#88-Ricky Rudd won the inaugural NASCAR Cup race at Sonoma, so it’s only fitting that his mug was added to the track’s Wall of Fame on Friday morning. When Rudd won way back in 1989, the current Infineon Raceway was called Sears Point. He finished in the Top 5 over the next four years and has logged 10 Top 5s and 11 Top 10s to lead all drivers at the 10-turn, 1.99-mile road course. He also won in 2002, which was his most recent Cup victory. I’m really honored and proud to be chosen for the Wall of Fame, Rudd said. It’s wonderful to be a part of the history of the Cup racing out at Infineon, and I’m just proud of the fact that we’ve had some accomplishments out there that they see worthy enough to place me on their Wall of Fame. We’ll have a copy of this on our fireplace to look at every day. I think the earlier days of Infineon a lot of the success that drivers had there was thanks to traditional road racing techniques to get around the race track. Back when I began racing at Infineon, there was only a handful of guys that you really had to focus on and deal with up at the front of the pack, because a lot of the others couldn’t adapt to driving cars the way we could. Save Mart Supermarkets chairman and CEO Bob Piccinini was also added to the Wall of Fame for his involvement with the Cup race since 1992.(Napa Valley Register)(6-23-2007)
