Ricky Rudd will have to run a qualifying lap to make Sunday's race in Martinsville. Credit: Autostock

10 Questions: Rudd

Ricky Rudd finds himself in the unenviable position of testing his qualifying prowess this weekend at the Advance Auto Parts 500 at Martinsville Speedway, as decent luck and his No. 21 Motorcraft Ford have been on different tracks all year.

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Rudd's Wood Brothers Racing team is 38th in the car owner standings, 31 points out of the top 35 spots that are locked-into the field; but Rudd does have the recent memory of his stirring 1998 Martinsville victory -- his last as an owner -- and four career poles on the .526-mile short track.

We let Rudd get away from racing a bit with the following 10 questions:

1. What's your dream vehicle that you don't already own?

That I don't own? That would be a Ford GT. I always liked those cars as a kid. I've got one coming, but I don't know when it's going to be here.

Q: Talking to some other Ford drivers, they all want one and that's a pretty long list. Do you think winning a Nextel Cup championship might get you up the list a bit?

Well, I think Matt (Kenseth) is probably the only guy in the garage who's going to get one free. He deserves it because he won the championship the year before last so we know he's going to get one free.

We're all going to have to pay for it but he earned his. I'm just pleased we're going to be able to get one.

Q: Have you had a chance to drive one, yet?

I actually drove one of those in the early years when it was kind of in the development stage. It's evolved a little bit since then but I've driven it twice now and (I want one) -- not just because it's a Ford, but it's a real fun car to drive.

2. If time on the road weren't an issue, what would be your ideal pet?

I'm pretty happy with what we've got now. We've got a cat -- and I know it kind of sounds crazy -- but we carry a cat with us when we travel. It's a Bengal cat. It's a cross between an Asian leopard and a house cat.

So it looks like a leopard, but it's actually a house cat. It's got a really cool personality -- its personality is more of a dog than it is a cat. But you've got all the conveniences.

A cat can use a litter box -- you don't have to take him out and find him somewhere to go to the bathroom if it's raining or something. I think it's pretty cool because this thing loves to play. It's a Bengal cat.

Q: That sounds like a fascinating mix, but how large a cat is it?

This one is a little bit smaller than most of them. This one weighs about 13 pounds when generally they'll get to be 18 or 19 pounds. This one is not going to be a very big cat.

We've had him for about a year and a half. Again, what's cool about this cat is it has the personality of a dog. It'll play, it'll fetch -- it does a lot of things. It loves the water.

3. What's your biggest pet peeve driving on the road?

People not paying attention, but of course I probably fit that category as well as anybody, being on the cell phone way too much.

	Credit: Autostock
	Inside the Numbers Ricky Rudd has 13 top-five finishes in 51 starts at Martinsville Speedway Date Start Finish Oct. 20, 2002 18 3 April 8, 2001 4 2 Oct. 1, 2000 11 4 Sept. 27, 1998 2 1 Sept. 26, 1993 20 4 April 27, 1986 4 1 Sept. 22, 1985 5 4 April 28, 1985 7 2 Sept. 25, 1983 2 1 April 24, 1983 1 5 Oct. 17, 1982 1 2 April 25, 1982 4 4 April 26, 1981 1 3

But I don't have a pet peeve with that as much as I do -- I guess it's car-related --- but I live on fast food. Pulling up to the drive-through window and I don't know, but the speaker boxes out there, or something, but I have a hard time getting that order across.

Sometimes the language barrier can be a problem.

4. Racing means travel, and you've had a long career going all the way back to the kart days, so what is your worst hotel experience?

Oh man, there's a lot of them. I'd probably say it happened to us quite a bit that we'd go into a hotel and checking in and getting in a room and being next to a Coke machine with the walls being paper thin.

You hear the Coke machine and ice dropping all night long and not being able to sleep. That's probably one of them.

I like it hot most of the time but at night I like it cold -- so going somewhere and the air conditioner is broken. You pretty much know you're not going to sleep that night.

The motor homes have made it a whole lot nicer to travel. I'll tell you, we've been spoiled by that.

5. What's your favorite food?

You know, I'm not really a big food fancier, I guess. I enjoy all kinds of food. I like Mexican food -- I like seafood. When I'm in Daytona, I definitely eat seafood for almost two weeks.

When I go somewhere out West it's something different -- steaks or stuff of that nature. I'm not a guy that's really obsessed by having to have great food. I could live off fast food all my life, probably. I don't have to have anything fancy.

Q: Now David Stremme told me he gets the best Mexican food in Darlington, S.C. Where's your top spot for Mexican?

I think California, or Phoenix. I like all the hole-in-the-wall places instead of the chain stores. I like going and finding the worst looking dive you could ever imagine and those usually have the best Mexican food.

6. If you had to choose, would it be being honest or being nice?

Well, I don't know. I try to be nice and that doesn't always work. You know, people have moods like everybody else. I try to be nice, but it doesn't always work out that way.

I think being honest -- that's something you can be and I try to do that and I think I do a good job of that. Sometimes I probably get criticism because I tell things, or somebody will ask me a question and I give them an honest answer and sometimes people don't want honest answers.

That's probably gotten me in the trouble over the years, by being too honest.

7. What's your fondest childhood memory?

Just family time, traveling. I know we used to travel together. Our family traveled to kart races as a group.

But probably Christmas and Thanksgiving. My mom always had a big sit-down meal where everyone would sit down together as a group. Those were probably the fondest memories.

8. What would be your dream date: Where and with whom?

I've been married 25 years and I kind of like the lady I'm with right now (wife Linda). It probably would be a nice quiet evening with her somewhere. It doesn't have to be out of town or some extravagant place -- but just quality time with her.

Like most parents, when you start having kids come along, it gets harder and harder to find that quality time together.

9. What's the worst prank that you either perpetrated or had played on you?

10 QuestionsRudd remembers a classic prank pulled by Earnhardt Sign up for TrackPass now BUY YOUR NEXTEL DRIVER PHONE

Gosh, I'm trying to think. I guess back when (Dale) Earnhardt was around in the earlier days we used to wear bubble goggles. We'd always set our helmet on our fire extinguisher bottle (in the cockpit) and at the start of the race we'd always have a new box of bubble goggles sitting there ready to put on.

I can't remember where we were, but I put my helmet on and I went to put my goggles on. This was like a minute before you'd crank your motor. I go to put my goggles on, I pull 'em out of the box -- a brand-new pair -- and there's two eyeballs drawn on the lenses so I couldn't see out of my goggles.

So there was a panic to go get me another pair of goggles at the last minute so I didn't miss leaving the line. That was probably one of the smartest things I had played on me.

I guess, probably we've had some guys on our crews over the years that were scared of snakes -- petrified of snakes. There's been a time or two where snakes have appeared in guys' racecars when they went to put their helmet on and it'd fall in their lap.

I wasn't a part of that but I witnessed that and it was about the funniest thing I'd ever seen.

Q: You ever figure out who the eyeball artist was?

Yeah, it was Earnhardt that did it.

10. Finally, what would you consider your "Welcome to NASCAR moment?"

I never raced NASCAR. I had raced go-karts and motorcycles and the next weekend I was in a Winston Cup stock car at Rockingham, N.C.

Probably the reality check was just making those first laps and never being in a racecar and saying, man this thing feels like I'm on the space shuttle for horsepower but it drives like a garbage truck -- and thinking 'how in the world can you make these things go around a corner?'