Pennsylvania 500 - Ford Saturday Quotes

Matt Kenseth, driver of the No. 17 DEWALT Power Tools Taurus, holds a 234-point lead over second-place Jeff Gordon in the NASCAR Winston Cup point standings. Kenseth held a Q&A session before Saturday morning's practice sessions in the Pocono Raceway infield media center.

MATT KENSETH - No. 17 DEWALT Power Tools Taurus - WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THIS YEAR AND LAST YEAR? "The biggest difference this year, so far, has been - knock on wood - we haven't broken any parts or pieces yet and we haven't been in the big accidents at the speedways. Last year we got destroyed in all three speedway races up to this point at Daytona and Talladega and got bad finishes. By this time last year, I think we had three DNFs or really poor finishes from pieces and parts breaking and flat tires and things like that, so this year we've been a little luckier in that part or maybe have done a little better job preparing. I feel like our performance has been as good as last year. We've turned some bad finishes into good finishes, but we've also taken some winning cars and maybe not won and finished sixth or seventh because we didn't do a perfect job at the end of the day. So as far as our race finishes for how good we ran, I think we've pretty much averaged that out. So far we've just been fortunate to have things go our way as far as finishing races." IS THE CHEMISTRY BETTER THIS YEAR WITH THE TEAM? "I don't know if the chemistry is really better. It feels like this year we've maybe been a little more prepared to run for a championship - not necessarily to win it - but to maybe run for it. Last year, even though we won five races, I never really felt all year like we had all the tools to be able to have a serious, legitimate shot at the championship. I just didn't feel like everything was quite going that way. Last year was a great year for us, it was a great building year, we were able to win a lot of races and put ourselves in position to win a lot of races, but we also had a lot of problems. We learn from our wins and we learn from our problems." ARE YOU GOING TO DO A RAIN DANCE EVERY WEEK? "No, not really (laughing). Qualifying hasn't really been the best thing for us. The only good thing about qualifying up front for me is that we have an easier chance of leading a lap and getting five points. I think we qualified ninth or 10th - I didn't watch the last car qualify yesterday - but that's great for us. If we're ever better than 22nd or 23rd, we're really happy. If we can be somewhere in the middle of the pack we seem to do OK from there. It's not that we don't try qualifying hard, it's just usually where we end up." IT MUST FEEL GOOD IN THE MORNING THOUGH TO START UP FRONT LIKE LAST WEEK? "Yeah, it's OK but it's always something. I felt good about starting up front, but I was also nervous about trying to lead a lap right away. I knew the 24 tested up there and was real fast. If I wouldn't have driven really hard and led that very first lap, we wouldn't have led a lap all day. Like I said, it's always something, but it is good to start up front and have track position. It seems like a lot of times we'll have our car almost running better at the end of the race if we start mid-pack because we work on the car more and we have to pass more traffic and get our car to work around other cars. Sometimes, for some reason, it seems to help us a little bit." DO YOU FIND YOURSELF RELUCTANT TO TAKE CHANCES AT CERTAIN TRACKS BECAUSE OF THE CHAMPIONSHIP AND WOULD YOU TAKE THAT CHANCE MORE AT A PLACE LIKE INDY? "No, not really. All of the races are really kind of the same to me. Yeah, there are some races that would be neater to win than others, I guess, but they all pay the same points. I race the same all the time. I don't really know how to race any different. I'm really a firm believer that when you start being conservative that's when trouble is gonna find you. I've seen it in the past at the speedways when we had those roof whickers and stuff, they would lay back to last place and get wrecked. I just don't believe in that. I think you're best off to go qualify the best you can and race as far toward the front as you can all day and see where it shakes out at the end of the day. Especially at this point in the year, I don't think there's anything to being conservative. I mean, there are 17 races left and, yeah, boy it looks pretty nice right now if we don't have problems or things happen, but on the other side of that, two weeks of trouble and that could be gone too. There's just so much racing left. We're just out racing as hard as we can and trying to extend the lead if we can." WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS WHEN OTHER DRIVERS SAY IT'S GOING TO BE TOUGH TO CATCH YOU? "The way we've run so far this year, I feel good about it if we can keep that up and not have problems finishing every week. But, like I said, a couple of weeks with problems and that could be gone. I am happy with the way we're running. We're not running 14th and barely trying to maintain the lead. Last week, we led a lap and came back through and finished third. If we can keep running like that and running in the top five and, on a bad day run in the top 10 and on a good day run in the top 5, that's what we need to do." A LOT OF GUYS GET OF THE CAR HERE AND ARE