Ricky Rudd, driver of the No. 88 Snickers Ford Fusion, will always remember his 900th start, but not for the reason he would like. Rudd suffered a shoulder injury during a multi-car accident in last weekend’s Sharp AQUOS 500 at California Speedway and will miss this weekend’s event. It marks the first time Rudd will not drive due to injury.
RICKY RUDD – No. 88 Snickers Ford Fusion – “I’m not here trying to drum up a lot of publicity, believe me, I’d rather low profile it, but some of you guys are interested because it’s a home track for us and Richmond has been a good race track for us over the years, so maybe this will keep you guys from having to run us down and come in here and answer a few questions. An injury like this, I’m not that tore up about it. I’m very happy that a shoulder injury is the only thing that I’m having to deal with. It could be a severe head injury considering the way the wreck was and the way these current cars are built and designed. They’ve got one major inherent design flaw and that’s that the driver sits way too close to the left side of the car. His head is very vulnerable in an accident like that, so all the safety devices and everything worked great. I think I had one little problem with the seat and head rest combination that probably messed my shoulder up. Had it not been for that, I’d still be here 100 percent today. Anyway, thank goodness for all the NASCAR safety stuff they’ve got in these cars today. It’s disappointing because this would probably have been my last Richmond race. I’m stepping out and retiring next year, so of all race tracks to be banged up for, to have to miss Richmond, that’s the hard part about it, but life goes on.”
DID YOU HIT WHERE THERE WAS NO SAFER BARRIER AND WAS THAT A FACTOR IN YOUR SHOULDER INJURY? “I’m still trying to figure out how that wreck happened. We wrecked in the straightaway basically. I guess Jeff Gordon stepped up and said he’s take credit for it, but people that saw the wreck said they had to play it back seven times or so to see how it actually developed. The wreck actually started sort of behind me. It was like a chain-reaction on an interstate highway. I think Jeff hit the guy in front of him and he hit the guy in front of him and the wreck actually started three or four cars behind me and worked its way forward. I never saw what hit me. All I know is the car made an immediate right-hand turn. I happened to be on the front straightaway and we were running two or three wide at the time, so my car turned immediately right and I was in the fence as quick as you snapped your fingers. As far as where I hit, as far as I know, most tracks – not just California – the soft wall generally ends at the exit of the corner. What I hit was pretty solid. It was a pretty hard hit. Again, back to the seat technology, I ran for many, many years – actually a couple of years ago – without any left side head rest or anything, so all that stuff did its job. But it was a pretty hard impact. I’ve hit a lot harder, I’ll put it that way, but the shoulder deal, again, I think what happened was a combination of the HANS device got wedged under the head rest arrangement and that’s what actually did the damage, but it was a hard hit because it was not a soft wall on the straightaway.”
DO YOU THINK THE SAME INJURY WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IN A COT? “Yes, I think I still would have because of the way the head rest attached to the seat arrangement. It’s hard to describe, but there’s a little ledge that rests about two inches about your HANS device, and I think I would have still had the same injury. When the guys built this car – this was a new car they purposely built for that race – we didn’t test it or anything, but they slid the seat to the right because they just didn’t feel comfortable. Your head is almost out in the clear air other than it’s right behind the window net, so there were nervous about it and they re-located the seat arrangement. It’s not a five-minute job to do, but that’s one good thing about the COT. It could very simply be incorporated into the cars we’re racing – I think we’ve got about five races left with the current car – but in the COT the possibility of banging your head on the wall is pretty much non-existent compared to the old style car.”
WITH ALL THE SAFETY INNOVATIONS OVER THE YEARS HOW SAFE DO YOU FEEL IT IS NOW IN A STOCK CAR? “I think as far as racing goes they’ve done an excellent job. It’s a shame it took the death of Earnhardt. I’ll be honest with you, before that I never considered our cars unsafe. We ran them for many, many years and really didn’t have many injuries until we started to see the fatalities with Adam Petty and Kenny Irwin and then Dale Earnhardt. A lot of safety innovations have taken place since that time. It’s unfortunate we couldn’t have had them earlier on, but I’m convinced that all three of those guys I mentioned would still be here today. We never thought of the cars being unsafe. Again, I ran for many, many years without any kind of left side protection to hold you in the car. There was no head rest, no left side rib support, no left side hip support, the leg extension braces we have on our seat, the way the steering column is arranged. This is the first year I’ve run all this stuff and I really have to thank David Gilliland for some of the stuff because we ran the Lajoie seat. In the past, my arms used to get tangled up in the seat and he sort of has a modified version of that seat. I drove his car in a test somewhere and I liked the seat a lot, so all of my seats are that way now. That good, safe seat is really probably what we owe most of the safety to as far as the wreck that I had with the head arrangement being so rigid and stiff, but, anyway, I think NASCAR does an excellent job – not that they didn’t do it in the past, but you kind of look at it before Earnhardt and after the Earnhardt situation. Since that time a lot of things have taken place in the emphasis of safety.”
