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BRICKYARD 'Rudd’s gamble pays offTortoise5 Ruddhas a gas of a dayINDIANAPOLIS — More than 400,000 fans saw the Brickyard 400 here Saturday, and at least 399,000 wore T-shirts displaying the name of their favorite NASCAR drivers.A scientific guess would say there were 150,000 Jeff Gordon shirts, 75,000 for Dale Earnhardt, 40,000 for Dale J.arrett, several thousand for other popular racers like Mark Martin, Terry Labonte and Rusty Wallace, and maybe a dozen for Ricky Rudd.Had Ricky Rudd opened an apparel stand outside Indianapolis Motor Speedway late Saturday afternoon, he could have augmented the $571,000 he pocketed for winning the fourth Brickyard 400. TRicky Rudd? Ricky Rudd does not win a race as prestigious as the Brickyard. The 40-year-old’s top payoff in 21 full years of Winston Cup racing had been $118,385, for finishing sixth here a year ago.This isn’t to make fun of Ricky Rudd (You really must call him Ricky Rudd instead of just plain Rudd. Ricky Rudd is one of those stock car names that is perfect, like Hut Stricklin or Lake Speed.). Ricky Rudd is good. He has won a Winston Cup race in each of the last 15 seasons, and has 19 career triumphs.But Rudd won just once each year between 1988 and 1996. He messed with that pattern by getting his second victory of 1997 Saturday. Rudd doesn’t win twice in a season. He doesn’t win major races. He’s never won at Daytona. He’s never won at Talladega.Rudd does win at Dover, Del. Four times, in fact. Of course, nobody remembers who wins at Dover.Before Saturday, Rudd was like the Denver Broncos or Seattle Supersonics. He was consistently successful, but never the winner of one of his sport’s jackpots.As one of the few driver-owners in Winston Cup racing, Rudd has been driving uphill against high-■ Turn to 12B: Hias2 cautions allow fuelto stretchIAP photoRicky Rudd holds up his Brickyard 400 trophy at Indianapolis Motor Speedway after winning the race on Saturday. Rudd stayed on the track when the leaders pitted for fuel in the closing laps.NDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A gambler’s instincts and some incredible racing luck gave Ricky Rudd the biggest victory of his career.Sound judgment played a role, too.You've got to be smart,” Rudd said Saturday after using a combination of the three to win the Brickyard 400. The fastest car doesn’t always win.”Certainly not when they have to stop for fuel in the closing laps, which is what Dale Jarrett and Jeff Gordon had to do.“I couldn’t have hardly coasted around here to save that much fuel to go that far,” Jarrett said. “But some people work on fuel mileage and some on horsepower.”That was Rudd's specialty — something the team practiced a day earlier.“This is just a shock to me,” the owner-driver said after winning the fourth edition of the most lucrative race in NASCAR history.His share of the $4,965 million purse was $571,000, second only to the $613,000 won by Gordon in 1994, in the inaugural Brickyard.The keys to the 19th victory of his career was Rudd’s decision to try to go the last 46 laps — 115 miles — on a tank of gas. Two caution flags in the last 17 laps allowed that.“We knew it was going to be really tight,” Rudd said. “We were going to go for it. We were going to roll the dice. We were either going to win it or finish last.”The yellow flag that assured Rudd of the victory flew just seven laps from the finish, when■ Turn to 12B: Brickyard
Newspaper Details
Cedar Rapids Gazette
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, US
Sun, Aug 03, 1997
Page 333
Full Page
Clipped by
Jordan T.
USA 02 Feb 2024
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