“I understand Robert's there almost every day opening the shop up, so, like I say, I think the biggest thing is that desire and the fire in his eyes when I met him. He's bound and determined to get this thing turned around and you can't have a car owner that's more committed than Robert Yates, so I think that's the key. The motor programme is never an issue when you go to Robert Yates Racing. Motors are sort of taken for granted. They're always there for you. And then also having the funding with Snickers coming on board. You've got everything it takes and it's just up to us to get it organised and get it headed in the right direction and get it turned around.”
WHAT DID THE YEAR OFF DO FOR YOU?
RR "As far as coming back after taking the year off, what it did was give me a chance to really focus on what I really wanted to do. Racing is in my blood. It has been since I was a kid and for the time until I'm dead and in the grave I'm sure that desire will still be there, but it just came to a time after thirtysome years of on the schedule, doing the commitments and all, I needed a little bit of regrouping time. My dad passed away last year and it just sort of makes you re-evaluate things. The pace in racing is so aggressive that you really don't have a chance to evaluate things. That was just a stepping back period for me to kind of figure out what I wanted to do.
“I got kind of hungry. I missed the competition. I was running go-kart races and running the dirt bikes daily, so the desire to go out and go fast and try to do good in motorsports never left. We went to Indianapolis and teamed up with a 16-year-old boy and won a huge go-kart race out there about a few months ago, so the desire to race never left, but the desire to have a chance to regroup was something that I needed to do. I feel like I'm more focused than ever by having the time off."
WHAT DOES RICKY BRING TO THE TABLE AS FAR AS TEAMING WITH DAVIDGILLILAND?
ROBERT YATES "It makes all of our 125 employees excited. They know when they build a car for Ricky that he'll put his 100 percent in to the 100 percent they've already put in. When Ricky drove for us in the previous three years, you always looked forward to going to racetracks - some even more than others – so they're excited about it. So having him in the car was the most popular thing I could do with my 125 employees and that's just on the car side, and it's been very popular in the grandstands.
![Ricky Rudd was the top Ford in qualifying at Daytona. Rudd posted the 5th fastest time [Photo: autostock].](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/49363.jpg )
