THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 11, 1995 TAG: 9502100653
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C5 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: NASCAR '95: Season Preview
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DAYTONA BEACH, FLA. LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
After finishing fifth in the Winston Cup points race as a rookie car owner in 1994, Ricky Rudd can feel the heat of greater expectations.
And the 38-year-old driver from Chesapeake expects that his Tide Ford Thunderbird will, in fact, be better.
But it's not his car he's worried about. It's the competition.
``A lot of people are putting big expectations on this team we because we had such a good first year,'' he said this week as NASCAR practice opened at Daytona International Speedway. ``I know we're going to be a better, more competitive team than we were last year.
``But I don't think anyone can sit here and say we're going to win a championship or finish in the top five or top 10, because you don't know how much your competititors have picked up.''
For Rudd and the rest of the Ford teams, the key unknown is how the new Chevrolet Monte Carlos will run.
``I think the Chevrolets are definitely going to be tough,'' said Rudd, who drove a Chevrolet for Rick Hendrick before forming his own Ford team at the end of 1994. ``They've come into this with the Monte Carlo, and NASCAR has cooperated with them really good to try to accelerate their program on the Monte Carlo to get it up to par pretty quickly.
``Is the Monte Carlo going to be way behind or way ahead of the Ford? This is always the question with a new car. It could go either way; I'm not really sure at this point. But I feel like it will go one way or the other. They will either be extremely good or extremely poor.''
The Daytona 500 will be the first race for Rudd's baby son, Landon, who was born last August.
``Landon is dictating the way we travel,'' he said. ``We've got a motor home now, and we'll be traveling a lot on the road. That's really about the only way to travel if you've got a baby.''
Rudd, in fact, drove down himself in the big American Eagle. He and his wife, Linda, parked in the Fort Wilderness campground at Disney World and spent three days at the theme park before coming to Daytona.
Rudd said he'll probably bring the motor home to 75 percent of the races. He has a driver to handle most of the driving chores.
This is Rudd's 20th anniversary in the Winston Cup series. His first race was in 1975, at Rockingham. He's run every race since 1981 and has 15 career victories.
His best finish in the championship is second in 1991, when he was driving for Hendrick. His fifth-place finish last year, which included a victory at New Hampshire in July, was his second-best finish in the points.
``I know we're a lot better than we were a year ago, so we'd like to think we have a shot at the championship or in the top three,'' he said. ``I think a real test will be in the first four races of the season because you've got Daytona, a superspeedway, followed by the 1-mile track at Rockingham, and then Richmond, which is a shorter track, and Atlanta, which is a mile and a half.
``So you can tell pretty early how well you're going to run for the whole season just based on the first four races.'' ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE photo
``I know we're a lot better than we were a year ago,'' said Ricky
Rudd, who has won at least one Winston Cup race a year since 1983.
by CNB