Are today's NASCAR drivers still tough?

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.

Cale Yarborough's hands bled. Ricky Rudd's vision blurred. Richard Petty's neck broke.

Those injuries, often hidden from NASCAR officials, didn't sideline the drivers.

Really, they had no choice.

Miss a race and they weren't paid. They also lost a chance to contend for a points championship.

So they climbed back into their cars despite their condition.

"We all were tough because we had to be," Darrell Waltrip said. "Nobody wanted a whiny driver. Shut up. Get in there and drive."

That axiom remains today, but the Herculean efforts that so defined yesterday's drivers - Terry Labonte won the 1996 title with a broken hand - aren't as common now.

Improved safety standards that better protect today's Sprint Cup drivers is one reason.

Gone is some of the sport's swagger, that John Wayne-like reputation for toughness that past drivers carried.

Today's drivers exude a different character, one not as overtly macho.

Of course, it's hard to have a tough-guy image when drivers are hurt playing Frisbee or basketball or slipping on a boat deck.

That's not to say that today's drivers are soft. The current generation of racer has more mental toughness, a job requirement with the kinds of high speeds and tighter racing expected in today's races.

Carl Edwards, though, still reveres what former drivers went through.

"Mental toughness to me is a picture of Ricky Rudd with his eyelids taped open," Edwards said last fall after he broke his right foot in a Frisbee incident.

This month marks the 26th anniversary of Rudd's famous crash at Daytona in the 1984 Busch Clash days before the Daytona 500. That day, his car rolled, pirouetted and sprayed sheet metal on a dizzying seven-second ride.

Rudd returned to the car after the incident, but found that when he went into Daytona's high-banked turns, his vision distorted, a result of what later would be diagnosed as vertigo.

Unaware of why he had trouble seeing, Rudd duct-taped his swollen eyelids open and went racing.

Rudd admits he drove in that Daytona 500 with impaired vision.

"The dizziness and stuff was, for some reason, if you tried to look out" at a distance, Rudd said. "Drivers are trained to... look 50, 60, 70 yards in front of yourself. I couldn't do that. I had to focus on the bumper in front of me. I spent most of the race glued to the back of someone's back bumper."

Rudd finished seventh.

A week later, he won at Richmond.

By racing through that injury and others, he was able to put together what would become a record streak of 788 consecutive starts. He never missed a race from 1981-2005. Rudd's perseverance helped him earn a reputation as being among the sport's toughest drivers.

Rudd said he was merely doing his job.

"It's not that I'm a super-tough guy walking around," he said. "If I cut my finger, I'm hurting and (wife) Linda hears about it for a day or two."

Yet, in or around a car, drivers will ignore pain.

Andy Petree, a former car owner and crew chief, recalls when Harry Gant suffered rib injuries and was back at the track shortly after.

Petree watched Gant spend about 10 minutes trying to get out of his passenger car in the parking lot. Easing, contorting and angling his way out of his seat. Once out, Gant took a couple of painful steps, stopped, drew a deep breath, stuck out his chest and headed to the garage.

"He was going to walk into that garage like nothing was wrong," Petree said. "I can tell he was hurting bad. He went out and finished second in that race. Harry Gant is the toughest driver I've ever seen."

Others would vote for Petty, who broke his neck in a crash at Pocono in 1980 yet continued to race with the injury.

Bobby Allison is another driver mentioned. He would drive a passenger car in Alabama during the summer with the windows up and heater on to prepare for the heat of race day.

Of course, there's Dale Earnhardt, who one year won the pole at Watkins Glen two weeks after breaking his sternum and collarbone in a crash at Talladega.

Rudd recalls Yarborough racing without gloves and how Yarborough's hands "wouldn't have any skin left" after fighting the wheel race after race in cars that didn't have power steering.

"He didn't even think about calling for a relief driver," Rudd said. "You never knew it if you were out there racing, or saw him out there, that he was dealing with that kind of pain."

Labonte also lists Yarborough as among the sport's toughest drivers, noting how Yarborough was the first at Daytona to post a qualifying lap at 200 mph, flipped the car the next lap and then won the Daytona 500 a week later.

Today's toughness isn't always as overt.

Yes, Edwards raced late last season with a broken foot after the Frisbee incident, Greg Biffle raced with bruised ribs last spring (from falling on his boat dock) and Denny Hamlin will drive today with a torn ACL in his left knee (injured playing basketball).

More often these days, drivers are racing while they're ill.

David Reutimann threw up into plastic bags in his car and tossed them out the window during last fall's Charlotte race. Tony Stewart won at Watkins Glen in 2004 despite stomach cramps. After taking the checkered flag, he headed straight for his motorhome instead of Victory Lane. He re-emerged 20 minutes later in a new uniform.

"I don't think we're any tougher than the generation before, but I don't think they're any tougher than us," Jeff Burton said.

Mark Martin spans both generations, having raced against Yarborough, Allison, Rudd and others.

Martin had to be lifted into his car for the July Daytona race in 1999 when he broke his wrist, knee and a rib in a crash 24 hours earlier.

"You probably don't see that today," Martin said. "A lot of times, I don't think NASCAR would let you."

Suddenly, Martin's speech becomes more passionate.

"I wish NASCAR would stay the hell out of" the decision, he said. "I would say if you think you're man enough to get in it, you ought to be able to drive. But this is a different age and a different time."

Martin admits that what today's drivers might lack in brawny toughness, they make up with what he calls "a more sophisticated toughness."

Former driver Kyle Petty said the competition challenges today's drivers in ways the past generation wasn't.

"It's a lot more mental today than physical," Petty said. "There's a lot more thinking from the driver's seat. There's a lot more putting yourself in position."

Burton notes how double-file restarts have changed the complexion of the racing, how more drivers in the field are capable of winning races and how fierce the competition can be - not just each race but each lap.

Jeff Gordon shares Burton's opinion.

"How hard we push the cars every single lap of every race is a lot harder than when I first came along," said Gordon, who made his series debut in 1992. "We don't have as many failures as we used to have. What that means is you have to push that car harder every lap."

And each driver must push himself.

"I think we've got the most incredible group of drivers, talent-wise, from a toughness side of it," Gordon said. "If they truly had to be challenged in some ways, I think you'd be surprised how they would stack up."