Ricky Rudd: Aaron's 499 preview

TALLADEGA, Ala. -- Ricky Rudd explains how Talladega Superspeedway can re-define the term "hot foot" as the driver of the No. 21 Motorcraft Racing Taurus answers questions about restrictor-plate racing from his fans ahead of this week's NASCAR Nextel Cup Series race at the 2.66-mile superspeedway.

Do you ever wish they would lift the restrictor on plate racing and let the boys be boys?

"I raced during the days when there was no restrictor plate. What I liked about the days of no restrictor plates was you didn't have trouble with the field being bunched up. The better-handling cars could hold it wide open, the ones that couldn't, you'd have multiple packs during the race. That's what I liked. The speed wasn't a big factor. You talk about 190 miles an hour versus 210, it's not a huge speed difference, but it sounds like it is. It was enough of speed difference that made the cars have to handle. So, Talladega was not much different than any other race track we ran, that if you didn't handle, you didn't run good. We've gotten away from that with these restrictor plates. It's allowed the teams to sacrifice a lot of the handling for the sake of aero because there's such a margin before you get the edge of where handling becomes an issue."

How bumpy is Talladega compared to Daytona? Is the track any different than it was when you first went there?

"I've seen it weather out over the years. You can ride around in a street car and see it. It looks like spider webs every which way. They've tried to fill those spider webs with tar over the years, I guess, to keep the water out of the race track. The water got by the tar filler, it would get under the blacktop, freeze, and the track would come apart. It's chattery. It drives, to me, more like a concrete track, because you've got, it's not just like a bump, it's a series of chatters. There's a lot of chatter in the corner. Daytona's not the smoothest track in the world, but it's not spider-webbed like Talladega. It does have some bumps, especially down in turns one and two, there's a big, I call it a sinkhole down there in Daytona, and three and four has a series of bumps, but not the chatter at Talladega. It doesn't really cause an issue. The shock guys, they know what they have to do to make the track surface not become an issue."

Do you feel like your superspeedway program is coming to the front?

"I look back at where we've run so far and our strongest run was at Daytona. It's a unique qualifying effort, as everyone knows, at Daytona, but against the clock we were fifth-fastest and within a tenth of a second or so of the pole speed. Really could've been a factor for the pole there, and that's the only track we've been at this year that we can say that about. We led half the 125 before we got passed. So, our best performance so far was Daytona. We're going back with the same car that wasn't damaged. We had some handling issues, the front-end push that took place in the race kept us from running better. They really haven't done a whole lot to fix that because at Talladega that's usually a non-issue, so we're looking to be pretty fast there."

What makes speed at Talladega - setup or horsepower? How much air do you lose with the restrictor plate?

"Horsepower, believe it or not, all the teams are probably within five horsepower of one another on the motor. When the smoke clears and it's time to go run, you're talking about maybe five horsepower separating the whole field. So, the big gains are made in the body. That's the probably the biggest thing that everybody works on the hardest is the body. Now, you have to have a proper setup to compliment the body. But, I think everyone got a real good education back, probably, five, six, seven years ago, we used to have what they called bump stops. The car would actually physically travel, would get down on what they called the bump stops. It never came off the bump stops, it would sit flat on the ground. To put it in perspective, there was probably a five- to seven mile-per-hour difference in running a car sitting down on bump stops versus now the package that NASCAR's implemented - that's not allowed today. To answer the question, I would say aero is number one and horsepower is probably second."

How much do you worry about qualifying at Talladega versus working on a race setup during Friday's practice?

"Qualifying at Talladega is pretty uneventful, it's pretty much like watching the grass grow. It doesn't take a lot of skill to drive the car. But, you don't want to go there and have your car in race setup, because race setup doesn't really mean anything other than the fact that you need to be in a pack of cars to see how your car does in all the turbulence. When you go there, you could put your car in race trim, but it really wouldn't tell you a whole lot, because there's not really a time at Talladega that you're going to run by yourself. So, with everyone else being in qualifying trim and you put yours in race trim, you're not really going to learn anything, so you might as well unload your car in qualifying trim. At that particular race track it probably takes three hours, and that's without a motor change, to undo all of things that you have done for qualifying. It's not like some tracks where you can go back and forth between the two by just changing shocks and some tape on the grill, it's quite a bit different at Talladega."

When driving at Talladega, does your foot ever get sore or stiff from having the accelerator down to the floor the whole time? Is there anything you do to help alleviate that?

"It's not that it gets sore or stiff, but your foot actually gets hot. A lot of times, at Talladega you can burn your feet in the car. Normally, you don't burn your right foot, your throttle foot, you burn your brake foot. At Talladega, the gas pedal foot stays on it so long and pressing it hard all the way down to the floor, now your foot's up right up against the firewall. When the gas pedal goes down, your foot stays against the firewall. They insulate the best they can, but a lot of times you end up with, literally, a hot foot on your accelerator foot that you don't experience at other tracks."

How much does racing at a superspeedway depend on driver ability versus driver experience?

"It really, as NASCAR tweaks the rules, it sort of changes race to race. When they had the roof fins, deflectors, and all that, you couldn't miss the draft if you wanted to, if you tried to. The car in front punched such a big hole in the air that your car would go after that dirty air, and it liked it. With the set of rules we're running under right now, it probably puts a little driver finesse and skill back into it because you've got to think about your moves a little harder than before, with the roof fins. If you made a move, maybe you're 10th, and you see a hole down the inside and you want to try for it, if you make it you might take the lead, if you miss it you could go back to dead last. With the big fin on the roof, you would go ahead and take that chance because there wasn't anything to drive back through there again. Now, the car's a little slipperier and a little harder to draft than they were, so you have to think a little more than you did, say, with last year's rules."

Do you prefer short tracks or superspeedways?

"I enjoy the race tracks where aero is not an issue. Aero is an issue, to a degree, on a mile track, but it seems like the mile tracks and below, it's not necessarily the team with the best aero package wins, it's more about mechanical, making sure the springs, shocks, the mechanical package works good. When you get on tracks bigger than a mile, all of a sudden it's back to some rocket science. The guys that spend the most time in the wind tunnel are the guys that are going to run in the front, and unfortunately we have too many tracks over a mile today."

Does your wife, Linda, get tired of all the travel?

"She's changed her travel schedule a little bit. She used to travel with me when I would leave, generally, on a Thursday and stay the whole week. Now, with Landon in school and stuff, she goes to about every race, but a lot of times she won't come up until Saturday, sometimes Sunday morning, but a lot of times Saturday. During the summer, her and Landon both travel with me everywhere. We've been to Martinsville 50 times, and there's only so many things you can do or see different at Martinsville every 50 trips there, or 25 years of going there. I think when they add new races in new towns it's a little more exciting. But, she's always a trooper, never minded the travel, but now her priorities are better spent taking more time with Landon at home."