Wrong side of the track: the combination of old-school driver Ricky Rudd and old-school owner Wood Brothers Racing has Rudd in a new position: back of the pack

The NASCAR garage operates like any other exclusive society. There are your haves and your have-nots. And, in NASCAR, the better you are, the better your place in the garage.

Like real estate, it's all about three things: location, location and location. Prime real estate is reserved for the very best. The best spot, nearest to the entrance to the track and next to the corridors of power (NASCAR's infamous trailer, the "principal's office") is reserved for Matt Kenseth, the defending series champion. Next to him, you'll find Jimmie Johnson, this season's points leader. Then comes Jeff and Junior (his father was a member of this club, too, you know) and Tony.

And if you're down on your luck? Well, then, you're stuck on the other side of the track. It's perfectly reasonable that Kirk Shelmerdine, Carl Long and Greg Sacks are out in the weeds--they can, after all, only dream about the Chase for the NASCAR Nextel Cup--but Ricky Rudd? What is he doing in the middle of no man's land?

With all due respect to the pretenders and back-enders Rudd finds himself surrounded by these days, the fact is the driver with a record 737 straight (and counting) starts is accustomed to mingling with the upper crust. He is one of three drivers to finish in NASCAR's top 10 in points as many as 19 times. The other two? One who goes by the name of Petty and the other by Earnhardt. Kirk Shelmerdine, indeed.

Just three years ago, Rudd had his own highly coveted spot in the best garage neighborhood. Driving for Robert Yates Racing, he won two races and finished fourth in points. He won once more in 2002 (the 23rd win of his career) and finished 10th. His move to Wood Brothers Racing before last season seemed perfect. What could be better than the marriage of one of NASCAR's esteemed older generation with one of the sport's most revered outfits? Does it get any better than an old-school driver driving for an old-school outfit, one of the few remaining single-car teams in the business?

So much for happily ever after. In 57 races, the pairing has no wins and just four top five finishes--all of which came last year. This season, Rudd hasn't had even a single top 10 finish, has led a desultory three laps and finds himself mired in 28th in points.

Rudd, 47, acknowledges that "wins are nice" but being in the thick of the competition, in position to win most weeks, is what matters most.

"I'm not motivated by a paycheck; I'm motivated by performance," he says. "You don't have to win, but if you can wall out of there each week knowing you gave 100 percent and maybe end up with a top five ... that's what I have fun doing. And, like I say, but for a couple, three, four, five races last year ..."

Rudd, one of the straightest shooters in the garage, leaves that sentence alone before opting for something a bit more to the point. "No," he says, "I'm not having fun. I'd rather go out and dig ditches or something if we're not going to run well."

Later, Rudd says: "I think maybe Eddie (Wood, team owner) misjudged, and I really did, too. I expected to maybe have a couple struggles early on, but I never would've come over if I would've thought--and I'm sure they never would've hired me if they thought--we were going to be struggling like we are now."

Though Wood is hopeful Rudd won't turn in his keys any time soon, he is equally candid in assessing the star-crossed relationship. "We've run like (garbage)" Wood says. "It's there, we're getting closer. We've just got to put it all together. If you can't get your racecar to run with Ricky Rudd in it, you've got to do something. You've got to work on your car. He is not the problem."

It is among the most tired of old saws: We're getting closer. We're gaining on it. Walk down Rudd's way in the garage, stroll up to Shelmerdine or Morgan Shepherd, you'll probably hear pretty much the same refrain. Still, in Rudd's case, it's actually conceivable there's reason for optimism.

"We've been doing everything we can," says fellow owner and Wood Brothers fan Jack Roush, who recently prevailed upon the Woods to move their operation from the hinterlands of Virginia to the center of the action in North Carolina. "It's hard for a single-car team; it's harder yet for an isolated single-car team." Roush's support isn't just moral--the owner has put the resources of Roush Racing and its five Nextel Cup teams at the Woods' disposal, going so far as to put a Roush engineer on site at the Wood Brothers' shop.

In the past 20 years, Wood Brothers Racing has won five races and just one in the past 10. But from the late 1960s through the early 1980s, led by legends David Pearson and Neil Bonnett, the Wood brothers were as good as it got in NASCAR. It's a measure of that history that Roush's decision to help is motivated by nothing more than esteem and affection. "I have done this because I like the Wood brothers. I've done this because I want to pay back a little;' Roush says. "I don't have any desire to own the team or he a partner in the team. I have no economic interest. It's my goal to see the Wood brothers survive, or at least not pass from relevance when I can do something about it."

OK, but why?

"In 1988, when I started my team,' Roush says, "Leonard (Wood) was standing by. He had a number of things that he thought an upstart owner and a fledgling team needed to know about, and he carried that stuff to me--with great generosity and at a time when nay survival was not assured. This is (merely the latest) chapter, with me trying to help out a little on the other side."

Thus far, Roush Racing's support hasn't resulted in much on-track success. "We're getting everything more in line with where Roush Racing is," says Rudd's crew chief, Ben Leslie, a former Roush employee. "But we haven't had near the results the Wood brothers deserve. That's been frustrating. We're both kind of just pulling our hair out, trying to figure out where we're missing it at."

For his part, Rudd thinks the team is missing it less and less each week. Two weeks ago at Pocono, where Rudd won a race in 2001, he ran near the top 10 for much of the day and finished a decent 12th, the team's best finish in a month. Rudd is convinced things will look even brighter in the coming weeks as the outfit continues to integrate Roush's technical information and all-important aero information into the program. However optimistic he might he, Rudd is by no means certain the No. 21 team shouldn't be shaken up. "When I had my own team (in the mid-to-late 1990s)," Rudd says, "I made the changes I needed to make to get results. I wouldn't label myself a Steinbrenner type, but I made changes, and things usually worked out."

That statement can and probably should be read as a shot toward crew chief Leslie; rumors have been flying hot and fast that Rudd has reached out to his crew chief from his days with Yates and the No. 28, Michael "Fatback" McSwain. Eddie Wood would make no statement on the matter.

"I sort of feel like I've paid my dues," says Rudd, "that I've spent enough time with C-level equipment and that I don't want to be there again. This isn't meant to be derogatory to our team right now, but we're sort of performing at a C-level. If I was the owner, I'd be making some changes, but I'm not."

Rudd's contract with the Woods runs through the end of the 2005 season, and regardless of what happens in the near term, he says he will honor his obligation; there are, however, at least a few longtime NASCAR observers who wouldn't be surprised if he retired before then. Regardless, Rudd--and the Wood brothers, for that matter--certainly don't want to end on such a down note.

"If I had the perfect scenario," Rudd says, "(I'd like) to see the team performance go from the bottom to top 10, build on top 10s the rest of the year and come out next year and try to win some races. Go out on a high note. I'd just like life to be simple. Give me fast racecars and let me do my job at the racetrack."

And, in the process, return both himself and Wood Brothers Racing to a position in the sport that each has earned--and deserves.

The Rudd rundomn

Robbie Loomis, crew chief for Jeff Gordon, assesses Ricky Rudd:

"Fierce competitor. Don't make him mad in the car because if you upset him, he will get you. He races clean, he races fair, and he's a real good guy, but if you treat him wrong, you better look out. He has a tremendous feel for the car, and he usually is very good getting the car set up, getting the feel he needs. I have more respect for some of the drivers from that era than I do a lot of the guys today because they earned it. They were such a big part of the equation on why teams had success. But there's nothing wrong with Ricky Rudd. You put Ricky Rudd in any one of these top cars, he's going to be right up front again."

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