COULD IT BE BETTER? “It could be better. The big thing that I’m very fortunate is what happened my shoulder got hung up underneath the head rest attached to the seat. Had it not gotten hung up and the HANS had not gotten jammed up underneath the seat, again, that means I would have put more emphasis on the stretch of the shoulder belts. Basically, when the wreck happened it threw me into the left side door cage and threw me towards the wall. Again, that clearance that you have between your helmet and the wall on those current cars – you’re talking about when you’re all stretched out probably less than an inch of head clearance between you and the wall. Whereas with the COT, for example, it’s probably a foot. That’s probably the only thing I can see right now that needs an immediate band-aid on it. I know there are only five races left on these cars, but that’s the only thing I can say. I don’t have an issue. My helmet didn’t get scratched up. My head didn’t hit the wall, but it does make you little nervous when you see the driver’s head sitting so far out almost into the air stream.”
IS THERE ANY CHANCE YOU’VE RUN YOUR LAST CUP RACE? “I don’t know. I don’t have an answer for that. That’s really kind of in the doctor’s hands. I’m going to the place that stretches you back out, tries to get you going again – the rehab center there – but I don’t have answer for that and they don’t have an answer right now. It’s considered what they call a level three separated shoulder. When I heard separated shoulder, I thought that sounded pretty good – it sounded a lot better than breaking. I understand that’s not necessarily a good thing, it’s torn ligaments and stretched ligaments. I’ve got one shoulder that’s always gonna be an inch-and-a-half taller than the other one even when it heals. That’s not a big deal, but as far as recovering from the injury, I don’t know. It could be next week, it could be five weeks or six weeks. I don’t know. There’s 11 weeks of racing if you count this weekend, so I don’t know. I’m open-minded. I hope it’s not my last race. I’m not planning on that, but we’ll just face it one weekend at a time. Right now we’ve got Kenny Wallace stepping in for us. He’s gonna do a good job for the team this weekend. That’s my plan, to go there and work with him as much as I can to shorten that communication that takes so long to develop with a crew chief. So I don’t have an answer for that. I hope not. I certainly hope not, but who knows.”
IF THE STREAK WAS STILL ALIVE WOULD YOU BE GETTING DUCT TAPED TO RACE? “There’s no question about it, I could get in a car, duct tape myself up and make a few laps – start the race. I don’t know if I could make it to the first caution. I kind of look at it from a team perspective right now. I’m 30th in driver points. Other than it would be sort of a self-satisfaction situation starting the race and being able to say I’ve never not started a race because of an injury. I could have accomplished that, but the big picture is that the team is 30, 32nd in the owner points. To drop out of the top 35 is a huge deal. By coming in and starting the race, it could be like Bristol where we ran 125 laps before the first caution. Our doctor was telling us, ‘I might be able to doctor you up and you might get 10-15-20 laps, but I can’t guarantee anything beyond that. I can’t even guarantee you that.’ So if you come in and you change drivers on a short track – even under yellow – you’re gonna lose two, three laps. We just can’t afford to get the team dug into that much of a hole, but if I was looking for an ego thing – I very well could start this race bandaged up and taped up, but for sure would not be able to finish this race.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR SEASON? “I’m glad I came back to race. I’m disappointed that our performances haven’t been better. I think we’ve got a seventh at Charlotte as our best run of the year. I think I caught some heat the other day. Someone said, ‘Oh, you sat out. He could you expect to come back and do well after sitting out a year’ because of the technology change. But the driver is not the responsible guy for the technology loop or lack of information. Our team was in a struggle last year. We have made improvements and we’re going in the right direction, but it is in severe need of a dose of healthy engineering influenced into the team. With the new Carl Haas, Lanigan, Paul Newman operation being merged with our operation, that’s gonna be a great thing but I don’t see that taking place until maybe in the winter and into next season. If I was 30 years old, I would have hung it out and waited and let the technology catch up and the team would get better. The team is gonna get better, it’s a matter of how long it’s gonna take. It’s disappointing that our performances haven’t been better – myself or David Gilliland. David is a fine driver. He’s as good as there is out there right now and, without beating up the guys at Yates Racing, they’re trying very hard. Our crew chief, Butch Hylton, and Todd Parrott are working as hard as they can, but they’re fighting a battle with one arm tied behind their back. They don’t have the tools in the toolbox to get it done and we’re waiting on that to happen right now.”
Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth are both locked into the Chase for the Nextel Cup. They addressed reporters after practice Friday to discuss the chase and what to expect this weekend at RIR.
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Office Depot Ford Fusion – HOW DOES MAKING THE CHASE THIS YEAR COMPARE TO ’05? “This is more satisfying because I think I have a lot more realistic view of how this competition can go. I think in ’05, everything just went really well and it all fell into place and we had a great year. We finished tied for second in points and at the end of the year I was a little disappointed. I thought, ‘Wow, we were real close to winning.’ And then ’06 came around and that made me realize that was a good year before – ’06 made me realize how easy it is to have a bad year or a year that you don’t run as well as you want to, so that makes this year really great. To win at Michigan and to win at Bristol is really satisfying. To run really well on the road courses has been great and to be locked into the chase two races before we go, that’s great.”
DO YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF A DARKHORSE? “I don’t know if I’m a darkhorse. We’ve run well enough lately. Hopefully, we’re one of the guys to beat, but it doesn’t really matter what people consider you, it’s just how you run.”
WHAT IS YOUR DEFINITION OF A DARKHORSE? “I wouldn’t say that Jimmie Johnson or Jeff Gordon are underdogs. They’re not lurking like nobody has noticed has noticed them. I think guys like Clint Bowyer and Martin Truex, I think those guys are the guys that really have the opportunity to surprise everyone this year.”
IS TOMORROW NIGHT LIKE AN ALL-STAR RACE MENTALITY? “I guess if there were a tie at the end of the year, second could can be pretty important. But, other than that, there’s nothing to do tomorrow night for the top eight guys in points but to go win the race. That’s what we’re doing and it’s really fun. Somebody else said that they’ve never come to this race without all the pressure and everything and I feel the same way. This place has always been a place where you feel just a little choked down – you’ve got a weight on your shoulders – and it’s cool to come here and just be able to have a good time and race.”
WILL WE SEE A DIFFERENT KIND OF RACE? “I think you’re gonna see a pretty exciting race. I think a lot of people are a little bit disappointed because the points race isn’t very exciting, but I think the actual racing on the race track – the people who buy tickets – are gonna see a very exciting race just because there are at least eight guys that don’t have anything to lose.”
WHAT’S IT BEEN LIKE TO BE BACK WITH BOB OSBORNE? “It’s been great to be with Bob. I like Bob a lot. He’s a funny guy. He’s so dry – hilarious. I really like him. Wally Brown is a great guy and I think we ran really well with Wally. I think we had more top 10s and better runs on average last year when we finished than we have this year, so we’ve performed just as well, but Bob’s a good guy. I hope I can be with Bob for the rest of my career. That would be great.”
DOES HIS DRY SENSE OF HUMOR APPEAR ON RACE DAY? “Bob reminds me a lot of somebody like Matt Kenseth. A lot of people don’t realize how funny they are. You have to be around them for such a long time because you can’t get it in a soundbite. His humor takes months sometimes to come out. It’s just really fun to work with him and it’s really fun to get to know him really well.”
YOU RAN THE SIDE OF A MOUNTAIN LAST WEEK AT CALIFORNIA. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO TONIGHT? “I don’t know what I’m gonna do. It’s gonna be a long night. I think I’m gonna go rest a little bit in the motor home. I don’t know, if Tom comes up with something crazy to do. Last time we were here we went and searched for relics – Civil War stuff – with the metal detector, but I think Tom loaned that to Bobby Hudson. I think he’s been doing that lately at home, so I don’t know. Richmond is such a historic place that it’s cool just to go out in the woods and look for stuff. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.”
DO CUP GUYS LIKE RUNNING IN BUSCH BECAUSE MOST OF THE GUYS ARE THERE TO JUST RACE FOR A WIN? “Yeah. I think all the short track racers around the country, people running at their local dirt tracks, one of the things that’s frustrating – for me it was always frustrating – because you never know if somebody is cheating or if they’ve got more money in their motor and stuff like that. At this level, the way the rules are set up, you actually get a great competition. You can go in and really enjoy it. I guess these last couple of weeks I’ve been able to do that in a Cup car – just go have fun and enjoy it for the competition and that might be a big part of why these guys go do a Busch race. I do it for points, but if I was running a truck out here, it would just be pure fun. That’s all it would be. I’m assuming that, combined with getting paid to do something that fun, that’s the reason.”
