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Ricky Rudd, driver of the No. 28 Texaco/Havoline Taurus, moved into seventh place in this season's Winston Cup points race following a second-place finish in the Pepsi 400 at Michigan Speedway on Sunday. He trails Tony Stewart by just two points for sixth place. Rudd has earned 10 top-10 finishes this season.
Ricky Rudd - 28 - Texaco/Havoline Taurus - "It's definitely an exciting race track. Concrete presents its own problems. The most difficult thing about Bristol, it's really one groove wide to race hard in, if you go the second groove it gets really hard to run fast in the second groove, so it's a lot of follow-the-leader, waiting for somebody to make a mistake. It take's a lot a patience there because it is a single-groove race track. And, the way you pass, you just drive, keep waiting for somebody to make mistake or a lot times there's a little nudge that goes on and makes the guy move up the second groove and you move on, and that pretty much happens the entire race, and that's how the flow works.
DOES RACING AT A SINGLE-GROOVE TRACK LIKE BRISTOL AFTER RACING AT MICHIGAN HURT YOUR
PREPARATION? "No, it's just a night-and-day difference, just completely different race tracks. You just leave Michigan, you put that behind you and you go to Bristol. You know when you go to Bristol it's going to be a war - it's a survival war, as much as it is anything. If you can survive that race and get to the late stages of the race - what happens is you thin a lot of cars out at Bristol, a lot of them get wrecked and when they get wrecked a lot of them get destroyed. So, as the day goes on, the field gets thinner and thinner, and then you start racing in the last couple of hundred laps, there's more room to race. So it's sort of a survival until you get to the last 200 laps. But as far as comparing it - maybe the emphasis is a little stronger on it, it is such a tight race track, after coming off Michigan, which is an extreme opposite direction. It's not that the track is not wide, it is wide, and you used to be able to pass there when it was blacktop, and you pass now, but it used to be side-by-side racing, hard, and now you'll see side-by side racing but both inside and outside guys had to slow down to run side-by-side."
DO YOU MAKE A CONSCIOUS EFFORT TO GET YOUR LAPS IN, AND MAKE SURE THE ATTRITION DOESN'T INCLUDE YOU?
"You have to go into that race and just say, hey, it is a survival race. But you don't want to run too slow because if you run slow you're going to take a chance of getting lapped - but a lap down at Bristol is not the end of the world. You can come back, and a lot of people do, many laps from Bristol. Again, it's survival. Survival and try to stay on the lead lap. And a lot of times the best place to be is if you happen to qualify well, is out front. The best place to run Bristol is from the first four, five, six cars."
DRIVING AT NIGHT, DOES THAT CHANGE THE WAY YOU APPROACH THE RACE? "No, nothing's different."
WITH A LATE START, HOW DOES THAT AFFECT YOUR SCHEDULE? "Well, you just got to pay attention a little bit. The track does change a little bit at nighttime. You end up with more grip at night than you do during the heat of the day, so you just gotta take that into consideration and make sure you don't get your car too tight in the heat of the day, if you get it where the front end is pushing a little bit in the heat of the day, it'll be really bad at night, so you just got to keep that in mind. It's typical for about any night race, it's not something any different at Bristol than it is, say, at Richmond or somewhere else."
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series
With only five races remaining in the 2000 NASCAR Craftsman Truck campaign, Greg has a commanding 190-point lead in the race for the championship over Mike Wallace. Teammate Kurt Busch sits in fourth, only13 points behind third place Andy Houston and 78 points behind Mike Wallace. Having been in a similar position last year Greg knows that every point is critical and is clearly now racing for the championship.
GREG BIFFLE --50-- GRAINGER FORD F-150 -- ROUSH RACING-- WITH ONLY FIVE RACES TO GO, ARE YOU STARTING TO FEEL ANY PRESSURE OVER AND ABOVE
NORMAL?--"Not really. I'm very lucky in that I have a great crew and Jack Roush gives me great equipment to drive. It's very comforting to know that all I have to do is go out and do the thing I enjoy most which is driving the truck. The team is very focused and they know what we need to do every week in order to get us to our ultimate goal, which is the championship. After last season, I have a pretty good idea what the pressures are going to be. Last year gave me a really good feel for what making a championship run in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck series is all about. I am looking forward to a far different result this year though."
