Rudd is a rarity among stock car drivers. He actually notched his first Cup victory on a road course in '83 at the now defunct Riverside International Raceway in California. Unlike many of his peers, particularly the older drivers, he adapted quickly to running on road courses. Although he first raced Winston Cup in 1975 and was Rookie of the Year two years later, it was '81 before he first competed in a Cup race on a road course, at Riverside.
"We didn't test or anything and went out there and qualified third, and I was leading the race with about 18 laps to go," Rudd recalls. "I had a pretty big battle on my hands, back and forth with Bobby Allison, and the motor broke on us with about 10 laps to go. That was my first experience (on a road course). After running that race I said, 'Man, this is fun. I wish I had been doing that a lot sooner in my career.'"
Rudd was actually a road course veteran by that time, although not in a stock car. "I grew up on racing road courses-big ones like those at Riverside and Watkins Glen-as a kid running go-karts," says Rudd. "Fast go-karts, enduros, where you run 115, 120 mph. It's still quite a bit different, but the lines were the same and things of that nature, so I think that helped (me) to adjust. I was used to turning left and right.
"I didn't come from a background of a lot of oval track racing; I came from a background of go-karts. (I) never ran Late Model Stock or never ran any of the other races. My first time in a (race) car was a Winston Cup car at Rockingham, so I didn't have years of unlearning to do from just turning left."
The trick for Rudd was in learning to control the 500 or more horsepower that Cup cars had in the early '80s, something traditional stock car racers learn early in their careers.
"They're used to controlling the power," Rudd says. "Road courses are a lot like driving a road car on icy conditions. You just don't stand on the gas real abruptly. If you do, you'll spin the tires. I didn't have any of that experience, where a guy coming up on circle tracks would have had that power management control and would be in the plus column over what I did.
"But I think just looking at a racetrack and knowing how to get through a set of esses is probably a very awkward feeling to a lot of them. To me, like the esses at Riverside, I could sit there and recall actually running a track like that at Indianapolis Raceway Park that had a set of esses like that, and I could reflect back on that. It didn't feel awkward at all for me to turn to the right."
Here To StayWhile road courses may puzzle some drivers, they're even bigger puzzles to many hard core stock car fans-why bother? Road courses, however, have been a part of NASCAR almost from the beginning, with the sanctioning body's first road event held in NASCAR's sixth season. And despite their reputation as not so fan-friendly in terms of spectator enjoyment-hey, let's face it, they're mostly boring-and the fact that road events are some of Winston Cup's smallest drawing cards, road courses will continue to be a part of the show.