NEXT WEEK IT WON’T BE FUN ANYMORE. “Oh yeah. I’ve been thinking about it. You’ve got to be careful not to get out of your zone. I don’t think you’ll see anybody fist-fighting this week over stuff, but next week could be crazy if something happens because that’s it. It’s 10 races to determine a champion, so everything is on the line. There are 12 guys who can do it and that’s gonna be pretty exciting.”
WHAT DID YOU LEARN ABOUT ’05 THAT CAN HELP YOU THIS YEAR IN THE CHASE? “In ’05 we had great luck. Everything went well, but, assuming we had the same luck, if I could go back to ’05, I think we could win the championship just because on those days I ran 15th – I think we ran pretty poorly at Loudon and Martinsville – I think I could have done a better job of milking a little bit more out of those races and gain another 20-30 points and it would have been a different season. Hindsight is pretty easy, but that’s how I’ve matured. In ’05, if I finished 12th, that was the end of the world. I think in the race car, if you get that mentality, instead of finishing 12th, it’s real easy to finish 15th or 18th.”
THE FACT THE PRESSURE IS OFF FOR SOME GUYS, WILL THAT EFFECT THIS RACE AT ALL? “It’s just like we talked about, there are eight guys that definitely don’t have anything to lose. It’s gonna make it a fun race for the fans.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE CHASE BEING 12 INSTEAD OF 10? “I think up to this point making it 12 drivers, you never know how it’s gonna turn out. There could be eight guys around 12th, but it turns out there’s just one guy in 13th that can possibly make it. I don’t think it’s really made a big difference, it’s probably just made it a little easier as far as anxiety and stress for the guys that are in – just having those extra two slots built a point cushion for everybody else, but I don’t think it’s really changed the way the racing has gone on the race track or anything.”
WITH SO MANY CHEVYS IN THE CHASE, WILL THAT MAKE YOU GUYS A DARKHORSE? “I’m really proud to be driving a Ford Fusion and I think we’ve been running better lately. Chevrolet definitely has done a good job this year, but all you can look at is the past month or so in this sport. If you look at the last few races, we’ve been running really well. Jimmie ran great last week and so did we. At Bristol we were pretty good, Kasey was good. I don’t know that there’s really a darkhorse right now. I think so many guys are running well that it’s gonna be dictated by luck.”
THERE ARE STILL 10 BONUS POINTS OUT THERE TOMORROW. “Listen, if it comes to a three-way battle at the end of the race and three guys are under the white flag 1-2-3 and they’re all in the chase, that’s gonna be pretty exciting. But that’s really all we have to gain is just 10 points. Second doesn’t really do much for us at this point.”
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion – IS IT JUST A CASE OF GOING OUT AND RACING HARD TOMORROW? “We race hard every week. There’s really nothing extra. There’s nothing we can do to try any harder than we try. We approach every race the same – try to go out and win every week and run the best we can. At the same time, you try to finish the race and try to learn some stuff for New Hampshire and these other tracks we have to run the COT at.”
DOES ANYTHING TRANSFER FROM RICHMOND TO NHIS? “I think you can learn some things. You still have kind of flat corners and you’re still running the same car, which is relatively new to all of us. We’re still trying to learn and trying new things on it to try and make it better. I think you can carry some stuff over.”
SOME SAY SECOND DOESN’T MEAN ANYTHING TOMORROW. WILL THAT CREATE A DIFFERENT MENTALITY AT THE END? “I don’t know. Maybe people say that, but I can’t think of a race where I haven’t tried as hard as I could to win. Even if there’s not a points incentive, if you’re running second and you just can’t catch the leader or if you’re running third and you can’t catch the leader without wrecking, well, are you gonna wreck your car or are you gonna finish second or third? You’re still gonna finish second or third if you can’t catch the leader, so I don’t think it changes. It’s still a race. The definition of race is that everybody tries as hard as they can to beat everybody else and that’s what we do every week.”
SO MAYBE AN ALL-STAR RACE MENTALITY? “I think momentum is still important. I think we’re still trying to learn stuff for New Hampshire and Martinsville and some of these other tracks – Phoenix probably more than all the rest – so I’m not gonna approach it any different. I’m just gonna do the things we do every week and try to get the best we can out of it.”
