Elevation Motorsports Group For Mars, Inc., Press Release

CHARLOTTE, NC (October 23, 2007) – The NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series travels to Atlanta Motor Speedway this weekend for the Pep Boys Auto 500. Ricky Rudd and the #88 team will be running a special Snickers® Halloween paint scheme this weekend at Atlanta in celebration of the upcoming Halloween holiday. The team has also prepared a brand new chassis for this weekend’s Pep Boys Auto 500. The new chassis is based off of information the team has gathered throughout the 2007 season at various 1.5-mile tracks and the #88 team hopes this new car will yield a strong performance.

Quoting Snickers Halloween Driver, Ricky Rudd:

How are you feeling heading into Atlanta this weekend?

“Atlanta’s always been a tough track for me. I won there about 20 years ago, but it’s just one of those tracks that I haven’t had much luck at. We’re going to Atlanta this weekend with a brand new car. From my understanding it’s a car that is similar to the one David (Gilliland) ran the other weekend at Charlotte which turned out to be a pretty good car. We’ll see what happens this weekend but it’s encouraging to see that the guys at the shop are trying out some new things they’ve learned throughout the season and putting it together in our car for this weekend.”

What is the biggest challenge of racing at Atlanta Motor Speedway?

“Qualifying and racing at Atlanta are two different things and I think that has always been the biggest challenge. Atlanta is just a very fast track when you go to qualify. The new tires give you very good grip and the car usually has a good amount of tape on the grill when we go out for qualifying. Both of those factors combined with the fact that qualifying take place at night, really leads to some very high speeds for qualifying. In race trim the pace slows down a little bit and the groove that drivers run widens out a little more. One of the great things about Atlanta is that drivers do have a variety of grooves that they can run in during the race so a lot of times there is enough room to race each other there.”

NOTES OF INTEREST:

Rudd has 57 starts at Atlanta, which ties him with Bill Elliott for the most starts of any active NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series driver
Rudd has an average starting position of 19.6, and an average finish of 17.6 at Atlanta
Rudd has completed 16,791 of 18,361 laps at Atlanta (91.4 percent) and has led 94 laps
Rudd’s best starting position at Atlanta is from second which he has accomplished three times during his career: 1982, 1984, and 1995
Rudd’s best finish at Atlanta was his victory in the 1987 Motorcraft Quality Parts 500

ABOUT MARS US:

Mars US is the United States food, snack and pet care operations of Mars, Incorporated, one of the world's leading food manufacturers. With more than $7 billion in annual sales in the U.S., the combined food, snack and pet care segments are a symbol of excellence for quality brands. Headquartered in Hackettstown, New Jersey, Mars US employs more than 9,000 associates in the United States, with 52 facilities nationwide. The company owns some of the world's favorite brands, including M&M'S® Brand, SNICKERS® Brand, UNCLE BEN'S® Brand, PEDIGREE® Brand Food for Dogs, and WHISKAS® Brand Food for Cats.

CHASSIS #504

Chassis #504 is the chassis the #88 Snickers Halloween Racing team will be running this weekend for the Pep Boys Auto 500. This is a brand new chassis the team and has not been track-tested.

This Press Release and any images that are used,
are used with permission. Do not duplicate or
redistribute in any form without permission or credit.

__________________

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Ryan Newman, Daytona 500 Champion!!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

This Week In Ford Racing: NNCS Driver Ricky Rudd
Campbell & Company For Ford Racing, Press Release

Ricky Rudd, driver of the No. 88 Snickers Ford Fusion, is winding down a brilliant NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series career, but he still has three races remaining before officially retiring. Rudd spoke about this weekend's race at Texas Motor Speedway.

RICKY RUDD - No. 88 Snickers Ford Fusion -

HOW DOES THE SPEED OF TEXAS COMPARE TO ATLANTA?

"It's different. It's a lot smoother race track. To me, a qualifying lap at Atlanta feels fast. A race lap at Atlanta does not, to me, feel fast. Texas, the race laps feel fast. I guess it just holds the speed better. I'm not sure what the fall off speed is, but, to me, Texas just feels like a faster race track and drives like a faster race track in the race. At Atlanta, there's a tremendous amount of speed difference between your qualifying pace and your race pace, whereas at Texas I don't think there's that big of a drop. The track just seems to hold the speed better."

DO YOU LIKE THE TRACK?

"Yeah, I like the track. I like racing at Atlanta probably better because you have options on where to pass. At Texas, though, the groove is widening out. I know one and two has widened out really well. You've got plenty of room in one and two. Three and four, the groove doesn't move out quite as nice, but it's not a bad track."

