NASCAR Hall of Fame members Ricky Rudd and Carl Edwards, recently inducted into the class of 2025 of the prestigious shrine in Charlotte, N.C., were two of the absolute best to ever roam the high banks of Bristol Motor Speedway.
Known for his success at short tracks throughout the circuit, Rudd was a high performer on Bristol’s high banks despite any golden statues to show for it. The Chesapeake, Virginia native posted four runner-up finishes, six third-place finishes, 16 top-fives and an amazing 31 top-10s in 58 career starts at the .533-mile high-banked concrete oval. Despite never winning at the ultra-tough track, Rudd was seemingly always in the mix battling for victories at the end.
Rudd’s most amazing stat was his longevity. Before Jeff Gordon broke his record in 2015, Rudd held the streak for most consecutive starts in the NASCAR Cup Series. One time, after a horrific crash in Daytona, Rudd famously taped his eyes open so he could race the following weekend. In another race at Martinsville, he suffered second-degree burns in a crash, but it didn’t keep him out of the car the following week. He was literally tough as nails.
All totaled, Rudd’s record run included an incredible 788 consecutive starts from 1981 to 2005. During that span he also set another record that has since been broken, for consecutive seasons with at least one victory, 16, from 1983-1998. Rudd competed in a whopping 906 races in his lengthy career over a 33-year period.
While 23-time Cup Series winner Rudd won multiple times at Martinsville, Richmond, Dover and Phoenix, for some odd reason he never claimed a trophy at Bristol, a track that he admitted he loved.
With a wide grin, Rudd explained that there were two gigantic barriers standing in his way of reaching Victory Lane at Bristol Motor Speedway.
- Darrell Waltrip
- Dale Earnhardt
If Rudd would’ve raced in any other time period other than the ‘80s and ‘90s, he might’ve bagged five or more trophies at Bristol. But given his timing, he faced two of the sport’s greatest drivers at their zenith and both of them loved Bristol and were two of the most talented drivers to ever tame the Tennessee bullring.
Darrell Waltrip is still the track’s all-time wins leader, with 12 career victories. He and team owner Junior Johnson dominated at Bristol in their heyday. The team won seven straight times from 1981-1984. Several of those wins featured Rudd in the top five. Both 1981 Bristol races Rudd finished second to Waltrip. In 1989, Waltrip won and held off Rudd, who finished third overall during the famed Night Race.
“It was one of those tracks for us,” Rudd says. “I can’t tell you how many times we were racing Darrell Waltrip for the win, and he flat out owned that track. He and Junior (Johnson, team owner, crew chief) were unbeatable there. It was a strange deal to go there and run so strong that you thought you were gonna win, but they still would beat you. But, if you are gonna run second to someone, there’s not a better group of guys to do it to."
The other roadblock for Rudd was that popular No. 3 from Richard Childress Racing driven by nine-time BMS winner Dale Earnhardt. Rudd posted a second-place finish to Earnhardt in the spring of 1985 and a pair of third places finishes in both Bristol races in 1986. In the 85-spring race, Earnhardt lost his power steering early on, but somehow managed to hold off Rudd and win. In the 86 races, Rudd claimed third place finishes as he watched the No. 3 car take the checkered flags.
Rudd and Earnhardt at that time were bitter rivals. Some of that feud flowed over the driver’s seat of the famed No. 3 car. Earnhardt left the car to go drive for Bud Moore in 1982 and meanwhile Rudd took over the 3-car at RCR. With Rudd driving, the team kept getting better and better and won races at Riverside, California and Martinsville in 1983. With momentum building, suddenly, Childress elected to put Earnhardt back in the seat at the start of the 1984 season and Rudd had to go looking for another ride. The move left Rudd with hard feelings.
“Dale at that time was one of my best friends and we did a lot of things together back then, we were really close,” Rudd said. “But it was a punch in the stomach for sure at the end of the 1983 season. It was like your best friend stole your girlfriend. It’s kind of sad we butted heads over that for a really long time. We were finally getting back and patching things up (before Earnhardt’s death in 2001).”
Lost in the aftermath of the 1999 Night Race when Earnhardt bumped Terry Labonte out of the way on the final lap to get the victory was Rudd’s involvement in that iconic moment. Rudd was running in third place as Earnhardt made contact with Labonte. In the heat of the moment, with smoke from Labonte’s car billowing, Rudd decided to go left and low and hit Labonte’s spinning car on the back side. If he would’ve went to the right, high side, he would’ve been able to cruise to victory, or at least battle Earnhardt nose to nose for the win as they approached the checkered flag. It wasn’t meant to be.
“As I was coming up there on those two, I knew there was gonna be fireworks there, just like all the fans did too,” Rudd said. “There wasn’t a question that Earnhardt was going to bump him. You knew that was coming, you just had to be ready for it when he did it. When you are trailing something like that it’s just a crap shoot. I’ve won races from that situation, but sadly that day I got it wrong.”
