CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Ricky Rudd was shoveling leaves by his pool when he received an anonymous text message telling him he might want to make the 20-minute drive south to Charlotte, quickly.
Rudd knew right away that he would finally make the NASCAR Hall of Fame in his eighth year on the ballot.
The tough driver from Virginia was selected as part of the Class of 2025 on Tuesday along with driver Carl Edwards and mechanic and racing strategist Ralph Moody, who made the pioneer ballot.
They will be officially inducted into the Hall of Fame on February 7 at a ceremony in Charlotte.
“You don’t think about the Hall of Fame when you compete,” Rudd said. “But after you retire and get away from the sport, the importance takes on a little more. … I always tried to make sure I was in town that day in case I got a phone call.”
Dr. Dean Sicking, who is credited with creating the SAFER barrier after he was tasked by NASCAR to make racing safer following the death of Dale Earnhardt at Daytona in 2001, was selected as a Landmark Award winner for his contributions to the sport.
Rudd was one of the few successful driver-owners in the modern era, having won 23 races during his 32-year racing career and 29 pole positions.
Rudd, 67, held the Cup record for consecutive starts with 788 before Jeff Gordon broke the record in 2015.
A fixture on race weekends, Rudd competed in 906 Cup races, second only to Richard Petty’s 1,185. He finished in the top five 194 times and in the top 10 374 times, and won a Cup race in 16 consecutive seasons from 1983-1998.
Rudd said he always admired drivers like AJ Foyt, Richard Petty and Bobby and Donnie Allison for their toughness.
“I did some things that maybe some guys wouldn’t do coming back in the car, when others would have sat out a race or two,” Rudd said. “But I didn’t feel like I did any different than the group in front of me. “Those guys were tough.”
Rudd, the 1977 Cup Rookie of the Year, won six races for the Rudd Performance Motorsports team he managed from 1994 to 1999, including the 1997 Brickyard 400.
The 44-year-old Edwards’ career included 72 victories in NASCAR’s three racing series, including 28 in Cup races, most of which culminated in a celebratory backflip.
His success in the Truck Series earned him full-time rides in both the Cup Series and the Xfinity Series in 2005.
He burst onto the big scene by winning his first races in each series during an early-season weekend sweep at Atlanta Motor Speedway and became a popular budding star in the sport. She won the Xfinity Series championship in 2007 and accumulated 38 wins in seven full seasons at that level.
Edwards won the Coca Cola 600, Southern 500 in 2015 and was runner-up in the Cup Series championship twice, including the closest finish in NASCAR history when he lost on a tiebreaker in 2011.
Edwards was not at the Hall of Fame announcement in Charlotte and could not be reached for interviews.
Moody drove a tank under General George S. Patton in World War II and then moved to Florida in 1949 so he could compete year-round. He did it in 1982.
Moody teamed with business-minded John Holman to form Holman-Moody Racing in 1957, the beginning of a powerful NASCAR team.
They competed from 1957 to 1973, winning championships with David Pearson in 1968 and 1969 and winning the 1976 Daytona 500 with Mario Andretti in 1967. Among those who drove cars owned by Holman-Moody Racing were Hall of Famers of NASCAR Joe Weatherly, Fred Lorenzen, Fireball. Roberts, Bobby Allison and Pearson.
Diseases are credited with saving many lives thanks to the SAFER barrier.
He continued to study the incident history of each runway and helped implement a plan to cover the most dangerous areas immediately. Currently, all NASCAR national series racetracks have SAFER barriers.
Sicking, 66, was named the winner of the Bill France Award for Excellence in 2003 and received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation from President George W. Bush in 2005.
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