Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500 - Ricky Rudd Notes

Ricky Rudd on Atlanta Motor Speedway:
"You end up with sort of a love-hate thing"

Ricky Rudd, driver of the #21 Motorcraft Racing Ford Taurus, will be making his 45th consecutive start at Atlanta Motor Speedway this coming Sunday. Rudd has one win on the "old" track and a couple top-10's since the track was re-configured in 1997. His record on the original one-and-a-half-mile true oval was definitely better than on the new high-speed version, but he is looking forward to this weekend because of his team.

"You've got the new Atlanta, and you had the old Atlanta. I preferred the old Atlanta better, mainly because the speeds were down about 20 miles per hour. We won a race at the old Atlanta.

"The new Atlanta, when we went there, the qualifying speeds were up to almost 200 miles per hour. We ran 198 or so. The speeds have now fallen off somewhat, about five miles an hour or so because the asphalt, like all tracks do. The fastest times are usually when they are brand new.

"And then the tracks weather a little bit, that to me has made the racing at Atlanta better. It's gotten the speeds down a little bit and its allowed for the top groove of the race track to come in. It's a good example of a race track where you have racing at the top of the race track and racing at the bottom of the race track.

"But it's a very non-forgiving race track. If you miss the setup just a little there you pay the price, because Atlanta is 70 percent corner and 30 percent straightaway so if you miss the handling setup there it can begin to multiply. I've had trouble at Atlanta and I don't know why. I've qualified in the top five, won on the old Atlanta and run in the top five on the new Atlanta. It's a track where there is a fine line on missing the setup. You end up with sort of a love-hate thing. If you miss it big time it can be pretty embarrassing.

"I'm excited about the Wood Brothers car, the 21 Motorcraft/Air Force Ford; that car tends to perform well there. What you find out is that the performance of the cars are not so much driver-related on a race track he likes as much as the team setups that make you run well at certain tracks. So I look at tracks like Atlanta, and that is going to be a good run for us because the team traditionally has a good handling car there."

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