DATE: Tuesday, June 3, 1997                 TAG: 9706030464

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C2   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: DOVER, DEL.                       LENGTH:   60 lines

PRESSURE OFF, RUDD SAYS AFTER VICTORY IN DOVER RACE

If there was anything that surprised Ricky Rudd about his victory in the Miller 500 at Dover Downs International Speedway on Sunday, it was that it came so early in the season.

The last time he won a race in the first half of the season was at Darlington in April 1991. And the last two years, he did not make it into Victory Lane until almost the end of the season - Phoenix in 1995 and Rockingham in 1996.

``I really don't know how to act, to tell you the truth,'' Rudd said Sunday. ``We've really won early and we really weren't expecting it.''

Rudd's Tide Ford Thunderbird was not the fastest car Sunday. But it was good enough to keep him in the top 10 all day. And when the three fastest - Jeff Gordon, Dale Jarrett and Ernie Irvan - found trouble of one sort or another in the final 50 miles, Rudd was the beneficiary.

He managed to hold off a challenge from Mark Martin in the final laps, but Martin raced him clean, which in NASCAR-speak is to say he beat on Rudd's bumper only a little bit, and did not run him over.

``He had all the opportunities to spin me out on the last lap and he chose not to,'' Rudd said. ``I owe him that courtesy some other day if the situation is reversed.''

``I'll take 'em any way I can get 'em,'' he said after bounding into the press box. ``I've won 'em different ways over a 20-year career.''

In fact, in each of the last 15 years, Rudd has a race. He's won for five car owners, including himself. And his last three wins were with different crew chiefs.

He rarely wins more than once a year. That's only happened three times (1983, 1986 and 1987). But only Dale Earnhardt - at least one win a year since 1982 - entered the season with a longer streak.

``I guess a couple of years ago, when we took on our own team (1994), I started thinking about that record,'' Rudd said. ``I felt back then we might go two or three years before we could get our team built up where we could win races. When we went out on our own, I really felt like we were sacrificing that win streak.

``I take a lot of pride in it. It's taken on a life of its own, and it's become a lot more important to me.''

For Rudd, the pressure is off for another season.

``Usually, the pressure starts setting in about halfway or three-quarters of the way into a season,'' he said. ``This time, it's a gift to have it this year so early in the year.''

In fact, Rudd was a bit off his usual pace this year. He had only had two top-five finishes before Dover. The only race he had led was the 500-miler at Texas. But he has finished every race, and so he is in the top 10 in Winston Cup points, as usual, sitting eighth. Rudd has finished in the top 10 every since since 1981 with the exception of 1988, when he was 11th.

``We've got so many new people this year,'' he said. ``We have two new engineers and a new crew chief in Jim Long. I really feel like our team, as the season goes on, will post more and more top-fives and with that, we'll post some wins.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo

``It's taken on a life of its own,'' Ricky Rudd says of his 15-year

streak of winning at least once each year.

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