661 career starts. Until two years ago, he had never finished worse than 17th. But placing 22nd and 31st the last two years should light a fire under him. If it hasn't, Rudd may find himself in the hot seat.
What Makes Him Slow: The unfortunate bunch on the 28 team have had their world turned upside down so often that it may take some time for them to regain the feel of victory. They lost Davey Allison in 1993, then almost lost Ernie Irvan in 1994. Irvan came back, but was never as good as he had been. For the past two years, they suffered while Kenny Irwin struggled. In NASCAR, as in other sports, momentum and groove are major factors.
Key Stat: 3 That's the number of top-10 finishes Rudd had in the final five races of 1999 after switching to engines from Robert Yates' shop. Rudd will be disappointed if he doesn't have 15 top-10 finishes during a full season driving for Yates.

For 16 consecutive seasons, Ricky Rudd avoided the collar, winning at least one race a year, a modern-era NASCAR record. But last year, Rudd lost every single start. At season's end, he also lost his long-time sponsor, Tide, and sold the team he had owned since 1994.

Hold back your tears, though -- all is not lost for Rudd.

This year he's behind the wheel of one of Winston Cup's most famous rides -- the Robert Yates Racing No. 28 Texaco Havoline Ford. With this truly remarkable opportunity, the 25-year-veteran now has his best, and perhaps last, chance to rectify the strangest quirk in his career.

Throughout his streak, even when he was runner-up to Dale Earnhardt for the championship in 1991, Rudd never won more than two races in a year.

"I haven't really ever been with that big team until now," says Rudd. "I've been with some good teams, but I've never been with a team that has the resources Yates has. So, sure, winning more is one of my expectations. You can't really say, 'Yeah, I'm going to win a bunch.' But we have the tools, and we have the potential. I'll have a whole lot more bullets in the gun."

Although he has misfired plenty of times in his career, Rudd has a knack for taking advantage of the few opportunities that do come his way. He kept the streak alive with a late win at Phoenix in 1995, then waited until the second Rockingham race in 1996 to visit Victory Lane.

That day at The Rock, his pit stops were so poor he replaced part of the crew in the middle of the race. The stops remained awful. He still won, clawing his way back to the front after each bad stop.

In 1997, he stole his biggest victory, the Brickyard 400, on gas mileage. In September 1998, he came into Martinsville without a single top-five finish for the season and won -- despite suffering from heat stroke due to a faulty cooling system.

It's a leap to think that Rudd and his new team will be familiar enough with each other to be favorites for the Winston Cup championship in 2000, but it will be surprising if he doesn't begin another win streak. And with his talent, experience and new wheels, he stands a great chance of breaking through that two-win ceiling.

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