TEXAS, PHOENIX, AND HOMESTEAD ARE ALL THAT'S LEFT THIS YEAR. ARE YOU EXPERIENCING ANY EMOTIONS AS YOUR CAREER WINDS DOWN?

"It's a little bit disappointing because the team itself is going through a lot of changes. A couple of weeks ago I got a new crew chief and now I've got a new car chief. They're good guys, but it wasn't like we were really clicking as a group and doing great things, but the communication still takes a little while to build so it's kind of like starting the season all over right now. Even though we've got just three races to go, it's like going to the race track with a new team and it tends to change. In two weeks it's a different team than it was two weeks earlier and it's just a major realignment going on right now to get ready for next year. So from that standpoint of it, it kind of keeps you off balance and I haven't had too much time to reflect that this is my last three races that I'm going to run. It's more like we were the other day, we unloaded and we were way off the pace and we were working hard to try to get caught up and it's kept my mind occupied and not really allowed me to think about the fact that this is the last three or four races of my career."

REGARDLESS OF HOW THIS SEASON HAS GONE, ARE YOU GLAD YOU DECIDED TO COME BACK AND MAYBE FINALLY GET IT OUT OF YOUR SYSTEM AS FAR AS BEING A FULL-TIME DRIVER?

"I always figured that things work out for a reason and when I came back I really didn't have the answer to, 'Did I want to keep going for more years?' I'm fortunate that I've got my health. My shoulder is a little banged up, but it's coming back. We haven't performed well this year. We haven't run. The team has gone through some major changes in the last couple of years at Yates Racing, trying to find out what it takes to get the thing back competitive. But I'll be honest, I think had we gone out there and smelled the taste of running really well and maybe a shot at a win occasionally like we had at the Wood Brothers, I figured at least a similar season where you would do OK and then you'd hit one or two and be really good, but because we haven't had that success, that probably did me a favor. At 51 years old, probably thinking back about it, you probably don't need to be running when you're 51 - not that you can't do it, it's just that in this day and time it's sort of a young guy's sport. You're gone from home all that time. Had we had some success, I'd probably have been out here until 52, 53, 54, I don't know what that number is, but I think it's time to get out. I'm getting burned out on the travel - being away from home and things like that. You just sort of stay in a bad mood all the time, and I had a chance to see what last year was like when I had that time off and I wasn't in a bad mood. My emotions are tied directly to the performance of the race car, so even all my years when we were having some good runs, when you'd have a bad run, no matter how hard I worked at it, I'd feel lousy the whole next week with just a bad attitude. I had to work hard not to be in that mode. I'm thinking, 'Man, that's 32 years of having your emotions tied to the performance of a race car.' That's probably not healthy."

SO NEXT YEAR WILL BE MORE FAMILY TIME AGAIN?

"More playing and just going out and doing what you want to do. We got a chance to do a lot of four-wheeling last year. We don't do it every weekend or every week, but if you wake up and it's a pretty weekend shaping up, we'd go ride. I've got a big trailer where you put all your toys in the back and the front of it is a camper. One of the best times I've had in a long time was with my nephew and his son, and some of their friends, we all had our campers and trailers and met at a track down in South Carolina. We camped out right beside the kids track and the kids would ride some and then we would go ride a little bit. We spent like a day or two doing that and camping out at night with the campfire going and it was just fun. Don't get me wrong, us adults got out there and we raced like it was the Daytona 500 but just don't get paid anything to do it. I think I've always been around something with motors and sort of have a need for speed, so something like that satisfies me. It's friendly competition."

This Press Release and any images that are used,
are used with permission. Do not duplicate or
redistribute in any form without permission or credit.

__________________

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Ryan Newman, Daytona 500 Champion!!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Elevation Motorsports Group For Mars, US, Press Release

CHARLOTTE, NC (November 6, 2007) – This weekend the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series travels to Phoenix International Raceway for the Checker Auto Parts 500. With two more races left in the 2007 season as well as his career, Ricky Rudd looks ahead to Phoenix as an opportunity to further develop on the success the #88 team has achieved the previous two weekends at Atlanta and Texas. Rudd has finished in the top-20 the past two weekends with a 17th-place finish at Atlanta and a 15th-place finish at Texas. Rudd will be running the bright yellow PEDIGREE® Brand Food for Dogs Ford Fusion this weekend at Phoenix instead of his traditional Snickers paint scheme.

Quoting PEDIGREE Driver, Ricky Rudd:

This is your last race at Phoenix, what have you enjoyed about racing here?

