|
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Multimedia Central Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities Work in Sports
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE |  |
Keeping it simple Rudd downshifts in driver-only role
Posted: Thursday February 17, 2000 10:47 PM
From the beginning, Ricky Rudd has shouldered expectations. After winning the Rookie of the Year award in 1977, Rudd went on to set a modern NASCAR record with at least one victory in 16 consecutive seasons. That streak ended last year, when he operated as an owner/driver. He could make quick work of starting a new streak with a victory on Sunday. CNNSI.com's John Giannone spoke with Rudd on Wednesday about his move to a new racing team. John Giannone: Ricky, you joined the [Robert] Yates racing team this year. You stepped in to that vaunted 28 car. Talk about the opportunity it presents to you and also whether there's any pressure on you to perform now. Ricky Rudd: Well, I don't really feel any pressure at all, especially going though what I had the last six years, trying to run my own team and limited resources and all the headaches that go with that. So driving a race car, actually that's probably the lightest thing that I could do as far as pressure goes. I'm just tickled to death to have the opportunity to have Dale Jarrett as a teammate, drive for Robert Yates, racing the Texaco Havolin Taurus. The biggest thing is I have is a fast race car under me and I couldn't be happier. Giannone: You mentioned those six years you spent as an owner/driver. How difficult was that and how much easier is it now to just concentrate on sitting behind the wheel? Rudd: I think with any business you have a lot of responsibilities, racing included and maybe a little bit more responsibility. You end up spreading yourself a little bit too thin. You end up trying to wear too many hats. And I ended up focusing too much on the competition side of the car and not worrying about the sponsor relations and I had to go out and raise more money. Usually there's not enough hours in a day to do it all. With the Yates organization, it's a large powerful race team. [There are] two teams and they have everything it takes to go racing. They have support from Texaco and Havolin and the financial dollars that allows them to go out and buy and pay for the good help. They've got a tremendous amount of depth. I had a lot of good people, but I didn't have the depth and the amount of people that it took to do the job right in the recent years. So Yates has basically given me everything, all he ingredients it takes to go out there and win races. Giannone: You crashed one of your cars Sunday in the Bud Shootout. That kind of leaves you with no safety net. Have you changed your approach this week? Are you concerned that you don't have a second car in case something were to happen? Rudd: Well, that's probably the worst result that came from the Bud Shootout the other day. We had a good shot to win the thing. We were running second the majority of the race and we came down with about three [laps] to go, the communication broke down. I guess the spotters didn't quite relay the message, but when I pulled out to go, I thought Dale [Jarrett] was behind me and I looked up and there it was empty and there I was by myself and he was going in the other direction. It bottlenecked things up and certainly what happened at the end was [what] no one wanted to see. It was a big pileup. I was actually at the head of the pileup and one of the cars just turned sideways and caught me on the back bumper, turned me over and I slid across the finish line upside down. Certainly, [that was] not the way I wanted to start the first day on the job tearing my new boss's car to pieces. The main thing, we were in contention, we had a shot at winning it and it was just good to be racing up front again. Giannone: Ricky, thank you. Rudd: Thank you
| ||||||||||||||||||||
