Weighing his options

Rudd still mulling retirement in midst of upswing

Ricky Rudd has five top-10 finishes in his last nine races. Chris Stanford/Getty Images

By Denise N. Maloof, CNNSI.com

LONG POND, Pa. -- He's the defending race champion who finally has his act together.

And all anybody wants to know is the date and time for his retirement party.

Ricky Rudd doesn't want to be feted until he's ready, which prompted last week's hoopla at Dover (he fumed publicly about rumors placing Elliott Sadler in his seat for next season and wondered aloud whether owner Robert Yates had gotten antsy about waiting for his July decision).

It appeared to be the opening act in an internal drama, but both owner and driver said Friday that storm clouds had cleared.

"Obviously, there's some decisions that have got to be made and I really haven't made them yet," Rudd said at Pocono Raceway, where he's the defending champion of Sunday's Pocono 500. "I think Robert's got some decisions to make and I don't think he's made his yet. I thought he did, but evidently he hasn't."

"We've talked, so we know what we're doing," Yates said.

Any friction would detract from Rudd's recent upswing. After a dreadful start, last year's fourth-place finisher in the points race has reeled off five top-10 finishes in the past nine races. His two worst finishes in that span -- a 39th at Richmond and last week's 19th -- came courtesy of a wreck and an inopportune pit trouble, respectively.

Secret weapon By Denise N. Maloof, CNNSI.com POCONO, Pa. -- Ricky Rudd says there hasn't been any magic in this season's turnaround, but he does single out a secret weapon -- owner Robert Yates. After a season-opening 38th-place finish in the Daytona 500, the No. 28 team continued to struggle with an 18th at Rockingham, a 13th at Las Vegas and a 20th at Atlanta. Enter a shop meeting, chaired by Yates the week after the Atlanta race. "He's very savvy," Rudd said. "He stands on the top of these trucks and watches the cars. A lot of us are scratching our heads, but Robert looking at the race track and watching the car handle, the way it was off, he knew what area to go work on." Since then, Rudd & Co., have chalked up five top-10s in nine races. They're 10th in the current Winston Cup points standings. "The hardest thing in the world is to fix performance, and these guys fixed it after the first four or five races, and it's been there ever since," Rudd said. "We're still actually closer to the leader than we were at some points to Jeff Gordon last year," said crew chief Michael McSwain of last season, when Rudd pressured the eventual Cup champion for much of the year. "Are we out of it? Heck, no, we're not out of it. We lost 250 points in the last five races last year. So man, it's way too early to be making any calls right now." Perhaps the most crucial one has already been made -- by the guy most consider one of NASCAR's top engine gurus. "Everybody thinks of Robert Yates as being a motor guy, which he obviously is," Rudd said. "But he'd be a great crew chief in this garage area. And he actually has been. He's kind of been the backbone of a lot of the crew chiefs that he's had come along. So it hasn't necessarily been all those crew chiefs by themselves. Robert has a very active part. And you can tell when Robert's involved and when he's not involved. You can see the performance changes."

At Richmond, a collision with Rusty Wallace ended Rudd's day (he led at the time). Last week, he was one of the few threats to eventual winner Jimmie Johnson, and likely would have finished in the top three if not for a loose wheel in the final laps.

"Not the end of the world," Rudd said. "But definitely disappointing that we should be talking about a potential victory at Dover. We should be sitting here talking about a victory at Richmond. And we could be sitting here talking about two or three wins right now. Instead we're not, but everybody knows we've been there, knocking on the door."

Currently 10th in the Winston Cup points, Rudd is in his third and final contract year with Robert Yates Racing. At age 45, he's toyed with the retirement idea for a while, knowing he's closer to the end of his career than its beginning. Spending time with 7-year-old son Landon and wife Linda is increasingly important, and he's said since last season that he doesn't see himself racing at age 50.

"Anytime you make a change, it changes the chemistry," said crew chief Michael McSwain of possibly losing Rudd. "And you take a chance on the chemistry starting over again. Ricky's been in this for 25, 30 years, however long. There's going to come a point where he's had enough. I think he loves racing still. I'm not sure he loves the grind anymore. I don't think any of us do."

That doesn't mean Rudd won't tack on a few more seasons. He just didn't expect the process to be so public.

"Things sort of force your hand," he said. "I figured we'd just kind of wander into the season, kind of move along and see how the season progresses, see how I felt, you know? Get to about July and make some decisions, whether I'm coming back or I'm not coming back. And at that time, there wouldn't be any build-up, you know?"

His earlier comments about perceived television bias toward NASCAR's younger drivers, coupled with the publicity fuss of breaking Terry Labonte's Iron Man record, all helped leak his retirement contemplation. It peaked at Dover, when Elliott Sadler and the Wood Brothers confirmed Sadler's release from his contract.

Nevertheless, Rudd says his remarks haven't caused any schisms on his team, or between him and Yates. A mid-week conversation between the two men, precipitated when Rudd visited the No. 28 shop to have a seat fitted, cleared confusion.

"Robert and I sat down probably for two or three hours, just chatting," Rudd said. "Just covering a lot of areas. No scheduled meeting. Just kind of a casual meeting. So it went pretty good."

"I don't want anybody to think that I don't think Ricky Rudd is nothing but the best driver, great for a team," Yates said. "We love and enjoy racing with him. But I'm not going to go pressuring him to do something he doesn't want to do."

As an owner, Yates also knows he's got to cover his rear bumper in case Rudd does retire.

"Other than Ricky's talking about retirement, we haven't been hanging that sign out," Yates said of a possible vacancy. "We think he's as good as anybody on the race track. The team, I think, has a lot of energy working. I think we can win races and I think we just can have fun. Unfortunately, whether it's your sponsor's last year or driver's last year, you start getting nervous. When you have something that's attractive, you hate to be walked off from."

Especially when that something is competitive. Rudd and McSwain have been together since late 1999, and although they sometimes go face-to-face, both say the synergy between them, and the rest of the team, is unbeatable.

"It almost like we speak the same language," Rudd said. "You got some crew chiefs and drivers, one's speaking French and one's speaking Spanish and that doesn't click too well. And that's one thing that in Winston Cup racing, you could take a good crew chief and you could take a good driver and pair them together and that might not necessarily work very well."

"He's been successful in what he chose to do as a preferred career, and if he retired now, I would not blame him," said McSwain. "Would I hate to see him go? Yes. Who wouldn't hate to see him go? But we hated to see Michael Jordan hang his shoes up, too."

 

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