IRONMAN; After 788 straight NASCAR starts, Ricky Rudd calls it a career-sort of.

Byline: AL PEARCE

Ricky Rudd needed only three minutes to get out of his car, change clothes and become a civilian after NASCAR's recent season finale at Homestead. The 49-year-old Virginian ended his career-this portion of it, anyway-without much recognition from fans, the media or the sanctioning body.

Which, when you look back, is how his career started.

Rudd's debut at age 18 in a privateer Ford in March 1975 at Rockingham, North Carolina, was his first car race at any level. He'd raced go-karts and motocross, but never raced a car until finishing an unnoticed 11th in the Carolina 500. That ride came from family friend Bill Champion. Ricky and his brother, Al, hung around with Champion growing up, even helped work on Champion's old Fords. Champion got badly hurt at Talladega in the mid-'70s and had to quit. That was 31 years, 874 starts, 29 poles, 23 wins and more than $40 million ago. NASCAR's most underrated star might run some sports car races, but his immediate focus is getting to know his wife, Linda, and their 11-year-old son, Landon.

"A lot of the simple things in life that people take for granted have been put on hold during my career,'' Rudd said late in the season. "I've been around so much longer than some people; a lot of people who've come and gone have had a chance to catch up on their private lives. Mine's been neglected for 30 years. It really has to do with an 11-year-old son who doesn't see Dad very much. (Rudd's father, Al, died in August. Rudd had done some driving for his father in the early years of his career, but they hadn't been able to spend much time together in recent years.) "I feel like I'm missing out on a lot of the simple things in life.''

Rudd decided at midseason to skip 2006. (He won't call it a retirement, which is why NASCAR didn't salute him at Homestead.) He told team co-owners Len and Eddie Wood, and asked them to keep it private. He had a brief change of heart in October, when Roger Penske dangled the No. 2 Dodge if Kurt Busch couldn't get free from Jack Roush. When everything fell in place-Busch to Penske, Jamie McMurray to Roush, Ken Schrader to the Woods, Ganassi-Sabates to stay at three teams-Rudd wasn't at all disappointed. "The only thing I would have taken was Roger's deal for a year,'' he said. "But things worked out like they should have. Staying home next year is what I wanted all along.''

His legacy will be 788 straight starts, a figure many NASCAR-watchers figure is unreachable. The Streak began at Riverside on Jan. 11, 1981, and included every race for the next 25 seasons. It began with DiGard Racing and progressed through Richard Childress, Bud Moore, Kenny Bernstein, Rick Hendrick and Rudd`s own RPM Team. It ended after three years with Robert Yates and three more with the Woods. Earlier, before The Streak, he ran some races with his father and a full season with Junie Donlavey.