Time does not dilute the memories of Rudd's crash in the Busch Clash.
He survived a series of flips in that exhibition race and, despite injuries,
ran in the Daytona 500 a week later.
It was one of the few times he nearly missed a race in the past 21 seasons.
He tore ligaments in his left knee in a crash in The Winston in 1988 but kept racing.
He suffered second-degree burns on his back during the 1998 fall Martinsville
race but won and was back in the car three days later.
That was nothing compared to Daytona 1984.
Rudd recalls everything about the accident
at least until the point where he was knocked unconscious.
As his car skidded toward the inside wall, Rudd thought: "Don't get knocked out.
This thing could catch on fire."
He squeezed the steering wheel and braced for impact.
"All of a sudden it got real quiet," he said. The car was airborne.
"I was glad it got airborne because it allowed me to hop over that wall, but then it
came down the first time," Rudd said. "I remember hitting the first time and hearing
the air go out of me. Like those game films in the NFL when a guy gets hit and all the
air rushes out of his body. That 'ugh.' I heard that."
Linda Rudd, standing in Rudd's pits, said she heard only one thing.
Ka-BOOM!
She saw her husband's blue and yellow car flipping. She saw the window net down and
Rudd's left arm flailing outside the window as the car tumbled. His seat broke
during the crash, bouncing him against bars and the dashboard.
Rudd suffered torn cartilage in his rib cage. His pupils were blood red, his body bruised.
He spent a night in the hospital. Doctors wanted him to stay longer, but Rudd
told them he had to be back at the track the next day. This was his first year
with Bud Moore's team, the best ride in Rudd's career to that point. He was
afraid if he didn't return, he would lose his ride.
"Even as much pain as I was in, I didn't want to relive all those experiences of
trying to get another opportunity," he said.
When he drove again two days after the crash, Rudd had problems seeing as the car
went through the corners. "Everything was really distorted and blurry," he said.
His swollen eyelids covered his eyes when he drove into the high-banked corners.
He duct-taped his eyes open so he could see, so he could race.
When Ricky Rudd showed up at Daytona 500, he looked like he had just come out on the
losing end of a boxing match.
his face was bruised and battered, his eyes so swollen and black
that when he took off his sunglasses in a local restaurant, a little girl screamed.
"He looked like a monster," said Eddie Dickerson, one of Rudd's crewmen at the time.
"There's no way I would have gotten back in a race car," team owner
Rick Hendrick says, recalling the horrifying crash.
But Rudd did, taping his eyes open wide enough to finish seventh in the Daytona 500.
A week later, still hurting from the violent crash, Rudd scored his third career
victory at Richmond.
Rudd proved at Daytona that day that he was one of NASCAR's
toughest competitors and he has continued to prove it .
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