THERE ARE A LOT OF MILESTONES STILL TO BE SET IN THE NASCAR CRAFTSMAN TRUCK SERIES. DO YOU FEEL ANY ADDED PRESSURE TO ACCOMPLISH THESE SINCE THIS IS YOUR LAST SEASON IN THE SERIES?
"Obviously we would like to win the championship and that is really what we are focused on doing this season. There will be other accomplishments that will come along with that. I would like to be the next Ford to win and give Ford Racing their 50th win in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. I think that would really be cool. Ford is also in really good shape to repeat this year as the Manufacturers Championship and us winning is a major contributor to that effort as well. Right now though our focus is on winning the championship and to do that we have to continue to run well and be consistent for the rest of the season."
GOING FORWARD TO THIS WEEK AT CHICAGO MOTOR SPEEDWAY. HOW DO YOU THINK YOUR CHANCES OF WIN NUMBER SIX LOOK THERE? "The Grainger team is good enough to win anywhere, and I don't think Chicago is any different. We have had the opportunity to run a tire test here and Goodyear has a pretty good set of tires for the race. It should be a fast race, but there will be some bumping out there. The track is pretty flat and fast. A lot of the drivers have compared it to New Hampshire in some ways. We also ran a NASCAR/Ford Racing media day out here last week with a two-seater demonstration truck and really had a lot of fun. On top of all of that, we have a test day on Friday before the race. By the time we finally get to the race we will have had a pretty good look at this racetrack and should be ready to get around it quickly and safely. I think that you can look forward to a good run from us on Sunday."
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT SCOTT PRUETT RUNNING IN THE NASCAR CRAFTSMAN TRUCK RACE THIS WEEKEND?
"I think that it's great for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck series to have Winston Cup drivers come and compete. It not only gives the fans something else to keep an eye on, but it gives us the chance to get out on the track with a Winston Cup driver and match our skills. We have quite a few Winston Cup drivers that come and race with us on occasion and I think that it is great for the series, the fans, and the drivers."
AT THIS POINT IN THE SEASON, ARE YOU POINTS RACING OR DO YOU GUYS STILL GO 110% FOR THE WIN EVERY WEEKEND? "We've got to be smart about what we are doing. Our goal as a team and mine as a driver is to win the championship. That doesn't mean that we aren't going to still try and win races. I think that we just have to be smart as a team and make the right decisions. There are times during the race when Randy (Goss), crewchief, will call me on the radio and say that it is time to make a "championship decision" as opposed to a race winning decision. At this point we really have to think about every decision we make as a team and as a driver. A bad decision could still jeopardize us in the long run and we certainly don't want to risk that."
YOU ARE MOVING UP TO THE BUSCH GRAND NATIONAL SERIES NEXT SEASON; ARE YOU GOING TO MISS RACING IN THE NASCAR CRAFTSMAN TRUCK SERIES? "Yeah. I really have a lot of fun in this series. I have made a lot of good friends here that I'm sure I will still see once in a while, but I won't be racing them every weekend. The trucks have been a great opportunity for me to get involved in NASCAR racing and see what it's all about. It's also been great experience to be able to go through two whole seasons in a championship points race. I think that it really gave me a real feel for the type of pressures that are involved in this sport. The NASCAR Craftsman Truck series has really become popular with the racing fans and I think it's only going to get better. Once a real racing fan comes out to one of our races, they're hooked."
WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO AFTER THE SEASON IS OVER? "It really is never over. I am moving to the Charlotte, NC area to be closer to the Busch team shop this winter. I'm sure I will also be spending some serious time behind the wheel of a Busch car doing some testing at some of the tracks that I haven't been to yet. The team will be very busy this winter as we switch gears and move into the Busch Series. There will be plenty to do that's for sure. Oh yeah, I hope to be doing some celebrating at the end of the season as well. It would be great to have the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Championship, Jack Roush's first NASCAR Championship, and the Manufacturer's Championship for Ford to celebrate all winter as well. We still have five races left in the trucks and we are going to make the most of it,
I guarantee it."
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