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Peacefully productive Strong finish moves modest Rudd up points standings
Updated: Sunday June 10, 2001 10:49 PM
By Stephen Thomas, CNNSI.com BROOKLYN, Mich. -- Ricky Rudd just continues to do his thing, quietly, methodically and almost anonymously. He appears at the track Friday, qualifies -- more often than not somewhere in the top 10 -- and then he shows up again Sunday, when, more often than not, he finishes somewhere in the top 10. And, after his ninth top-10 finish in 14 races (he finished second in Sunday's Kmart 400), Rudd, a 44-year-old from Chesapeake, Va., quietly, methodically and almost anonymously continues to inch his way up the Winston Cup points ladder. Eleventh after Texas, eighth after Martinsville, sixth after Richmond, fifth after Charlotte (before returning to sixth for one week), Rudd is now fourth, just 130 points behind Jeff Gordon. Indeed, Rudd is now just 104 points and two spots behind his more celebrated teammate, Dale Jarrett. If Jarrett only just ceded his spot atop the standings to Gordon this week, there's little question that the unheralded Rudd is threatening to usurp Jarrett's preeminent position as the Yates' team's top dog. Since finishing second to his teammate at Martinsville, Rudd has garnered five top 10s in six races to Jarrett's two over the same span.
"I wouldn't say we've become the dominant Yates car," Rudd said. "Dale is injured [a torn muscle in his ribcage]. He definitely started the season with a bang, but that injury is not doing him any good -- that's probably making us [look] a little better than what we actually are compared to his team." That is a perfectly appropriate statement, if unnecessarily modest, coming from Rudd, one of NASCAR's truly generous and decent drivers. Were Rudd the ruthless type, he might have wrecked Gordon as the two went into turn one on the final lap Sunday. Given that it's been more than two years since his last win, no one would have blamed him. But Rudd backed off the throttle. "He races you hard, but he races you clean," Gordon said. "I have a lot of respect for the way he goes about his job. Ricky knows when it comes down to the final lap I am going to run him hard but I'm going to run him clean and I expect the same from him." "Don't get me wrong," Rudd said Sunday when asked how frustrated he is at not having won a race since 1998, "it'd be great not to be sitting explaining why we finished second. But any time a driver gets a car that's this competitive and has a chance to win ... you're not going to win all of them, but if you keep putting the car up there, second, third every week you're going to win some races." If Rudd is right, and he does start to win races and if he does continue to inch his way up the standings, at some point, he will be forced to confront his newfound stature. But in the meantime, at least he accepts that he will be a major player in the points race as the season unfolds. "We've got plenty of races left and we seem to be getting stronger and stronger," Rudd said. "It's going to be an interesting second half, I think. There are a lot of teams gaining momentum as time goes on. From the championship side, we're there almost every week, top 10s almost every week. This points thing is not over with." Rudd may speak softly, but he carries a big stick.
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