SHAKING AFTER QUALIFYING. YOU DIDN'T. WHY? "You probably weren't down there right when I get done (laughing). Everybody is different in qualifying. Qualifying is tough because you always try to get the most out of your car. Yesterday, it was weird for me because my car was real comfortable and easy to driver in qualifying. It was actually the fastest car I ever had here qualifying. Sometimes they drive easy and sometimes they scare you to death qualifying, but qualifying is always stressful because you go out and try to get all you can get for one lap." HOW MANY TESTS DO YOU HAVE LEFT AND WILL YOUR STANDING HAVE ANY EFFECT ON THAT? "We already had them all scheduled. We've got three tests left. We're testing at Watkins Glen Monday and Tuesday, we're testing at Darlington in a few weeks and we're testing at Martinsville in early October. We just tried to pick our weakest tracks and test at them all year. That's pretty much what our plan was all year, no matter where we were (in points). We didn't pick a place where we were pretty strong at and try to go there and figure one thing out to win, we tried to pick our weakest places out and go there and test and try to get good, solid finishes." IS IT MORE WORRISOME BEING THE LEADER? "The position we've been in the last two or three weeks have probably been more - I don't know the right word - not necessarily stressed out but maybe worried more about things than what I was last year being second or third or fourth or fifth in the points at this time because we were a long ways behind. We needed everything to go perfect and for the leader to have trouble to catch up to him, whereas this year we're in the lead but if we have trouble, they're gonna be right on our heels. So there's definitely some pressure there and you're definitely thinking about every little thing on the car and not wanting anything to break mostly." YOU CAME IN AS MARK MARTIN'S PROTÉGÉ AND HE'S COME CLOSE TO A TITLE. HOW HAS YOUR RELATIONSHIP DEVELOPED? "Mark's been through the championship battle a few times and he's had some really great runs and finished really good, and he's had some problems that maybe kept him out of it. Hopefully, not just me as a driver but as a company and as a team, we try to learn from that and try to do a better job of that to get to the end of the year without things going wrong. But he's definitely helped me a lot and he's definitely taught me a lot about my racing style when we first started. I think the way he races and maybe some of the stuff that he tries to teach me help gets you to the end of races. Mark is real good at laying it out there when it needs to be, but not taking chances when he doesn't need to, either." IF YOU WERE TOLD AT DAYTONA YOU WOULD WIN THE TITLE WITHOUT WINNING A RACE, WOULD YOU TAKE IT? "This year I probably would, but last year I wouldn't. It's kind of weird. The last couple of weeks I've been seeing questions arise about the points system again. I haven't been getting grief about it, but seeing things like he hasn't won the most races and this and that. Last year, I got grief because we won the most races and didn't have the most points, so I'm on both ends of it so far and can't win either way (laughing)." WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE SYSTEM? SHOULD THERE BE POINTS FOR QUALIFYING? "Definitely not for qualifying - definitely not (laughing). I think the points system is pretty good. Even last year people asked me because we won five races and finished eighth in the points, they thought that was so terrible. I think that's good. I remember the years Rusty Wallace would win 10 races, but he would blow up in 10 races. Well, that's not the sign of a championship team. A championship team doesn't come in and finish first 10 times and finish last 10 times because their equipment wasn't reliable and they all didn't do their job. I think the sign of a championship team is it's not just about the driver or just about winning one or two races on a Sunday, it's about putting together a whole season of nine months - or whatever it is - and not dropping out of races and not crashing and how bad your bad days are. I don't think it's right in a series that long to have it where a guy can go out and win one week and the next week he can crash and finish last and still win it. I think it has to be built on consistency and how good of a job everybody did at the shop and at the race track all year." WHAT'S BEEN ADDED THIS YEAR TO MAKE YOU FEEL YOU CAN WIN THE TITLE? "That's a really hard question to answer. It's more of a feeling and a morale thing and just the way you feel about it. Last year we had never been in the hunt before. We had a terrible 2001 and just started improving on it at the end of 2001 and running good. Last year we started running good right away, but I just didn't feel like we were really prepared to make a serious title run because of the bad year we had in 2001. Up to last year we had won only one race before. We never had really been in that position and never really ran consistently up front every week to be able to do the things we needed to to be a contender. Last year, we started doing that off and on. We still had our bad weeks and I probably didn't do the best job on some weeks and had some problems on other weeks and that cost us, but we also did have the good experience of winning