NASCAR driver Ricky Rudd pushes his car with members of his crew into the garage during practice for the Autism Speaks 400 auto race at Dover Speedway in Dover, Del., on June 1, 2007. (AP file photo)

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Carl Edwards and Ricky Rudd had very little overlap in their respective NASCAR careers.

Edwards only entered the elite Cup Series in 2004 — a mere 67 races before Rudd ended his 32-year career — so the two never got a chance to know one another.

But two things tie Edwards and Rudd together — when each decided to retire, both essentially vanished from the NASCAR scene, and, on Friday night they will return to their old racing community as inductees of the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

Edwards and Rudd are among five being celebrated tonight as the newest members of the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

Rudd made his first re-appearance in 2024 when Roger Penske tried to wrangle all living Indianapolis Motor Speedway winners for a photo at the track to celebrate the 30th anniversary of The Brickyard. Many of his former competitors were shocked to see him on the Yard of Bricks; it was the first time most had seen Rudd since his final Cup Series race in 2007.

Rudd, who doesn’t go to the race track because he doesn’t feel there’s any role or reason for him to be there, told The Associated Press he was surprised by the warm reception he received at Indianapolis that day.

“Think about it, we went to 30 some races, went to the same towns, stayed in the same — we called it the ‘trailer park’ — so it’s like moving out of a neighborhood,” said Rudd, whose 1997 Brickyard victory was one of 23 career Cup wins.

“And you come back to that neighborhood and there are a lot of familiarities. Walking through the garage at Indy, it was really neat reconnecting again with many of those guys,” Rudd said.

Edwards abruptly retired after the 2016 season, at the age of 36, after losing out on a second opportunity to win a Cup championship with a controversial title-deciding season finale. He told the AP he didn’t call it a retirement at the time because he left himself room to possibly just take a one-year break.

But just like Rudd, Edwards left NASCAR in his rearview mirror. He was in the wind until he was named one of NASCAR’s 75 Greatest drivers, an event that was celebrated at Darlington Raceway in 2023. Edwards joined the Fox Sports television booth for part of that day’s race — where he turned out to be a spectacular broadcaster — and caught the audience up on what he’d been doing the past seven years.

And just like Rudd, he was astonished at the reception.

“I understand now when people say ‘NASCAR is a family,”‘ Edwards told the AP. “I finally get it. I do. When I walked away, I really thought ‘I’m giving this up completely. I’m giving up the sport, the opportunity to drive and a lot of friendships.’ I’m shocked that NASCAR invited me back in this way. For the first time, I truly feel like it is part of a family.”

Neither Edwards nor Rudd won a Cup title, but they left memorable marks on NASCAR.

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Tough as they come

Rudd was one of the toughest drivers of all time — he used duct tape to keep his swollen and bruised eyes open to ensure he wouldn’t miss the Daytona 500 after suffering serious injuries in a wreck the week before — and his 788 consecutive Cup starts was a longtime NASCAR record broken by Jeff Gordon’s 797.

But what else would you expect from Rudd, who as one of five kids growing up in Chesapeake, Virginia, was a self-proclaimed “emergency-room regular.” He was pretending to be Superman when he jumped off the roof when he was 5, was the only kid in town to ride a pony in his backyard, and was so determined to do all the dangerous actions his friends were scared to do, he figured he’d one day be a Hollywood stuntman.

He instead found his way into NASCAR. He ran for small teams, for big teams, his own team — 10 different owners, in all. Rudd was one of the best road racers of his time and earned six of his victories, including the Brickyard, driving for Rudd Performance Motorsports.

Rudd was the 1977 Cup Series Rookie of the Year, finished a career-best second in points in 1991, and scored at least one win in 16 consecutive seasons, tied for the third-longest streak in Cup Series history.

“You set out your goals and it really was ‘Try to win every race,'” Rudd said. “I didn’t really look at the big picture, so my career goal was always just to win every race I could.”

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Edwards the Enigma

Edwards entered NASCAR at its financial heyday — maybe the toughest time in history to break into the sport. Edwards was a substitute teacher trying to be a racer and handed out business cards at tracks that read: “If you’re looking for a driver, you’re looking for me.”

Jack Roush gave him his break and Edwards climbed from Trucks, to the Xfinity Series and finally Cup while captivating the audience with backflips off his winning car.