Despite his heartbreak there, Rudd says his love for Bristol was immense.
“Bristol was always a fun place to go to, the racing was so exciting,” Rudd said. “A bunch of us drivers used to all say when we finally retired, we were going to go get a beer and sit in the middle of the grandstands on the frontstretch and enjoy watching a race at Bristol.”
Rudd says Bristol is still NASCAR’s most unique racetrack. In a few weeks the track will again host the long running Food City 500, April 11-13. The tradition-rich race will again be held on the concrete high-banks in the afternoon just like it was during Rudd’s era.
“I remember how tough it was,” Rudd says. “I had never felt G-load like that on anything I raced before. I always thought, ‘how in the world can you run around this track without running into each other?’ But’s that’s just part of it. It’s all about survival, and it’s a fun experience for the drivers.”
While Rudd couldn’t buy a victory at Bristol, his NASCAR Hall of Fame fellow inductee Edwards had seemingly no problem finding his way to Bristol’s roof-top victory lane during his era. And Edwards had several drivers that were also Bristol specialists standing in his way, like the Busch brothers, Kyle and Kurt, Kevin Harvick and Matt Kenseth to name a few.
Of Edward’s 28 career Cup victories, four came a Bristol. He is also a member of an exclusive Bristol club where he claimed victories in NASCAR’s top three divisions at the short track. He won the 2007 Xfinity Series spring race and the 2004 Night Race Craftsman Truck Series victory. Only six drivers in history have Bristol wins in each division.
Edwards also has the distinction of being the first driver at Bristol’s Last Great Colosseum to receive the Bristol Gladiator Sword for winning the 2014 Food City 500.
“I never realized I was the first to get the sword there,” Edwards said with a smile, “but that thing was a real sword. It was razor-sharp. I remember opening it and going, whoa, that’s a real sword.”
Edwards entertained the Bristol fans with his popular post-race victory move, a signature backflip off the door of his racecar.
“I remember thinking about the banking on the frontstretch of the track and the angle I am going to come down after the flip,” Edwards said. “It was something I thought about, for sure, but I did it. The fans loved it. I was always happy to do it.”
Edwards said the energy at Bristol was unlike anything he experienced anywhere else on the NASCAR circuit.
“I remember a couple of races where the action happens so fast there and your heart is pounding,” Edwards said. “You are just trying not to make a mistake and keep clear of the lapped traffic. It was just fun to drive no matter what situation you were in. If you were holding somebody up, you knew it cause they were on your bumper. Even the races I won there I never felt like the car was that great and I was always managing a problem. There was just always something going on. That’s Bristol.”
Like many before him who have unlocked the secret to running well and winning races at Bristol, Edwards says he wishes he knew exactly what the formula was. He says it basically comes down to two things.
“I had really fast cars and great crew chiefs,” Edwards said. “I loved the place. I played Bristol all the time on a video game when I was a kid, so maybe that helped too. At Bristol, everything in you says you shouldn’t be on the throttle in certain situations, but actually you needed to be. You had to be on the throttle. And other times, your instinct is to hit the throttle, but really you should be letting off and braking. It’s such a fun place to race.”
Edwards unlike Rudd was not an ironman in the sport. The Missouri driver abruptly ended his career in his prime at the age of 37 following the 2016 season. He competed in 445 races over 13 seasons. Who knows how many more Bristol wins Edwards would’ve racked up this past decade if he would’ve kept racing?
“I don’t regret leaving,” Edwards said. “I could have probably done it better…If I had to do it over again, I probably could have done it in a more gracious way. Because I left so abruptly, I felt a little bit of guilt around that.”
In a few weeks fans will be able to watch the next generation of NASCAR Hall of Famers battle at Bristol Motor Speedway. The highly-anticipated weekend opens with the WEATHER GUARD Truck Race, a 250-lap race in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series under the lights on Friday, April 11 (7:30 p.m., FS1 and PRN Radio). The action continues Saturday afternoon on April 12 with the SciAps 300 NASCAR Xfinity Series race (5 p.m., The CW, PRN Radio) and then culminates Sunday afternoon with the historic Food City 500 NASCAR Cup Series race (April 13, 3 p.m., FS1 and PRN Radio).
In addition to cheering on their favorite drivers on the track, Bristol Motor Speedway fans will definitely want to take advantage of so many activities to make a complete weekend of family fun. There will be great video entertainment provided by Colossus TV, the world's largest center-hung video screen, premium VIP experiences, tailgating, on-site camping, concerts and other entertainment at the Food City Fan Zone Stage headlined by Trackside Live with Kenny Wallace and John Roberts, great food and beverages in the concession stands throughout the property, and so much more.
To purchase tickets for the Food City 500, please visit https://www.bristolmotorspeedway.com/events/food-city-500/or call the BMS ticket sales center at (866) 415-4158. Tickets can also be purchased at your neighborhood Food City store until Wednesday, April 4.