some races and finishing in the top five and finishing good. So I felt like coming into this year, I learned a lot from last year - from the good and bad - and I thought that would make us a little more consistent." SO THE EXPECTATIONS WERE HIGHER? "I just think we knew a little bit more of how to react to certain situations or not to react to certain situations and maybe be a little bit smarter in picking our equipment or using the right stuff that's gonna be competitive and make it to the end of the race - that sort of thing." YOU'VE BEEN GOOD AT WATKINS GLEN, BUT NEVER WON. WHAT'S THE KEY TO DO THAT? "Basically, what's kept me from that is stupidity. We were leading the Busch race one time and I drove off the track. We still finished third or fourth. Last year, we had a great car and I drove it off the track on about lap five, so it's just being dumb and not using my head. That's the main thing - you've got to keep the parts on the car, but you've got to use your head and keep it on the asphalt all day, too. I felt real good about the car we had last year and the cars we're taking this year to test. I just need to be smarter and do a better job. You have to get it through 11 corners every single lap and keep it on the track while running fast at the same time. Sometimes that's difficult to do and you have to use your head to do that." OFF THE TRACK DISTRACTIONS? "It's a little busier than what it was, but it's not bad. You just have to manage it and manage your time and find time to do things that help you relax so you can keep concentrate on your racing. It's definitely a busier year than what we had last year and last year was busier than the year before, so when you're busy and people want you to do stuff, I guess that's a good thing because it means we're running decent. But it's definitely been a little busier." WHAT DO YOU DO AWAY FROM THE TRACK TO RELAX? AND YOU SEEM TO BE THE KIND OF GUY WHO JUST COMES IN AND DOES HIS JOB IN A LOW-KEY MANNER. "Yeah, I do things to relax just like anybody. I enjoy riding motorcycles. Sometimes me and Katie will just take a day and go for a ride on the motorcycle and just go somewhere and come back. Or we'll go on the boat and hang out. We've also got a little place up in Wisconsin that's kind of in the middle of nowhere. We might go out there and hang out for a couple of days and get away from everything - that type of stuff. As far as the show or the fanfare and all that stuff, some of that I can't control. Some of that is how much surrounds you for some reason. It's not like I shy away from the media or shy away from doing appearances or any of that stuff. I think I do quite a bit of it. Sometimes how people perceive you or how they talk about your or what they think about you is just what they're gonna say. Yeah, I show up and racing is my primary job, but if racing wasn't my primary job, I probably wouldn't be here. It's always what I've enjoyed doing. When me and my dad started racing when I was real young, we didn't have a lot of money but we just raced and worked on cars. That's the way it's always been since I started. It's always been about the racing. We never had the luxury of having a lot of money or owning a big company or doing any of that to put me in a really good race at a high series and seeing if I could drive around. We had to come from the bottom and work all the way through it and I still try to take that approach when I'm at the race track - especially during practice and all that stuff. I'm trying to think about my race car and what I can do to make that faster and get it up front." THE 20-RACE STRETCH MIGHT EXPAND TO 26 AND JACK HAS SAID 40 STRAIGHT WOULDN'T BOTHER HIM. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THAT POSSIBILITY? "Don't ask Jack those questions (laughing). Twenty-six straight is a lot. Twenty straight is a lot. It's not so bad, necessarily for the drivers for some of us that can still take time off. If I have to or if I really wanted to put my foot down, I could take off all that week if I wanted to. I could take off three days and go back to the track on Thursday, but the crew guys don't have that option. We have one hauler and one-and-a-half transport drivers and that has to be back at the shop every week. They work Monday-Thursday and they sometimes get a day off on Thursday or something for a travel day, but they're working all week to keep the cars ready and they're at the race track all weekend. I think that's a lot. I think it's possible to run more races, but I just don't know how you'd run them on weekends all the time. I think you could run a couple short tracks on a Wednesday and a Sunday, but I think it would be tough to go 26 straight. I think 20 straight is already stretching it. We already had to race Thanksgiving one year, so that would be a lot." WHAT IS YOUR MENTAL MAKEUP WHILE LEADING THE POINTS? "First of all, it's so competitive that to win five races last year, everytime we won I was as surprised as the last time we won. I mean, it's so difficult to win these races. I don't expect to win them or, at least last year, never got disappointed for not winning races. We were able to win Vegas, which was great for us this year. I sure think we're plenty capable of getting back to victory lane, we just haven't had everything go exactly the way we needed it to go. At times that's