Revived Rudd 'ready to go' for Wood Brothers

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- The beach may be only a few miles from Daytona International Speedway, but don't let locale fool you. Early January can be chilly at the "World Center of Racing," and one morning this week, even a thick fleece pullover didn't comfort Ricky Rudd.

"No wonder," he said, peering at a control panel in the lounge of the No. 21 hauler. "The heat's not on."

This season, Rudd hopes to turn up the wick for his new employers, the Wood Brothers. Fresh off three successful seasons at Robert Yates Racing, Rudd's in the No. 21 seat occupied last year by Elliott Sadler. The Rudd-Woods pairing is one of the more anticipated 2003 Winston Cup unions, and not just in a curious sense.

"I see this team ready to go," said Rudd. "It needs nothing but just some luck and a little bit of strategy here and there. Kind of a sleeper team."

He's right, so far. Neither of the two Fords that the Woods brought to Daytona dominated the speed charts during this week's three-day preseason test. Rudd was 13th fastest overall on Tuesday, and 18th on Wednesday and Thursday out of 26 Cup drivers. The work that got done prior to this week spoke louder.

	Ricky Rudd says his new team is a sleeper team. Credit: Don Bok, ISC Photo

"Things flow very smoothly," Rudd said. "Good example: coming to Daytona, they have built five new race cars for the Daytona 500, where most teams are lucky if they've got two built."

The 2003 season may be a rebirth of sorts for both the Woods and their 46-year-old driver. Rudd, who will start his 26th Cup season, is free of all the in-fighting and off-track drama that plagued his No. 28 RYR team last season. The constant questions of whether Rudd would re-sign with Yates (he didn't) and whether Sadler would supplant him (Sadler did, in the renamed No. 38) were answered months ago. And with the two drivers shifting teams and seats, Rudd seems at peace.

He likes the Woods' preparedness (and Sadler, too). Sadler's youth and inexperience -- his first year at RYR marks his fifth Cup season -- likely contributed to his limited success with the Woods' single-car operation. Sadler finished 24th in 1999, 29th in 2000, 20th in 2001 and 23rd in 2002. Rudd, whose experience is nearly bottomless, says that's a tough combination; younger drivers without a teammate must thrash about and learn things the hard way, and those learning curves also take a physical, mental and emotional toll on the team.

"Communication, polishing things here and there, that may be what I can bring to the team," said Rudd, "and, not out of any disrespect to Elliott Sadler, is that the consistency week in and week out, that's probably what's been lacking over here."

Rudd lacked no consistency with RYR, finishing 10th in the final standings last season, fourth in 2001 and fifth in 2000. With 23 career Cup wins, he's in his prime and not merely there to enjoy the ride.

"No, I want to win," said Rudd. "I'm not here to have fun. I have fun if I'm winning."

	Rudd had moderate success in the No. 21 Ford during Preseason Thunder. Credit: Don Bok, ISC Photo

"We expect more," said crew chief Pat Tryson. "Ricky expects more. I think from the outside looking in, everybody says, 'Well, OK, they're either going to do it or they're not, and they better step up.' I think that's where everybody's at. Everybody expects more."

A NASCAR icon, the Woods' operation is at least as old as the sanctioning body, which is entering its 55th year. The family has outlasted numerous ups and downs, but hasn't enjoyed extended success in recent seasons. Sadler's only Cup win in his four seasons with the Woods -- the 2001 spring race at Bristol -- was their first since 1993. Brothers Eddie and Len Wood run the show now, and they pulled last year's silly-season coup by hiring Rudd, the most sought-after free-agent driver.

"I've always enjoyed a perceived challenge," said Rudd, who's got one, plus an hour's commute -- by air and car -- from his North Carolina home to the Woods' Stuart, Va., shop. He's made the trip twice a month, and the team is reciprocating by building new cars and mining the technology available through the Woods' alliance with Jack Roush Racing. Offseason tests at Kentucky and Talladega have validated Rudd's initial positive response to the Woods' cars during a late-season 2002 test session.

And he's also happy to be reunited with Tryson. The latter worked as Rudd's car chief for several seasons during the early and mid-1990s, when Rudd owned his own team. Rudd remembers Tryson being "hard on uniforms. He'd work so hard that he would go under a car without a creeper."

"For whatever reason, we just talk the same language," said Tryson.

Rudd says the former car chief's work ethic hasn't changed.

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"You could tell right then that he was headed somewhere," Rudd said of Tryson. "We were fortunate to have him work for us, and now it's coming back around and I'm having the chance to work for Pat. So it's kind of a neat deal."

Both driver and crew chief admit the Daytona 500 is anybody's race; restrictor plates negate most individual and team strengths. After that, though, Rudd expects much more than a crapshoot. He doesn't think a top-10 points finish at season's end is unrealistic.

"I haven't even talked to Eddie or those guys about this," he said. "But I feel like in the first five or 10 races, let's go out there and be real consistent. If we're really bad, we gotta go to work. But let's go out there and try to log a bunch of top-10 finishes right off the bat, get some points under our belt."