CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Ricky Rudd was clearing away leaves by his pool when he got an anonymous text message that he might want to make the 20-minute drive south to Charlotte, and quickly.
Rudd knew right away that he was finally getting into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in his eighth year on the ballot.
The tough-as-nails driver from Virginia was selected as part of the class of 2025 on Tuesday, along with driver Carl Edwards and mechanic and race strategist Ralph Moody, who made it in on the pioneer ballot.
They will be officially inducted on Feb. 7 at a ceremony in Charlotte.
"You don't think about the Hall of Fame when you're racing," the 67-year-old Rudd said. "But after you retire and drift away from the sport, there is a little bit more importance. ... I always tried to make sure I was in town on this day just in case I got a phone call."
Dean Sicking, the engineer who is credited with creating the SAFER barrier after being commissioned by NASCAR to make racing safer after the death of seven-time Cup Series champion Dale Earnhardt at the 2001 Daytona 500, was selected as the Landmark Award winner for his contributions to the sport.
Rudd was one of the few successful driver-owners in the modern era, having won 23 races and 29 pole positions during his 32-year racing career. He held the Cup Series record for consecutive starts with 788 before Jeff Gordon broke the record in 2015.
A permanent fixture on race weekends, Rudd started 906 races on NASCAR's top circuit, second only to Richard Petty's 1,185. Rudd finished in the top five 194 times and 374 times in the top 10, and he won a Cup Series race in 16 consecutive seasons (1983-98).
Rudd said he always looked up to drivers such as Petty, A.J Foyt, and Bobby and Donnie Allison because of their toughness.
"I did some things that maybe some guys wouldn't do, getting back into the car when some guys might would have sat out a race or two," Rudd said. "But I didn't feel like I did it any different than the group in front of me. Those guys were tough."
The 1977 Cup Series rookie of the year, Rudd went on to win six races for the Rudd Performance Motorsports team he operated from 1994 to 1999, including the 1997 Brickyard 400.
The 44-year-old Edwards' career included 72 career wins across NASCAR's three national circuits, including 28 in Cup Series competition, with most of those wins capped by a celebratory backflip.
His success on the third-tier Truck Series success earned him full-time rides in both the Cup Series and the second-tier Xfinity Series in 2005.
He broke onto the big scene by earning his first wins in each series during a weekend sweep at Atlanta Motor Speedway early that season and became a popular budding star in the sport. He won the Xfinity Series championship in 2007 and amassed 38 wins over seven full seasons at that level.
Edwards won both the Coca-Cola 600 and the Southern 500 in 2015 and was the Cup Series championship runner-up twice, including the closest finish in NASCAR history when he lost via tiebreaker in 2011. He finished fourth in 2016, then surprisingly retired the following January.
Edwards was not at the announcement at the NASCAR Hall of Fame, and he was not able to be reached for interviews.
Moody, who died in 2004, drove an Army tank under the command of Gen. George S. Patton in World War II, then moved to Florida in 1949 so he could race year round. Moody paired with business-minded John Holman to form Holman-Moody Racing in 1957, the beginning of a powerhouse NASCAR team.
They competed from 1957 to 1973, winning championships with David Pearson in 1968 and 1969, and they won the 1967 Daytona 500 with Mario Andretti. Those who drove cars owned by Holman-Moody Racing included NASCAR Hall of Famers Bobby Allison, Fred Lorenzen, Fireball Roberts, Joe Weatherly and Pearson.
Sicking, 66, is credited with saving a lot of lives because of the SAFER barrier.
After the death of Earnhardt, Sicking studied each NASCAR track's incident history and helped implement a plan to cover the most dangerous areas immediately. All NASCAR national series race tracks currently feature SAFER barriers.
The 66-year-old Sicking was named winner of the Bill France Award of Excellence in 2003 and was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation by U.S. President George W. Bush in 2005.