a little frustrating. I sure would like to win another race or two here and kind of show that we're capable of doing that and kind of show what we're made of, plus that check back there is $200,000 for that leader bonus. I see that sitting there, so that would be cool thing to collect too. I think we're capable of winning races and I really think we'll be able to get back to victory lane sometime this year and I hope it's soon." IS IT AN ADVANTAGE FOR YOU THAT YOU ARE KIND OF LOW KEY AND MAYBE THEY DON'T KNOW YOU AS WELL? "First of all, before last year my first two-and-a-half years in Winston Cup I never saw Jeff Gordon out of his motorhome one time in my life. He'd walk in there at 4 o'clock and I'd never see him again, so I don't think I'm a hermit or don't ever come out of the motorhome or the trailer. I actually think I'm probably out more than the average of the drivers because I don't get surrounded quite as much as some of those guys. I think they probably hide more than I do, but I don't think there's any big mystery. I go out and do stuff or hang out just as much as maybe the other guy does." WHAT WAS IT LIKE YOUR FIRST TRIP TO THE BRICKYARD? ARE YOU STILL IN AWE? "Not really. I don't know how to say this exactly right, but I probably don't quite have the respect for Indy as maybe some other drivers do just because I've never been an open wheel fan. I don't think I've ever watched and Indy 500. I never went down there. I have a lot of respect for what the place has done and all the history to it, but I probably don't appreciate it quite as much because I had never been there before. I never watched a race in person and I never even watched the race on TV - I watched a little bit of it. Honestly, the biggest thought I had was when I went out on the track I couldn't believe how narrow it was. When you went down the frontstretch how narrow it was and how tight the entrance to turn one looked, I didn't think there was any way you could get two stock cars through there side-by-side. It was real narrow. But it's a neat place to go. It's not that far. It's only about five or six hours from Wisconsin where I grew up, so it's always fun to go to the Midwest. There' definitely a lot of history there and it's definitely one of the bigger races of the year." THOUGHTS ON RACING BACK TO THE YELLOW? "I don't really care what they do that much, to tell you the truth. Whenever they make a rule, that's how we'll run it. Everyone is gonna have a different answer because in 2001 I was a lap down a lot of times and the leader let me get laps back a lot of times. I benefited from that rule a lot. This year and last year, maybe I haven't so much, but yet there have been a couple of times where I've benefited from it. The way it's been this year is everybody is racing back anyway. Nobody is really letting people get their lap back unless they're already in front of them, so I don't know if it would really change the racing that much. It would probably make the racing a little bit safer, but if everybody uses their heads and backs down when the yellow comes out like we always used to do in the past, it keeps it pretty safe. But, definitely, it (a rule) would probably be a thing that would maybe keep the racing a little safer and allow the safety crews to maybe get out there a little bit quicker to the scene depending on where the accident is and what situation we're in." CAN YOU TALK ABOUT ALAN KULWICKI AND YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF HIS CAREER? "We kind of sort of missed each other, too. By the time I started racing late models he was gone and I wasn't really watching Winston Cup racing that much anymore. I was racing late models and I was busy, so when I watched Winston Cup racing he wasn't there yet. I never really got to meet him and never really knew him and I never saw him race very much. I didn't know a whole bunch about him or probably appreciate what he did as much as I did after I learned how he did it all by himself because I wasn't really up on it that much with what was going on down there." WHAT IS THE PROBLEM HERE AT POCONO FOR ROUSH RACING? "I can't say (laughing). I've got a joke for that one but I don't think anybody would think it's funny that read it. I don't know. I think it's been a good track. I've never been able to win but I think Mark has the most top fives of all active drivers right now. I think I read that yesterday. That's a pretty good stat. If that's right, that's good for me. We've always run OK here. I really like this track. It's been a good, solid track for us. We haven't been able to win, but in the exact right situation we could win. We've never been good at a real short run here, but if we had good position and had a longer run, we seem to be able to shine on that pretty well. Mark's had a lot of great runs here. He hasn't been able to win yet, but I think it'll happen sooner or later." BRETT FAVRE AND MATT KENSETH ARE NOT BIG IN WISCONSIN. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT? "It's pretty cool when we go back to Wisconsin. We were back there the other week at Slinger - me and Kurt Busch went up there to sign autographs - and they had the biggest crown they've had in 20 years since Dale Earnhardt was racing there. That was pretty cool. They had about 10,000 people there and it was full. Wisconsin fans are definitely behind their sport or team or driver - whatever it is. It's always neat to go back there. Even like when we're here or wherever we're at, everybody will come up and the first thing they'll say is, 'We're from Wisconsin,' so that's cool to see how supportive they are." AND YOU'RE RIGHT BEHIND FAVRE. "I'll always be behind him until he retires, so that's pretty cool because everybody up there is like a diehard Brett Favre and Packers fan." WHAT DOES YOUR SON THINK ABOUT THIS? IS HE INTO RACING? "He does a little bit of racing. I don't know what he thinks about me leading the points, really. I don't really talk about it, but he does a little bit of go-kart racing, but he's only 10. I try not to let him take racing too serious." DOES HE ENJOY IT? "Yeah, I think he enjoys baseball and basketball just as much as he does racing." HOW DOES YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF WORKING ON CARS HELP TODAY WITH ROBBIE? "I don't know if it helps so much today, but I think Robbie and I both grew up kind of the same way, so that helps us. Neither one of us sat in our trailer and played video games while our dads worked on the car and got it ready. We didn't do any of that. We both had to work on the cars and understand how they worked and put 'em all together, and plus have to work a job to help try to pay for it. So I think Robbie and I kind of have somewhat of a mutual respect because of that. He's done the same things I did and we raced at the same places and grew up racing the same way, so I think that helps." WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR AT YOUR WATKINS GLEN TEST? "A couple of things to be successful there is to keep all the parts on the car and keep it on the track. Those are the first two things. We've got two cars that we don't necessarily have to compare too much because they're pretty close to the same. But we'll run two cars next to each other and decide which car we want to take. That's the first thing and then just basically test stuff that on a race weekend you wouldn't have time to test - like different brake systems and different suspensions - stuff that takes too long on a race weekend to get done in the limited practice we have. So we'll do that and get up to speed with the track. It seems like whenever I can test at a road course, I'm much better when I go back. It's kind of like a little refresher course having just been around there. You don't forget where your shift points and brake points are at, so it kind of just helps you get in a rhythm and help you get ready for that kind of race." WHEN YOU WERE RACING WITH YOUR FAMILY WAS YOUR GOAL TO GET TO WINSTON CUP? "I think that your goals change a lot. When I was a little kid, I never dreamed I'd even be able to drive a race car. Then when I started driving a race car, I just hoped that some day I might be able to race an ASA car. I remember when I did my first interview and I was 16, that was like my dream - I hoped some day I could race full-time where I wouldn't have to have a normal job and I could race in the ASA Series. That was like the biggest thing. I think your goals change a lot. In my wildest dreams I would never have dreamt that we'd be able to race in the Winston Cup Series and be able to win races and be able to be at least in contention for a championship. Four years ago, in my wildest dreams, I didn't think we would, so I think your goals change a lot. It's kind of like anybody, when you start off you never think any of this would be possible. It seemed like a dream more than anything and it still does sometimes." WHEN YOU GOT IN WINSTON CUP HOW FAR AHEAD WERE YOU AS FAR AS GOALS? "Until we actually won a race, I never knew if I could win a race. I hoped I could and I thought we had competitive cars and were able to run good in 2000. I ran pretty good in Bill's car (Elliott) and Bobby Labonte's car and in our five-race deal we ran pretty good, but I never knew if we'd be able to put it together and win a race or not. Especially then when Jeff Gordon was winning 10 races a year and Mark was winning seven because they weren't leaving a lot of races for everybody else. I never knew if we could until we did and it's the same thing trying to run for a championship. Yeah, right now it's our goal. This time last year, I don't know if it was my goal. It was something that maybe we aimed for and, if everything went right it was a position we hoped we could be in, and with the position we're in right now it's kind of my goal for the year. But you never know if everything is gonna go right and if it's gonna happen. So many things can go wrong easier than they can go right, so I don't really get ahead of myself or get too excited about it. I try to take one day at a time. It's an obvious goal for us right now with the position we're in to win it, but I'm definitely not counting on it. I definitely don't think everything is gonna go right for the rest of the year and we're gonna do it. I just want to take one race at a time and stay competitive and see where it ends up."

Ricky Rudd, driver of the No. 21 Motorcraft Taurus, will be making his 700th consecutive NASCAR Winston Cup start in tomorrow's Pennsylvania 500. Rudd, who qualified 27th, held a Q&A session in the Pocono Raceway infield media center following Saturday's practice. NASCAR President Mike Helton also took part in the session.

