When I think Ricky Rudd, NASCAR’s newest Hall of Famer? I think the Big Apple.
“And if I can make it there, I’m gonna make it anywhere.
It’s up to you. New York, New York”
Frank Sinatra’s legendary tune is somewhat overused when writing about “The City That Never Sleeps,” but its ending lyric does not ring hollow.
It’s time to learn about Rudd’s impact on NASCAR by taking a trip back to the past. Before the playoffs, before the championship race, before the ROVAL. Back, back, back.
What made a NASCAR Winston Cup Series driver great back in the 1980s and ’90s?
Well, the first hurdle they had to clear was to start a race. That made them a Cup driver.
The best way to figure if a driver was successful was generally if they could get their car to finish top 25 in owner points. The NASCAR points fund would pay out to only the top 25, so finishing there could really help an owner scrape together funds to keep going the very next year.
What made a driver great was to finish top 10 in points. Why? Because the top 10 in points were given the privilege every season to go up to New York City, the Big Apple, and give a speech. It was a big deal for sponsors and it could help attract new ones to a team.
Remember, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.
And no driver, from 1981 when NASCAR first held its awards ceremony in NYC to 2008, when it last did so, spoke on that stage more than Ricky Rudd.
On 18 different occasions, Rudd had a great season that required the soft-spoken Virginian to put on a tux and become the center of attention in the NASCAR world, if only for a few minutes. Nobody else did it more often.
Usually, it was boring. A check on the box, thank you to whatever sponsor was on the car that year, whatever make the car was. Rudd was a driver who largely avoided the spotlight. I can’t imagine he liked being there. Maybe at a go-kart track or something, but that didn’t quite pay the bills.
One time, Rudd stole the show, but that was an outlier. And it was mainly because he was mad at somebody else.
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