Rudd began the streak Jan. 11, 1981, on the now-defunct road course at Riverside International Raceway, said he never gave the record much thought until other people began talking about it.
That doesn't mean he's not proud of it, though.
"I think it says a little bit about your character," Rudd said. "There's plenty of days that I could have sat out of the race car because of an injury or illness or something. I had some days I'd much rather have been laying in a hospital bed than sitting in the race car."
One of those days was in Feb. 19, 1984.
A week earlier, Rudd had survived a wild, tumbling crash at Daytona International Speedway during a preliminary to the Daytona 500. It was his first race for owner Bud Moore, and the rising star was determined not to blow the opportunity to drive for an established winner for the first time.
"I took a trip to the hospital and, really, they wanted to keep me there quite a bit longer than I wanted to stay. I basically checked myself out the next morning," Rudd said.
He ran both the 125-mile qualifying race and the 500-miler with torn cartilage in his ribcage, horribly swollen eyes and, worst of all, severe dizziness when he drove on the high banks of the Daytona track.
"It only affected me where you pull G-loads," he said, smiling. "One eye would go this way and the other eye would go that way. ... It probably wasn't real smart of me to be driving. I basically focused on the back bumper of the car in front of me. It was about all I could see."
Rudd finished seventh.
Labonte, whose 20-year string of races ended in August 2000 after he suffered an inner ear injury in a crash the previous month in Daytona, has a unique appreciation of Rudd's accomplishment.
"I can remember Ricky running at Richmond, Va., after he'd had a terrible accident at Daytona and turned over 10 or 12 times," Labonte said of the 1984 crash. "His eyes were so swollen that he could hardly see and he ran Daytona and then won the race at Richmond the next week.
"That's just kind of the mentality that drivers have. If there's any way you can do it, you're going to still continue to race."
Another time when Rudd could have given in was in May 1988 in Charlotte while driving for Kenny Bernstein.
"That was during the tire wars between Hoosier and Goodyear and everybody was blowing tires," Rudd said. "We were running in The Winston and blew a right front tire and hit the fence, hit it really hard, and tore all the ligaments in the left knee."
Doctors wanted Rudd to have immediate surgery, sidelining him for six weeks. Instead, he flew to Indianapolis to see an orthopedic specialist who put him on an exercise program and designed a knee brace to keep Rudd in the car.
"The only trouble was I couldn't use my left leg at all, so they had the team work and put a hand clutch for pit stops," Rudd said. "Once I got off pit road, I could hand shift it and not use a clutch. That was a pretty tough weekend."
Again, Rudd finished seventh.
"Back when we came along, it was a fight to get a chance to get the good equipment," Rudd said. "There was maybe only five good cars, five really solid winning teams in the garage area.
"Once you had a shot at one of those rides, you couldn't afford to give it away."
Labonte took the ironman record from Richard Petty in 1996 when he drove in his 514th consecutive race. The two-time Winston Cup champion doesn't lament the way his streak ended.
"Unfortunately, I didn't get the right ear doctor," Labonte said. "After I missed a couple of races, I still had the problem. I went to see some other doctors and one guy diagnosed me and treated me in one day. If I'd had the right ear doctor in the first place, I'd never have missed those races."
Timing is important, too.
"Safety equipment is getting better all the time," Labonte said. "If I had the headrest that we have today, I would just imagine I would never have been hurt."
He hasn't missed a start since.
"If I could have held it, I could have really put it out there where it would be hard to reach," Labonte said.
Very shortly, however, the record will belong to Rudd.
"Ricky's had a good career, and I'm glad he is the guy that's going to break it," Labonte said. "We started racing about the same time and been competitors for many years and I have a tremendous amount of respect for him."
Rudd's record could last a long time.
"Most of the guys who've got 100 races less than me are as old as I am," he said. "The young guys, I see them coming in at a younger age in good equipment and leaving at a younger age, so I would say the record will probably stand for quite some time."
Rudd is proud of the streak, saying it shows his determination. But he also takes pride in his record of winning at least one race in 16 consecutive seasons, a string that ended in 1999.
"I kind of couple the two together," Rudd said. "To be out here every weekend, that says one thing, but to have that win streak, that kind of goes hand in hand with it."
Facts About Ricky's Consecutive Starts Record
The streak started Jan. 11, 1981, at Riverside, Calif., but Rudd had started 86 races prior to that one. The only other drivers still active who were in that race are Terry Labonte and Kyle Petty. Richard Childress drove in that race and finished fourth.
When the streak started, only two Winston Cup races had been televised live in their entirety - the 1979 and 1980 Daytona 500s.
Ronald Reagan's first inauguration as president was nine days after the first race in the streak. IBM sold its first personal computer that same year. Chris Evert and John McEnroe won Wimbledon, Clemson won the NCAA football championship and Indiana beat North Carolina for the men's basketball title. MTV was launched, “Chariots of Fire” was named best picture and Prince Charles married Lady Diana.
Rudd has won 22 races and 27 poles and finished in the top five 176 times and had 312 top-10 finishes in the streak.
Close calls? There have been two big ones. Rudd barrel-rolled in a Bud Moore-owned Ford in the Busch Clash in 1984, but raced in the Daytona 500 the next week with his eyelids taped open. He won the following race at Richmond. He tore ligaments in a crash in The Winston in 1988, but ran the following week in the Coca-Cola 600 with a hand-operated clutch rigged by his team.
Rudd has raced at 28 different tracks during the streak.
From the beginning of the streak until today, Rudd has run 193,181 laps covering 235,097 miles. That distance equals 9˝ trips around the earth at its equator or 95 trips from Los Angeles to New York. In racing terms, that would be 441,082 laps around Bristol Motor Speedway.
Rudd has raced for seven different car owners during the streak, starting the most races for - himself. Rudd was his own car-owner for 192 of the 655 starts. Sunday's race will be his 82nd for Robert Yates Racing. He ran 117 for Hendrick Motorsports, 116 for Bud Moore, 60 for Richard Childress, 58 for Kenny Bernstein and 31 for Jim Gardner.
Rudd has used seven car numbers during the streak - 88, 3, 15, 26, 5, 10 and 28.
The year the streak started, Jeff Gordon was 9. Kevin Harvick and Jimmie Johnson were 5, Ryan Newman was 3 and Kurt Busch was 2.
Consecutive-game record streaks in pro sports
Baseball: Cal Ripken Jr., 2,362 games
NBA: A.C. Green, 1,192 games
NHL: Doug Jarvis, 964 games
NASCAR: Ricky Rudd, 656 races (as of Sunday)
NFL: Jim Marshall, 282 games
NASCAR's top streaks
656 - Ricky Rudd (1/11/81 to current)
655 - Terry Labonte (1/14/79 to 8/5/00)
648 - Dale Earnhardt (9/9/79 to 2/25/01)
565 - Rusty Wallace (2/19/84 to current)
535 - Ken Schrader (2/17/85 to current)
513 - Richard Petty (9/14/71 to 3/19/89)
448 - Mark Martin (2/14/88 to current)
Note: All current streaks include Sunday's race