MIKE HELTON, NASCAR President - "I wanted to stop by have the opportunity in front of Ricky and the media to congratulate him because when you stop and think about 700 straight races - we all talk seriously and jokingly about the schedule and how tough it is with the grind and how it doesn't get any easier - but when you stop and think about going back and having someone in our sport - which is probably the most difficult form of sport there may be when it comes to week-in and week-out being there and being on top of your game getting things done. For someone to do that 700 consecutive times is pretty remarkable. I've been reading and looking at a lot of different articles and stories and how many miles he's raced, how many laps he's raced and how long of a period that entailed. So when it's all said and done I just wanted to stop by and congratulate Ricky professionally and personally, but to also thank Ricky for using NASCAR to form a career. He's contributed greatly to NASCAR's success over the course of his career and, hopefully, has made a decent living out of it. But, more importantly, it's remarkable to reach that type of milestone tomorrow morning and I just wanted to stop by and congratulate him and tell everybody from NASCAR's perspective how proud we are of Ricky. For Mike Helton, who has been a fan for a little bit longer than that, not much though, how neat it is to be able to sit next to a guy and have a guy in our sport that has that much under his belt, that much stamina, that much commitment, that much emotion for being involved in something like NASCAR Winston Cup racing."

RICKY RUDD - No. 21 Motorcraft Taurus - CONSECUTIVE STARTS IS REALLY SOMETHING THAT JUST KIND OF HAPPENS, RIGHT? "That's probably the best way to put that. I never went out to try and set out any kind of record about being here the longest. My motivation was pretty much just trying to stay out of the fence and try to learn what was going on. I came from a background of go-karts and motorcycle racing and no car experience whatsoever, so the early days were just filled with trying to log track miles to figure out what was going on. Then later on you start to see that top 10 is not unrealistic and then top fives and then wins and the list goes on. Again, my goals today are not to see if I can't run 702 or 703, it's always been, 'what can we do' and let me do my part to go out and contribute to try to make things possible where we can go out and win a race. If we don't go out and win, then we're gonna try to get the very best finish we can out of it." TALK ABOUT THAT FIRST TIME WORKING WITH BILL CHAMPION AND YOUR BROTHER. "I guess the way it kind of got started I was a go-kart racer and all of us at that time ran superspeedway go-karts. They were 120-mile-an-hour go-karts and we ran tracks like Watkins Glen, Road Atlanta and VIR, which we're back at now - those type of tracks, which were the superspeedways. I came up from that background. One weekend I was at go-karts and the next weekend my brother and Bill Champion's second cousin were working on Champion's race car and he was getting time to maybe think about a driver change. He was getting up in age and all those guys - my brother and Champion's second cousin said, 'Hey, what about Ricky? Give Ricky a chance.' That's kind of how it got started. We bought a race car to carry it to Daytona and run in the Busch Grand National race. We bought the car, but we didn't know who was gonna drive it at the time. My brother and I were both pretty good kart racers. He didn't race the motorcycles and I did. We were pretty good at what we did and it was a tryout day. We went over to Langley Field over in Virginia and took this heavy Winston Cup car around the race track and whoever did the best got the nod to drive the car at Daytona. We both ran about the same speed. I didn't spin out and hit anything and he spun out about three times so I got the job." WHAT'S IT LIKE TO LOOK BACK AT YOUR CAREER? "What it does is it forces you to take a look back. In this sport you're always looking ahead and you never really have time to look back. Whatever happens today or Sunday's race, you don't have time to think about it too much because Indianapolis is the next weekend. You're never really focused on what's going on today or in the past, so this has basically forced me to take a look at the past and the accomplishments up to this point. I tend to look at it as, 'well, we haven't won a championship yet,' more of the negative side, but then there have been some great things to come along. We've had 23 wins along the way and just about 50 percent of those starts have been top 10 finishes and I think 21 top-10 finishes here at Pocono. You tend not to look at that. You're always looking ahead, so it's forced me to take a look back. Some of the old photographs that have been popping up, I think I've got these photographs but they've been in a room that I'll probably never see for another five years. Some of them are resurfacing and it looks like I've been around for 700 starts considering what I looked like when I started. I was 18 years old and have seen the full spectrum. When I went to the first couple of races I was getting kidded about coming in for a diaper change because I was 18 years old and the next youngest drivers at that time were in their early thirties, so now I'm on the older end of that spectrum so it's been pretty neat." YOU'VE BEEN WITH SOME OF THE MOST HISTORIC TEAMS IN NASCAR. CAN YOU CAPSULIZE HOW DIFFERENT THIS WHOLE DEAL IS? "I guess I still don't think of myself as being part of the history of the sport. I look at guys like Richard Petty, Buddy Baker, Bobby Allison, David Pearson - those guys - but you look around