“Phoenix International Raceway is a track that I’ve been fortunate enough to have some really great races at. I won there in 1995 and I’ve had some very good runs since then. The Phoenix area is a part of the country that is so beautiful to visit and I’ll miss racing there. Phoenix is also a track where speeds are fast and aerodynamics come into play when you look at setting up a car to race there, so it will be interesting to see how my last race weekend in Phoenix turns out for us.”

This weekend will also mark the last race of the season for the Car of Tomorrow (COT); what are your thoughts on the season with the new chassis style?

“Honestly looking back to the very first races with the COT, most teams really didn’t know what to expect every weekend. I know for our team there were a lot of question marks every weekend simply because all the notes you had from previous races, really didn’t pertain anymore. Changes and set-ups that you used in the past just didn’t work the same on these new cars. It was a season of learning and I think that our guys have learned a lot this year and they’ve been able to apply that as the season has gone on. It has been quite an adjustment to switch between the two car styles, but I really am proud of what our team has been able to focus on towards the end of this year.”

NOTES OF INTEREST:

Rudd has an average starting position of 18.2, and an average finish of 19.6 at Phoenix
Rudd has completed 6,046 of 6,188 laps at Phoenix (97.7 percent) and has led 387 laps
Rudd’s best starting position at Phoenix is from third which he accomplished in 1996
Rudd’s best finish at Phoenix is his win which he earned during the 1995 Dura Lube 500

ABOUT MARS US:

Mars US is the United States food, snack and pet care operations of Mars, Incorporated, one of the world's leading food manufacturers. With more than $7 billion in annual sales in the U.S., the combined food, snack and pet care segments are a symbol of excellence for quality brands. Headquartered in Hackettstown, New Jersey, Mars US employs more than 9,000 associates in the United States, with 52 facilities nationwide. The company owns some of the world's favorite brands, including M&M'S® Brand, SNICKERS® Brand, UNCLE BEN'S® Brand, PEDIGREE® Brand Food for Dogs, and WHISKAS® Brand Food for Cats.

CHASSIS #720

Chassis #720 is the chassis the #88 PEDIGREE Racing team will be running this weekend for the Checker Auto Parts 500. This is the same Car of Tomorrow chassis the team raced earlier in the season for the Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire.

This Press Release and any images that are used,
are used with permission. Do not duplicate or
redistribute in any form without permission or credit.

__________________

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Ryan Newman, Daytona 500 Champion!!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

By DAVID POOLE
The Charlotte Observer


Ricky Rudd (left) and David Gilliland chat as they wait to qualify at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Glenn Smith/The Associated Press

Rudd Ricky Rudd said all he’s trying to do is make it through what he says will be the final race weekend of his career.

Rudd stepped away from full-time racing after the 2005 season, but at that time he never said he was retiring. After returning for 2007, though, he is saying that will be it.

“It really hasn’t sunk in,” said Rudd, who missed five races near the end of the season after injuring his shoulder in a crash at California Speedway. “It has been kind of a crazy year. ...All of a sudden, the season is over with.

“As a driver, over the years, I had to sort of turn off the emotion switch and learn how to do that. Sometimes when you turn it off you kind of get cold-hearted and you don’t think about things.

"I am sure that when the checkered flag flies there will probably be a few emotions running there. But in the meantime, it’s business as normal.”

__________________

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Ryan Newman, Daytona 500 Champion!!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

By Bruce Martin
PA SportsTicker Contributing Editor

HOMESTEAD, Florida (Ticker) - It has been 32 years since Ricky Rudd was a fresh-faced 18-year-old from Chesapeake, Virginia making his first NASCAR Cup debut at Rockingham, North Carolina.

Times were much different in the sport back then, considering he drove a 1973 Ford to an 11th-place finish in 1975. Cale Yarborough was the winner that day followed by David Pearson and Richard Petty.

All three were legendary names while Rudd was a young kid who had made a name for himself in go-kart racing and dreamed of racing in the Indianapolis 500.

Just how different was NASCAR back then?

Petty's third-place finish was nine laps down to Yarborough and Pearson. Rudd's 11th-place car was 56 laps down to the winner.

Richard Childress, who went on to become one of the most successful team owners in Cup history, was sixth in that race as a driver.

Rudd competed in three more races that season, including a top-10 finish at Bristol. He competed in four more races in 1976 before running a full season in 1977 when he won the Rookie of the Year title.

