Pop Secret 500 - Ricky Rudd Notes

Ricky Rudd: "My opinion of victory lane -- first of all, it would be a nice place to go visit again."

This week, questions from Ricky Rudd's fans cover a variety of subjects, including the possible expansion of NASCAR to other countries, his favorite meal, former crew chiefs and today's victory lane ceremonies. The NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series travels to California Speedway this Labor Day weekend. Rudd, driver of the No. 21 Keep It Genuine Taurus, has four top-10s in eight career starts at the two-mile oval in Fontana.

Do you think NASCAR will someday be expanding do an international version of stock car racing? Would you like to see it happen? "Right now, who knows? They are being pretty aggressive, and it looks like they are using the Busch Series as a test. That is usually their plan. They are going to Mexico City next year, so they are headed there in a hurry. Is it good? I don't know. If they don't dilute the sport or weaken the sport - I just don't know how they will find time to fit it all in. I'm personally not interested in it."

Which of your crew chiefs do you think did the most to enhance your racing career? "I've had some really good crew chiefs over the years. There have been a good many of them. There have only been a few that I haven't won races with, but I've learned a little something from each one of them."

Which of this year's rookie drivers has earned the most respect from you and why? "There is a lot of talent out there. Most of the time when rookies get to the Cup level now, they are new to that but they are prepared pretty well by the time they get there with the Busch Series and the ARCA series and all the series that are available to them now. We don't see rookies like we used to. The way I came along was a little bit unusual for that time. I came from a go-kart one weekend a Cup car the next weekend. And, that was probably a huge step. But you did have guys that came from Saturday night late models one week to Daytona the next. And that was not uncommon. So they were not really prepared for what they were getting into. Now they have run the speedways. They've seen them in a Busch car or an ARCA car and there is not a tremendous amount of difference between them. There is not a huge adjustment period, so I've seen a lot of good talent come through there."

What do you think of racing outside of Nextel Cup do you think drivers should be able to do this? "I've got mixed feelings on that. Kenny Schrader is like an ambassador. He travels all over the country and races whatever has wheels on it. You take a Cup driver like Mark Martin, who is running Busch again now. The Busch drivers need some kind of measuring stick to see how well they have progressed. And, I think they tend to use Cup drivers for that. They can be really good where they are, but are they at a level where they can compete with a Mark Martin or Dale Earnhardt, Jr. That is sort of the measuring stick to see how well they have progressed in their learning."

Do you leave the track if something happens and you fall out of the race, and after each race do you go right to the next track or chill out for a day or so? "If we happen to fall out we leave right away. We try to get home Sunday night, and generally we do get home Sunday night. It depends on the test schedule what we do that week. Sometimes we are on a plane on Monday heading for a test. It is not real uncommon to do that. But probably more Mondays are spent off, and Tuesdays and Wednesdays are test days. A lot of that just depends on the test schedule."

What is your favorite meal? "I'm flexible. I'm not real huge on big meals. I just a soon grab a good fast food meal. I enjoy a big meal every now and then, but I don't like the long sit down versions where it takes you two or three hours to eat. I like all different types of foods, more so than I used to. Linda and I eat lunch every couple of weeks at a Thai restaurant around here, which I thought I never would do. It's good."

Would you like NASCAR to approve traction control? "I'd rather see it not be used, but I don't know if they can stop it today. I know they are trying their best to stop it. We don't know if in fact it is being used, but it gets rumored around quite a bit that certain teams are using it. A lot of teams have admitted to using it in a test session. It's the kind of thing that if NASCAR can't police it then it should be legalized, and if they can then it shouldn't be used. I think it makes the cars even more forgiving than they are today to drive and I think they ought to be more difficult to drive."

Does Landon attend the races? How involved is he in the sport? "He goes to most of them during the summer. He is not all that involved. I don't think he thinks of it as anything different than what most kids' fathers do. I don't think he looks at it as being a different way of life. He has been around it so long since he was a baby that he looks at it as more a normal way of life. He's kind of a homebody. He likes to hang around the house or the neighborhood with his buddies. He'd rather play with his friends than to go travel to the races."

What do you think of the controversy with the winner knocking off the conflicting sponsor's product from the car roof? Do you see any solution to the problem? "Well, I see both sides to it. It used to not be an issue. The different products that sat on the car weren't as big as the car. Somewhere I saw someone get out of a car the other day and the bottle, I don't remember what product, was about five feet tall. So it has gotten abused. If you were a Powerade driver and you went into victory lane, that was just the way it was for many years. The product was normal size and it was sitting on the roof of the car and nobody said anything. Now all of a sudden the props have gotten bigger and bigger. You can't help but notice them. My opinion of victory lane -- first of all, it would be a nice place to go visit again. But, short of that, in all the years of winning races, victory lane was such a rehearsed media event that my opinion was that the driver, crew, family, the team - they're not allowed to share in the emotion of the moment, and never have been. And, I think that is wrong. I know why. There is live television. But, you ought be able to pop a cork on a champagne bottle and spray everybody down. But now they don't even have champagne in victory lane any more so you aren't allowed to do that. I understand why you have victory lane and you wear the 'thousands' of hats for sponsor photos. But victory lane ought to be a time for the family and team to celebrate because you don't get a chance after that. You get marched to the press box. But, no one complains. That is just the way it is. But maybe during all the re-evaluation of victory lane maybe there ought to be a thought process that let's let these guys have some fun for maybe about five minutes, and then do the TV stuff."