and they're not here today, so I guess I'm the next-best link to the past. It has changed quite a bit and I think that's one word that pops into my mind - you have to be flexible and adaptable as things have changed. NASCAR has really grown this sport tremendously over the years. It really wasn't my business to know the other side of the fence. I've seen this racing from the inside - from inside the garage area from the driver's standpoint and owner's standpoint. I haven't seen it from the promoter's standpoint and I haven't seen it from NASCAR's standpoint, but you look at where this sport is today and how healthy it is today compared to other sports and I'm proud to be a part of it and play a little role in that. Linking it to the past, when we first started off, we weren't particularly smart enough to see the vision of where NASCAR was going. What we did see was a sport where I felt some of the best race car drivers in the world were competing and I wanted to go out there and try to do my part and eventually learn how to race and drive these cars and try to beat these guys. That was my goal. I was never bright enough to sit here and say, 'You can make some good money doing this one day along the road,' because from 1975 when I first ran my first race until about 1982 I think I was making $110 a week. So it was never about money. To put it in perspective, in 1977 - this is going back before the streak started - my dad owned a used auto parts and salvage yard business. We had a little shop in the backyard that was big enough to put one car in there and later on we expanded where you could put two cars nose to tail. In 1977 we ran all the races with the exception of about five. We finished in the top five a couple of times and won rookie of the year and we did that with only one or maybe two full-time employees and I was one of them - with one race car. You went to the race track and if you wrecked that weekend, which you had your wrecks, you didn't go home. You went to the chassis shop, whether it be Banjo Matthews or Hutch and Pagen and you camped out there in the parking lot and you helped take the car apart. You let them do the frame work and then you put the car back together. You usually did the body work somewhere around town, somebody would lend you a body shop or a shop to do the work in and you literally wouldn't sleep. The car would get loaded up and off you'd go to the race track. We had a lot of volunteer helpers, but we were considered a top 10 team at that time, so that kind of puts it in perspective of where it is today." ANY IDEA WHAT THE BUDGET WOULD HAVE BEEN? "I know it wasn't a whole lot. My dad had some savings put aside and that's one reason we didn't run the Busch Series because his savings would have been used up running the local short tracks, so they kind of fed me to the lions I guess. They thought I could handle it, so we went to the big leagues. It seemed to me that we won $75,000-$78,000 that year and probably spent $100,000 and we were a top 10 team at that time. On a good day we had to hope to finish in the top five, but at that time, there were only about five what I would call Winston Cup teams that were at the professional level - where they had employees and a hired driver. You had Cale Yarborough, Richard Petty, David Pearson, Buddy Baker, Bobby Allison and there are some other in that group, but they were hired to drive race cars. All of the rest of the guys pretty much had garages or other business that they worked in and then they showed up at the race track to drive, but most of them worked on the cars like I did. I think of Richard Childress and those guys back during that time and it was different. I was always serious about what I was doing and committed that I didn't sit back and maybe smell the roses along the way. Those guys had a lot more fun because the pressure of coming to the race track and making the race was nothing like it is today. But you turn around and look at Richard Childress, he played a lot in his younger days but he's got one of the best operations out here today. I have a lot of respect that these guys knew how to make money, and I take Richard Childress an example. When I came to Richard in '82, he had enough money to go to the Daytona 500 and, if we won some money there, we could maybe go to maybe six more races that year. But at the same time he always had little side businesses and he was one of the first ones to start a used race parts auction. I think that was held in New York somewhere and he would race money for that and that would help fund his race team for the year, so it's really changed quite a bit." A COUPLE OF CLOSE TIMES WHEN THE STREAK ALMOST ENDED? "Just the two that I think have been documented. At Daytona the Bud Shootout, which was the Busch Clash at the in '84. I took a wild ride and a flip there. That one was doubtful. My brain was saying, 'get in the car,' and as a matter of fact I fought them to spend a night in the hospital that night. My wife finally said, 'Alright you hard-headed son-of-a-gun, if you're determined to get out of the hospital, go over there in the mirror and look at your face. Go look at yourself.' So I finally hobbled out of the bed and got over to the mirror and agreed that maybe I would spend the night, but I'm leaving the next day. That was pretty tough and then I tore ligaments in my left knee at Charlotte in The Winston race that preceded the Coke 600 back in '88. Prior to that, running our own team because it was so hard with just a limited number of people, there were plenty of days that you didn't really quit but you physically couldn't go on. You couldn't operate on two or three hours a sleep per night because it would catch up