He once ran across the finish line at Talladega Superspeedway just to complete the event after his car had sailed into the fence on the final lap as he raced Brad Keselowski for the win.

On the track, he eventually left Roush to join Joe Gibbs Racing for a better chance to win an elusive Cup title. He’d lost the 2011 Cup in a heartbreaking tie-breaker to Tony Stewart. And he was leading the finale in 2016 when a questionable late caution set up a final restart and Edwards was wrecked.

And then he quit.

Edwards just simply walked away from a career that produced 72 wins across the three national series, and 28 were in Cup and included the Coca-Cola 600 and the Southern 500. But he also had two of the cruelest championship defeats, both in NASCAR’s playoff system.

Edwards occasionally pops up doing rescue and recovery work in his home state of Missouri, where he’s long been courted to run for public office and doesn’t rule it out. He’s never totally transparent about why he truly left NASCAR — some will never not be convinced it was because Edwards felt NASCAR cheated him out of two titles — but he’s always been an extremely private person and remains that way as he heads into the Hall of Fame.

He doesn’t offer much about how he spends his days, he just says he keeps busy, and prefers to talk more broadly about his career and current life. He says he plans to be at the track some in 2025, and that he’d be interested in television work.

One thing Edwards, who is a pilot, did reveal is that he’s become a serious sailor and captained (with a crew) his own ship abroad. He’s been building a boat the last three years that he intends to sail all over the world with his family.

He’s truly content.

“I used to think that I worked really hard and I did all this stuff and it was because of all my dedication and persistence,” Edwards said. “Now, the more I see at 45 years old, after living a little bit more of life, it is simply that I was the most blessed person on Earth. All the pieces fell into place for me to get to do something that I only dreamed about. I’m truly just realizing how fortunate I am.”

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — The 15th class of the NASCAR Hall of Fame will be inducted Friday night and headlined by Ricky Rudd and Carl Edwards, drivers named to the top 75 in history.

But the five being honored includes a World War II veteran who returned from battle to chase a racing career, a safety pioneer, and the longtime motorsports reporter for The Associated Press.

Rudd and Edwards are being inducted alongside the late Ralph Moody, who was elected on the pioneer ballot. Dr. Dean Sicking, who is credited with creating the life-saving SAFER barrier following Dale Earnhardt’s 2001 death, is the Landmark Award winner for contribution to the sport, and retired motorsports writer Mike Harris of The Associated Press is being honored as recipient of the 2025 Squier-Hall Award for NASCAR Media Excellence.

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Ralph Moody

Moody served under Gen. George S. Patton in World War II, then returned to Florida in 1949 to pursue racing.

He won five races as a driver, then partnered with John Holman in 1957 to form Holman-Moody Racing, which from 1957 to 1973 won consecutive championships with David Pearson in 1968 and 1969, and gave Mario Andretti the winning car for the 1967 Daytona 500.

Holman-Moody won 96 races and 83 poles with drivers that included Hall of Famers Joe Weatherly, Fred Lorenzen, Fireball Roberts, Bobby Allison and Pearson.

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Dr. Dean Sicking

Best known as the inventor of the Steel and Foam Energy Reduction (SAFER) barrier that was initially commissioned by Tony George when he owned IndyCar and the development was later expanded to include backing from NASCAR.

The SAFER barrier was introduced following Dale Earnhardt’s 2001 death on the last lap of the Daytona 500 and designed at the Midwest Roadside Safety Facility at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Sicking also studied track’s incident history to determine which areas needed immediate SAFER barrier installation. Sicking was named winner of the Bill France Award of Excellence in 2003 and the National Medal of Technology and Innovation by President George W. Bush in 2005.

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Mike Harris

Harris is the 13th winner of Squier-Hall Award for NASCAR Media Excellence. He joined the AP in 1969 and became lead motorsports reporter in 1980, a role he held until his retirement in July 2009.

Harris began his fulltime journalism career in 1967 with the Rockford Morning Star in Illinois and Register-Republic before joining the AP’s Chicago bureau in 1969. He was the Indiana sports editor before moving full time to motorsports.

Harris is the 1985 recipient of the American Motorsports Media Award of Excellence. He won the Jim Hunter Writer of the Year Award given by the Eastern Motorsport Press Association in 1987 and 1994.

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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing