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Happy, go Ricky The burden of running his own team lifted, Ricky Rudd is free to win again
By Mark Bechtel Issue date: May 8, 2000
This confluence of events can be explained by the fact that Earnhardt shaved so that he could snorkel more comfortably and that Rudd discovered how hard it is for an owner-driver to succeed in the age of multicar teams. Rudd had been on his own since leaving Rick Hendrick's stable before the 1994 season. There had been a lot of bickering among Hendrick's three crews, and Rudd had slipped back in the standings after finishing second in points in '91. "We weren't getting any closer to winning a championship, and maybe I got a little antsy and decided I was going to do something different," he says. "I figured, if I had the financial support, running a team was all about people, and I'd hire good people and build a championship team." That thinking held up for the first three years Rudd was on his own. In that span he won six races while finishing fifth, ninth and then sixth in the points standings, but eventually the fiscal responsibilities and time constraints of running a team bogged him down. "Somewhere along the line racing became big business," he says. "We were under-funded and under-staffed. I didn't take lunch breaks, and I was off my workout program for six years." The team plummeted to 31st in points last year, and midway through the season Tide, Rudd's primary sponsor, told him it was pulling out after 1999. Around the same time, another car owner, Robert Yates, dismissed his driver, Kenny Irwin. It didn't take a genius to see that Rudd and Yates might be a good match, and they finalized a deal in September. At the wheel of his new Ford when the 2000 season began at Daytona in February, Rudd couldn't wipe the smile off his face, not even after crossing the finish line on his roof in his first outing, the Bud Shootout, a qualifying run for the 500. "No regrets," he says of trying to make it on his own, "but I don't think I'd want to be an owner-driver again. I never enjoyed the business side of it." No longer owning a team means no longer having to show up at the shop at seven on the morning after a race. More important, Rudd can concentrate on driving, and it's paying off. He hasn't won yet this year, but he finished fourth in last week's NAPA Auto Parts 500, and he's 10th in points. Instead of fretting over paying the bills, he has fewer worries. "The biggest thing is learning how to relax a bit," he says of his new life. "Over the winter I was worrying about things like what color stripes to put on the motor home."
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