with you, so there were plenty of times we would actually cut back, stop, wait about six races, regroup and then go again. That happened quite a bit up until 1981 when I was basically hired full-time." CAN YOU EXPLAIN THE DAYTONA INCIDENT BECAUSE YOU ACTUALLY TAPED YOUR EYES OPEN? "It wasn't really by design. I was still swollen very much from the wreck. I bounced around in the car and pretty much came loose inside the car. The seat broke in half back in those days. It wasn't much of seat, it was about like this chair I'm sitting in with the right side on it, so the chair actually broke in half. That allowed me to have a lot of slack in the belts and, anyway, I bounced around and got beat up pretty badly. My face was swollen just from the trauma I guess. Anytime you sling and rotate like I did in the air - all of the midget guys tend to get this problem - it ruptures the capillaries in your eyes so you don't really have any whites to your eyes. They look like you ought to take a napkin and blot them and they would be bloody on the napkin. It actually wouldn't weep blood, but it looked that way. My face was swollen and that was Sunday. Monday it rained, so I probably wouldn't have gotten in the car Monday anyway. Tuesday we had the backup car out and I remember getting in the car. It took a little while to get in it, but then went out and got on the race track. I pretty much quickly came up to speed and, at that time, I remember going in the corner and all of a sudden everything got dim like the lights went out. I didn't know if I had some kind of head trauma or what it was. I got to looking and to thinking that as heavy as my eyelids were and I was having to squint anyway, that the fluid coupled with the g-forces was causing my eyes to shut. So while they were working on the car getting ready for the next run, I didn't tell them I was having a little problem, I went and got some duct tape. It was there so I kind of just took a couple of pieces and taped my eyes open. It was probably one neatest moments when I went down in the corner and I could see again, so I was real excited about that. It was just a case where the tape was available and it worked out." YOU WON THE NEXT WEEK AT RICHMOND. "Yeah. I compared it way back to ABC's Wide World of Sports. They used to have that guy that came down the ski jump and he would fall and tumble end over end. I always used to watch that guy take a beating and that's what I felt like the week before. Then we came back and won at Richmond the next week, so it was the agony of defeat first and the thrill of victory next, so that really couldn't have come at a better time."

MIKE HELTON CONTINUED - DO YOU SEE RICKY AS LIKE THE CAL RIPKEN OF NASCAR AND DO YOU EVER SEE SOMEONE COMING ALONG LIKE THIS AGAIN? "What amazes me is the heart and the character that Ricky has and I think that's what has made NASCAR successful - that type of attitude and aggressiveness to be competitive. It's remarkable and it's a little spooky to listen to, but it's pretty remarkable to think that Ricky and some of these other drivers want to race that many."

RICKY RUDD CONTINUED - YOU'RE DRIVING A CAR DESIGNED BY YOUR SON. "That was probably the neatest thing about 700 starts. We went to the studio for Totally NASCAR and my son, Landon, he's pretty big into electronics and video games - things eight year olds are interested in. But for him to want to go down to the studio, I knew something might be up a little bit, but I didn't quite figure it out. He usually doesn't want to do anything like that, so we get down there and we're on the set doing the show. Steve Byrnes is interviewing me and they've got the car in the background covered up under a tarp. I know usually they do it sitting down on the set and I thought that was a little unusual, but thought maybe they wanted to change the set a little bit. So he says, 'OK, this is your Pocono car under the cover and it's got a new paint scheme,' which I didn't know about. Still, you're thinking that people change paint schemes all the time and then he says, 'I want to bring out the young artist that designed this for you. Landon Rudd, come on out here.' So that was really a shock that he was able to do it, plus, it's been going on for a couple of months so he was able to keep it secret from me. He's pretty talented. He plays all the Playstation games and you can't beat the kids on those games, but, occasionally he needs a partner so I'll go play him. I'll just pick any car and go run it, but he always says, 'Wait a minute dad, let me get my car together.' So he's got to go to the paint shop and paint the car up and get it all ready to go, so he's had experience since he was about four years old getting ready for this day, I guess." WILL HE FOLLOW IN YOUR FOOTSTEPS? "I don't know. I think he's got the natural talent to do it. We have a little go-kart track, a little dirt track we play on. He's been riding four-wheelers since he was about three years old through the woods. He never would listen to dad. He's always going way to fast for his ability. He doesn't realize he's over the edge, but I think after bouncing off a tree one time he listens to me a little bit more. But he doesn't have that burning desire to want to do it all the time. He likes to do other things, so I don't know if he'll ever pick or choose it. I think he has the talent, but if he doesn't have the desire coupled with it - it's his call. If he decides he wants to pursue that, then we're there to do it, but, right now, he hasn't shown that desire. He has the ability, I think, but he hasn't shown the desire. But he's only eight years old. He's just out being a kid right now."

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