THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 29, 1995 TAG: 9509290634
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: MOORESVILLE, N.C. LENGTH: Long : 120 lines
Richard Childress was his car owner, Piedmont Airlines still existed and Jeff Gordon was celebrating his 11th birthday. The year was 1982, and Ricky Rudd was building a reputation as one of the rising stars on NASCAR's Winston Cup circuit.
``Gosh, I was young. It seems like so long ago,'' Rudd said as he recalled a season in which he had two second-place finishes and won $201,130.
Something else significant happened that year: Rudd failed to win a race.
From 1983 through 1994, Rudd has won at least one race each season in stock car racing's top series. But unless he wins one of the five remaining races this season, his streak will end at 12 straight years.
To put that run into perspective, consider that only one other driver on the circuit has matched Rudd's accomplishment, and that is seven-time Winston Cup champion Dale Earnhardt. Including his four victories this year, Earnhardt has won at least one per season since 1982, a span of 14 years.
No one else comes close. Rusty Wallace started a streak in 1986, Geoff Bodine in 1988 and Mark Martin in 1989. Bill Elliott started one in 1983 but it ended two years ago.
Rudd faces the prospect of his ending unless he can win at North Wilkesboro, Charlotte, Rockingham, Phoenix or Atlanta. The streak does not consume Rudd, but he admits that it does represent a priority of sorts.
``It does, and yet in a way, it doesn't,'' he said. ``It's one of those things that when you sit back in a rocking chair, you'll have something nice to reflect on years from now. And I'd certainly like to keep it going, but you really don't have a whole lot of time to dwell on it during the season.''
Rudd, 39, has won 15 races and more than $9 million in his Winston Cup career. He, wife, Linda, and year-old son Landon maintain residences in Chesapeake and Lake Norman, N.C., and Rudd is in his second year as a Winston Cup car owner. He has a multimillion-dollar sponsorship from Tide and a well-appointed shop to house his racing operation in Mooresville.
It's a far cry from 1982, when Childress, still struggling to make the transition from independent driver to car owner, showed up at Daytona International Speedway with a Pontiac and a winless, 25-year-old driver named Rudd.
``Piedmont Airlines stepped up,'' Rudd recalled of the air carrier that subsequently became part of USAir. ``It was a very small sponsorship, even for those days. I think it was about $200,000.''
But Rudd won two outside poles that year and had seven top-10 finishes in the red, white and blue Pontiac.
``The car was a lot more competitive than we thought it would be,'' he said.
Rudd drove for Childress again the next year and won at Riverside and Martinsville. And the streak was born.
In 1984, Rudd began a four-year stint driving for Bud Moore and had six more victories. From there, it was on to Kenny Bernstein and two more wins the next two years. Rudd joined Rick Hendrick's stable in 1990 and stayed there for four seasons, winning once each year. While with Hendrick, Rudd had his most successful season, finishing second to Earnhardt in the 1991 points battle.
The streak appeared as if it would be ripe to end last year, Rudd's first as a car owner. But Rudd won at Loudon, N.H., and finished fifth in the points, surprising results for a first-year team.
``I knew the streak would be very much in jeopardy some year, especially in the early years as an owner,'' Rudd said. ``But it's kind of strange that it's come down to this.''
Indeed, Rudd appears to be coming on even stronger in 1995. But wrecks and mechanical failures have relegated him to 14th in the points standings.
``We have more top-five finishes this year than we did last year,'' he said. ``We've led more laps this year than we led in '94. We've got more top-10 finishes this year. We've got one pole and I think four outside poles. On the track, performance-wise, it's been a much more competitive year. Where it's hurt us has been the DNF (did-not-finish) column and the miles-completed column. We're just not there at the end.''
Of the five remaining races, four are on superspeedways, including the season-ending race at Atlanta, where Rudd has already won during his streak.
``It's pretty simple to kind of block out the streak right now because you just stay focused on each race. But winning's kind of like a tempo thing, and our tempo on the big tracks has been building. So who knows?'' ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS photo
``I knew the streak would be very much in jeopardy some year. . . .
But it's kind of strange that it's come down to this,'' says Ricky
Rudd, left.
Graphic
RUDD'S RUN
A list of victories in Ricky Rudd's streak of winning at least
one race in each of the last 12 years on the Winston Cup circuit,
with race name, site and car owner:
1983: Budweiser 400, Riverside, Calif., Richard Childress.
Virginia National Bank 400, Martinsville, Va., Richard
Childress.
1984: Miller High Life 400, Richmond, Bud Moore.
1985: Winston Western 500, Riverside, Calif., Bud Moore.
1986: Sovran Bank 500, Martinsville, Va., Bud Moore.
Delaware 500, Dover, Del., Bud Moore.
1987: Motorcraft 500, Hampton, Ga., Bud Moore.
Delaware 500, Dover, Del., Bud Moore.
1988: Budweiser at the Glen, Watkins Glen, N.Y., Kenny
Bernstein.
1989: Banquet Foods 300, Sears Point, Calif., Kenny Bernstein.
1990: Budweiser at the Glen, Watkins Glen, N.Y., Rick Hendrick.
1991: TranSouth 500, Darlington, S.C., Rick Hendrick.
1992: Peak Antifreeze 500, Dover, Del., Rick Hendrick.
1993: Miller Genuine Draft 400, Brooklyn, Mich., Rick Hendrick.
1994: Slick 50 300, Loudon, N.H., Ricky Rudd.
1995: Five Winston Cup races remain:
Oct. 1: Tyson-Holly Farms 400, North Wilkesboro, N.C.
Oct. 8: UAW-GM 500, Charlotte.
Oct. 22: AC-Delco 400, Rockingham, N.C.
Oct. 29: Slick 50 500, Phoenix.
Nov. 12: NAPA 500, Hampton, Ga.
by CNB