Yates: Rudd and McSwain having problems? UPDATE more to the saga: Things continue to get more and more curious with the #28 Havoline Ford team owned by Robert Yates Racing. Team owner Robert Yates said Friday at NHIS that driver Ricky Rudd and crew chief Michael McSwain have been at odds over something that reminds him of watching “2 and 4 year-olds have little fist fights.” Rudd’s contract is up at season’s end and is considering his options for next season. He said earlier this week that if he comes back to Yates’ team that McSwain and other key members of the #28 crew won’t be back. On Friday, Yates implied that he is not the cause of friction between Rudd and McSwain, saying that the team had a victory party after Rudd’s win at Sonoma at a time when Rudd was in Florida with his family on vacation. “Ricky was invited, but he wasn’t there and they shouldn’t have had it, I guess,” Yates said. “A ‘why did you have it without me?’ kind of thing. There was a lot of foolishness. Here I’m trying to talk about a future and what we’re doing and now they’re playing this 2-year-old deal.” Yates said Rudd is “a good guy” and “fun to hang out with he’s a fun guy to race with and we feel very comfortable with him sitting in our race car.” But, Yates said, business is business. “I do not want to stand in the way of Ricky having a better job,” Yates said. “If this is his best job, we have no desire for him to do anything different. If there is a better job, go out and research it and come back and tell us where you want to be. We also have the same right. Can we get something better? Then we have a right. It’s just a negotiating year.” Though nothing has been said officially, it appears that Yates already has a deal with Elliott Sadler to drive either for the #28 team or for a team that would be owned by Yates’ son, Doug, next season. Dale Jarrett will also return as driver of the #88 UPS Fords. Rudd, 45, said in May he was considering retirement and that if he did return he would want to sign one-year contracts for the rest of his career. In recent weeks he has seemed to back away from retirement and said he is considering offers from other teams as well as the possibility of returning to the #28 Fords an outcome that seems increasingly unlikely. Yates said he was waiting on a decision from Rudd on Monday, which was the driver’s self-imposed deadline for a decision. “I don’t know,” Yates said. “I’m just hoping everybody comes out on top. I don’t want to be accused of doing a secret thing like, ‘Why did you break that up?’ I’m not necessarily breaking it up. At some point you get tired of trying to hold it together.”(ThatsRacin.com), see tons on this subject on my #28 Team News and Links page and more stories on my Story/Article/Column Links Page. UPDATE: Ricky Rudd swatted the ball back into team owner Robert Yates’ court on Saturday, saying the only thing standing between Rudd and a return to the #28 Fords next year is an assurance from Yates that the team will be kept relatively intact. “The issue right now is that if Robert will give me some assurances to the best of his ability that he’ll keep this team without moving people around, then it’s a done deal,” Rudd said. “It’s that simple. It’s all about assuring that the people we have today will be here next year. That’s the only hold up.” Rudd reiterated Saturday that money issues are not holding up a deal to keep him with his current team for another year. Rudd said money issues among him, Yates and team sponsor Havoline were worked out two weeks ago. As late as Friday morning, some people close to the team believed there would be an announcement sometime this weekend that Rudd and Yates had decided to part ways. Then Yates said Friday that he was trying to stay out of infighting between Rudd and McSwain over issues that Yates termed “ridiculous.” Despite all that, Rudd now says that keeping his team together is the only issue remaining between him and Yates.(ThatsRacin.com)(7-20-2002)
