Rudd happily returns to track after year on road (cont'd)

The deal fell apart only at the last hour. Now Yates says that he's glad it did.

"There's no question about what we want to do," Yates said. "I actually went to Daytona last year being involved, and then after that I kept getting further away from it and further away from it.

"If it fails now, I can sit back and say I gave it everything I've got. If it falls, it falls right on me. Come on, hit me. I'm ready for it."

So is Rudd. He said it sickened him to watch from the outside as Yates toyed with the idea of closing up his shop doors.

"It bothered me," Rudd said. "I looked at Robert like a Bud Moore or a Junior Johnson. All of 'em were great at one time. I didn't think that Robert Yates Racing was ready to go yet. The motor program was still second to none. The car shop, I just didn't want to see it close up -- but I knew Robert had a choice to make. And quite frankly, I thought he might take the choice of staying in the motor business and just closing the car shop down.

"He could have chosen the easy way out and done that, but he chose not to. That's one of the things that led me to come back to this place. That said to me that, hey, he's committed to getting this place turned around."

Rudd, who has 23 career Cup victories and started a Cup record 788 consecutive races from 1981 through November of 2005, drove for Yates from 2000 through 2002. He registered three wins, 34 top-five finishes and 53 top-10s in 106 starts during that stretch.

But this time, the operation will be different. Among the changes Yates has made is to bring his two racecar operations closer together, so they can share more information. In addition to Rudd's No. 88 Ford, driver David Gilliland will man the No. 38 Ford this year.

The last time Rudd was employed by Yates, his teammate was Dale Jarrett. But they were teammates, really, in name only. Rudd said that their cars were built and worked on in two different shops in two different cities, and in two entirely different ways.

"Even if you wanted to share information, even if you wanted to open up your notebooks and compare notes, it didn't make any difference. You could run shock absorbers on one that wouldn't work on the other," Rudd said. "Now [the two Yates cars] are built across the same surface plate. There is short wall built across the shop where the 38 M&M's car is on one side and the 88 Snickers car is on the other.

"The seat technology is different. We have actually seat inserts where [Gilliland] can drive my car and I can drive his. We're hopping in and out of each other's seats all the time. The whole time I was with Yates last time, I never drove [Dale] Jarrett's car and as far as I know, he never drove mine. So that's a big change."

Rudd said that he doesn't think resuming his driving career at age 50 after one year away from it is any big deal.

"I think if you're healthy, you can be as sharp as you ever were," he said. "I think I'm as sharp as I ever was. There is a lot of talent out there now. There are a lot of young guys who have a lot of talent. But I think sometimes out on the track, too much is being made of a young guy versus an old guy. A young guy, when it comes to sponsors, a lot of sponsors want you. Television wants you.

"But as far as performance on the racetrack, I don't see a lot of difference. I ran against older guys when I was a young guy, and now I'm on the other side of the coin. I don't think it matters whether you're young or old, male or female, you've just got to get the job done. The best driver for the job gets it done. That's the way I see it."

That's the way he saw it this past summer, too, when he got behind the wheel of the motorhome and got the job done. In the end, the retired life just didn't offer enough excitement -- even with the motorhome roaring down the highway and the roller coasters.

"I actually had a life for a little while," Rudd said. "We would go do things as a family. My wife and I would drop the kids off for school and go to the coffee shop. There was never really a regiment of things to do; we were just kind of bumming around.

"It was nice. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it. But I missed the race-day competition. I missed the fellowship of a lot of friends that we've made over the years."