1,000 Greatest Drivers: Ricky Rudd

Is he a legend or is he a career compiler? Answer: Yes.

Okay, I had a lot to write here as usual. My initial write-up was 1,685 words before I trimmed it down to the usual 500. I decided I wanted to get an earlier start today because I didn’t want to submit it after midnight or at a time when I thought people might be less likely to read it. Rudd is one of those drivers I used to overrate (and Geoff Bodine was another) mainly because they were so impressive on road courses and short tracks and I used to have an extreme bias towards drivers who won on those tracks while I diminished drivers who were superspeedway specialists. As I have aged and done more research, I realize I was wrong to do that, particularly upon realizing that success on superspeedways and plate tracks is often correlated with the ability to pass elsewhere. The fact that Rudd was more mediocre on superspeedways than most of the drivers who were as strong as him should be held against him but I didn’t do so for the longest time. Having said that, while I understand why someone would call him mid or a career compiler because I understand he never came close to being the best driver in a season and usually wasn’t even a top five performer (with the probable exceptions of 1983, 1988, and 2001) I do think his grit and determination and his intangibles are worth something, and it defnitely says something that he could get the same level of performance out of any kind of car. While his Hendrick performance really does not impress me, his performances at almost all his other teams definitely do. So, which is it? Is he a legend like most of the people more obsessed with narrative and good storytelling will tell you, or is he a mere career compiler like the stats bros who merely look at data with no context? Honestly, I think it’s both…