IS IT JUST A COINCIDENCE THERE ISN’T MORE DRAMA WITH THE POINTS THIS YEAR? “No, of course not. If it was 10, there would be a lot of drama. If you look at 10th place, you’ve got ninth, 10th, 11th and 12th are all within 30-40 points and it would be a great race to see who is in and who is out, just like it was the last two years. Obviously, the more cars you include, the less dramatic it’s gonna be to see who makes it.”
CAN YOU JUST FLIP THE SWITCH ON WHEN THE CHASE STARTS IF YOU’VE BEEN EXPERIMENTING THE LAST FEW WEEKS? “I don’t know. Like I said, we do everything the same. We don’t really change. The first year the chase was in play we changed our strategy and tested different and tried different things and it all just kind of blew up. I just think you bring your best piece to the track every week. You put your best foot forward, you work as hard as you can and see how it turns out.”
WILL THE COT BE MUCH DIFFERENT THIS TIME AT RIR? “I won’t really know until tomorrow night, but I hope we’ve learned some things over the last few months. I hope we got them better. The 99 has really been running the best out of the bunch with the COT cars – out of the Roush cars – so we’re trying to look at what they do and we’re trying to come up with some new ideas and try to develop some stuff and make it better. Certainly it seems like we’re better speedwise and we’ll have to wait until the night is over to see, but I feel like we’ve made some gains.”
DO YOU FEEL IT’S IMPORTANT FOR THE FANS THAT ALL THE STARS MAKE THE CHASE? “I think you’d have to ask a fan that. Me as a driver, as long as we’re in, I don’t care who makes it and who doesn’t make it. We have enough to worry about ourselves and trying to be competitive every week and trying to make the chase and race for championships – more than worry about anybody else. I think it should be like any other sport. I think you’ve got to prove your worth every race and every year. The Colts won the Super Bowl last year, but that doesn’t mean they’re gonna make the Super Bowl this year. They’ve still got to earn it. They’ve got to play a game every week and they’ve still got to win every week and win their playoff games. It’s the same way here. You shouldn’t just automatically be in because of your name, you should have to earn it every year.”
IS THERE A STRATEGY OR FORMULA TO DO WELL IN THE CHASE? “Again, we don’t change our strategy. We put our best foot forward every week. We bring our best piece and we work as hard as we can to try to win. There’s no week that we really go try not to win. We try to win every week. The point system still pays the most points to win and lead the most laps and if you can’t do that, it pays the second-most for second and so on. You finish as high as you can every week and do the best job you can every week and don’t worry about the points. Wherever they stack up, they stack up.”
ARE YOU MORE CAREFUL THROUGHOUT? “I can’t really answer that because I haven’t ever really been in that position. When we won the championship that year, we were ahead and we were a little conservative on engine parts and gear ratios and stuff like that, but, other than that, we raced exactly the same. We raced as hard as we could race. We called the races to try to win the races and we didn’t do anything different. Certainly if you’re going into the last race and you’ve got 100 point lead or something, you’re gonna be more careful – like Jimmie was probably more careful at Homestead than if we would have been 50 points behind last year. So if you get in the last race and you’re trying to protect the lead, you might try to do something a little different, but with only 10 races to get it done, the chances of that happening before the last race aren’t very good.”
NEXTEL CUP QUALIFYING
CARL EDWARDS (Qualified 6th) – No. 99 Office Depot Ford Fusion – “We’ve picked up being here for the second time. Other people are picking up too, but I feel like we’ve made great improvements. Chris Andrews came over and told me we’ve got lots more stuff to do for Loudon, so I’m very excited about the future of this car of tomorrow at Roush Racing. It’s gonna be a fun race. The spring race was no fun for me, but if we can run as well as I think we’re going to, it’s gonna be great.”
DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 AAA Ford Fusion (Qualified 8th) – “If you can’t get the pole or the outside pole, anywhere in the top 10 is pretty good. I feel like our AAA Ford is equally good in race trim. We ran really well here in the spring, so we’re just kind of building on that. Hopefully, we can have some luck tomorrow night and bring it home in the top 10.”
DO YOU NOTICE A DIFFERENCE IN THE COT FROM THE FIRST RIR RACE? “As a team we’ve gotten better. As a company we’ve gotten better with more testing. Obviously we’re learning what to do to make these cars drive a little better and how to fine-tune them to make them faster. As a whole, you should be better the second time around. If you’re worse the second time around, then someone is gonna be in trouble. That’s what we’re here to do is get better and as long as we keep doing tha
