“It's popular because they expect us to run good and we will run good and we're looking forward to it. All the desire is there and I think our ability now with the sponsorship and Snickers on board is the best move we could make."
IS RACING ENOUGH? ARE YOU PREPARED TO POSSIBLY RUN MID-PACK? IS THAT GOING TO BE ANY FUN?
RR "No, if you look at the nature of my make up, I'm just a very competitive person. Put it this way, I wouldn't be back out here and Robert probably wouldn't have me if our goals were to run mid-pack. My goals have always been to set your goals high and shoot for them and take what you can get, but I can't see any reason why we can't be competitive. When we were together in '02, up until midseason we were challenging for a championship. Just to go out there and make laps has never been part of my physical make up and I wouldn't be back over there if I didn't think there was an opportunity to win races at Robert Yates Racing and that's one thing that was presented to me is the right opportunity.
“Having a teammate like David Gilliland, we've tested twice already and that's something where I didn't realise the importance of that until these two very brief test sessions we've been to. We're the same size. We can hop in and out of each other's cars and it's nice to have a different opinion on cars. Again, we've got to roll our shirtsleeves up too because it's not easy. It's tough and there's a lot of competition, but I'm prepared for the fight and that's what it's gonna be. It's gonna be a fight."
HAS THE CHILDRESS TURNAROUND BEEN A SOURCE OF INSPIRATION FOR YOU?
RY "It certainly does. A couple of years ago I was feeling really bad for that group and wishing for them to do good, and in the blink of an eye I needed him to feel the same way about me. It's like, 'Wow, this is extremely competitive.' We learn from our experiences, but they got their place organised from the top down and got it performing from the bottom up and that's what we have to do, so we've started that process and I think we're well on our way. I'm excited. We want to run up front and we feel like we have the right people in place and we'll figure it out for ourselves. We won't be waiting on a cell phone call from somebody to tell us what the next move is and we're getting excited about it. We're looking forward to it."
YOU AND ROBERT DIDN'T HAVE THE GREATEST PARTING. WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED SINCE THEN?
RR "I think part of it started coming back together even three years ago when I went to the Wood Brothers. Michael McSwain was our crew chief. I'm not really sure. I think what happened is that we had success and I wouldn't say it came easily, but we had a lot of good things happen for us and I'm not so sure that that success wasn't what maybe drove us apart.
![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 )