Since that time, Rudd has competed in 903 races, including 788 straight from 1981-2005, drove to victory lane 23 times and has earned the reputation as one of the most professional cleanest drivers in the series.

That career comes to an end in Sunday's Nextel Cup Ford 400, Rudd's last as a driver.

"I'm just trying to get through it, that's how I look at it," Rudd said of his final start. "Probably the best way to look at it, it really hasn't sunk in. It's been kind of a crazy year, starting off we were struggling on the race track, and then getting hurt and then sitting out about five weeks and coming back.

"All of a sudden, the season's over with. Like I said, it's been a little struggle as a team, the last couple, three weeks. We're kind of looking forward to getting this race done."

Actually, Rudd tried this retirement thing once before. He walked away from the sport after the 2005 season to "take a break." He did not start a race in 2006 but took over as a relief driver at Dover after Tony Stewart broke his shoulder in a crash at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

Rudd decided to come out of retirement this season to help his old friend and team owner Robert Yates after his race team had fallen upon hard times.

"The last time I was here in '05 was the last time I raced, I was going to leave the sport," Rudd said. "I knew I was going to leave it for a year. I was very careful how I used my words. I never used the word retire, because I didn't really know if I could stay retired, so I never said retire, I said I'm going to take a year off, and I did that.

"And, as it turns out, I said, 'I think I'm going to give it one more try.'"

Rudd said he was having some personal battles within himself whether he wanted to stay out of the race car or not.

"I'm sure anybody who has had a full career in whatever they do, they battle these same little battles that I was battling," Rudd continued. "So, at the end of '05 I really wasn't sure, but I was real careful not to say retired.

"But this time I'm going to use the word retire because I know it's the right time."

The second go-round for Rudd has been a bit of a struggle as the team was never really in position to compete against the bigger teams in the series such as Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing.

"Coming back and running this season and probably having such a tough year probably helped make that decision, but I'm done," Rudd said. "Good luck to everybody that's out there still racing, but I'm looking forward to the next chapter."

Rudd has tremendous respect within the Nextel Cup garage area among his competitors. He always raced them hard, but fair.

Of course there were times when Rudd's temper flared, such as punching out Brett Bodine in the garage area at the old North Wilkesboro Speedway in North Carolina in 1996.

Ironically, Bodine is now a NASCAR official and one of Rudd's contemporaries.

But today's NASCAR stars have a respect for the driver who is driving his final race on Sunday.

"Drivers know when they are ready to do something else and the good thing is Ricky get to do it on his terms," fellow driver Tony Stewart said. "You have to be happy for him. He's had a great career and has won a lot of races, has his health and his family and you have to respect that.

"It's sad as a racer to know I won't be able to race him any more but at the same time we are celebrating the end to his great career. He was always a lot of fun. He was always fair about how he raced you."

Racing has been a major part of Rudd's life for 32 years and he knows he will miss it. He'll miss the preseason testing getting ready for the Daytona 500.

But he isn't going to miss all that follows the Daytona 500, something he calls "a heck of a grind."

The grueling 36-race schedule and the two extra non-points races such as the Budweiser Shootout and the Nextel All Star Challenge creates a schedule that begins before Valentine's Day in February and ends four days before Thanksgiving in November.

That type of commitment just doesn't appeal to the 51-year-old Rudd any more.

"When you live that life and you do it, it doesn't seem to be that difficult, but when you step away and look back you say, 'Man, I don't know how these guys do it,'" Rudd said. "There's so much time spent on the road and before you know it, 30-some years of your life are gone.

"They were enjoyable years, but I also had 32 years go by, and I don't want to be sitting here and talking to you when I'm 80 years old, saying, 'Man, where did it go?' I'm very aware of that, so I'm going to try to make every day count when I'm retired. I'm not going to hang around and let too much grow under my feet. I'm going to be active, but I just don't know exactly what that's going to be."

He's given NASCAR "120 percent" his whole career, had plenty of good times but let "a championship or two" slip away. But he also has plenty to be proud of.

Rudd has many memories of the sport but when it's over he will quietly walk away and move on with the rest of his life.

Either way, he's going to do it as he always has, which is his way without much fanfare.

"As a driver, over the years, I've had to sort of turn off the emotion switch and learn how to do that," Rudd said. "Sometimes when you turn it off you kind of get cold-hearted, you don't think about things.

"But I'm sure that when the checkered flag it'll probably be a few emotions running there. But in the meantime, it's business as normal. I've turned off the emotion switch. I'm kind of numb to what's going to happen afterward."

__________________

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Ryan Newman, Daytona 500 Champion!!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.