October 26, 2008
By Kim Roberson
Kim Roberson
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Well, what do you know? Seven races in to the Chase for the Sprint Cup, and we are 4-for-7 on Mother Nature winning on qualifying day, and haven’t actually put laps on the track to set the lineup in nearly a month. I don’t know who ticked her off, but someone needs to put together a care package and offer it up to Mother if we don’t want to turn qualifying into a distant memory. We are up to ten rain-outs for the season...a mark that apparently has never been reached in the 60 years NASCAR has been racing.
However, I have made my case about the whole qualifying (or lack thereof) thing over the last two weekends…no reason to do a third column on the issue.
So let’s talk about milestones. Atlanta has always seemed to be a place to host milestones (Richard Petty's last race, Jeff Gordon's first race, and Alan Kulwickie's amazing championship), and this weekend won’t be any different. Dave Blaney not only marks his 300th cup start this weekend…he also celebrated his birthday on Friday.
And then there is Michael Waltrip, known to many simply as Mikey.
Think what you may of Waltrip, but making 1,000 starts in NASCAR’s top three series’ is a pretty big deal. Someone told him this week “You aren’t just earning a number, you earned a comma! Only one other person has ever earned a comma.”
Of course, that other person happens to be Richard Petty, who still has 182 more NASCAR starts than Waltrip...a number unlikely to be met by Mikey…or anyone else for that matter.
There aren’t too many people still on the track that were there when Waltrip first took the track 23 years ago at Lowe's Motor Speedway. Others who were in that first race: Cale Yarborough, Benny Parsons, Buddy Baker, Dick Trickle, Jimmy Means, David Pearson, Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt Sr., Neil Bonnett, Tim Richmond, Bobby Allison, Harry Gant….and the winner of that race was his older brother, Darrell. The only drivers who were on the track that day who will be on the track with him today are Kenny Schrader and Bill Elliott.
Everyone else from that day is either retired…or has passed away.
Waltrip's 1,000 starts include 8 Craftsman Truck, 270 Nationwide and 722 Sprint Cup starts.
There will be several drivers on the track today who weren’t even alive when Waltrip finished 28th in the 1985 Coca-Cola World 600. David Ragan and Reed Sorenson were still several months from making their entrance into the world; Kyle Busch was just three weeks old. Brian Vickers was probably in the throes of potty training, and Carl Edwards and Clint Bowyer were preparing for kindergarten. Jamie McMurray, Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Matt Kenseth, Kevin Harvick, and Tony Stewart were just getting their teeth into racing dirt bikes or go-carts.
Joey Logano was almost 5 years from making his first appearance into the world.
Many would claim that Michael Waltrip hasn’t done much in his 1,000 starts. Four points paying Cup wins, all at Talladega or Daytona. Three non-points paying wins, two in the Duels at Daytona and he was the first driver to ever transfer from the Winston Select to the Winston (now All Star Race) and win from the back of the pack (Kasey Kahne and Ryan Newman have done it since). Eleven wins in the Busch…er…Nationwide series. The infamous 0-for-462 streak that ended on a sunny Sunday in February 2001 and was marred by the death of team owner and friend, Earnhardt.
“If you had told me then that I wasn't going to be the next Richard Petty, I would've told you that you were crazy. But it's been a long, steady march and I've appreciated every step of the way" said Waltrip last week.
But for all that Mikey hasn’t “accomplished”, you have to look at what he has done since that very first start. First of all…he has run in more races than anyone but the man considered to be the greatest driver NASCAR has ever seen. He has two Daytona 500 wins when many drivers wish they could just have one. He has owned a winning team in the Busch/Nationwide Series for over a decade (which up until 2 years ago was run out of a garage behind his house), and jumped feet first into Cup team ownership two years ago. He has had the same sponsor for seven years, and that sponsor has followed him to three teams, and signed on for another two years, out of loyalty for all he does for them. He is a founding member of the Speed TV show “This Week In NASCAR” (which began as Inside Winston Cup and moved to be Inside Nextel Cup until changing yet again to TWIN this year). He used to be a co-host on “Trackside Live” on Speed, and has been calling Craftsman Truck races for the last few years on Speed. He has his own radio show on XM/Sirius Satellite radio every week.
Oh, and he still drives that NAPA car each weekend.
Many NASCAR fans complain that he gets on their nerves. He’s the consummate huckster: give him 30 seconds and he’ll plug NAPA and Aarons and anything else he can squeeze in. He has no problem offering up his opinion on something, whether someone wants to hear it or not. He welcomed Toyota into the sport with open arms, and gladly took their money to help build not only his Cup and Nationwide teams, but a monstrous garage facility called “Raceworld USA” that makes DEI’s “Garagemahal” look like a Pep Boys. He thinks he is a great driver when his resume appears to point at him being a “never was”. (Doesn’t every driver think they are great at what they do? I know of guys at my local track who think they are the best thing since sliced bread…who really aren’t.)
To Michael, the milestone "...means just one thing. I'm old."
For me, Mikey is why I am here writing this column today; he is the reason I became a fan in the first place, back in 2004. His #15 NAPA Chevy was tapped by then-rookie Brian Vickers and ended up flipping through the backfield six times on lap 70 of the 2004 Daytona 500, something in me clicked as I watched it unfold from my couch (you see, I was only watching because football season had ended the week before and there was nothing else to watch on a Sunday afternoon).
Six weeks earlier, I had been in a similar crash, flipping my sisters Jeep six times along I-95 as we drove home from a pre-Christmas gathering with friends and family. As I watched Michael being interviewed, covered in dirt that he later told me “was in places I didn’t even know I had”, he stated he was fine and just smiled and answered reporters’ questions. I had also been blessed enough to walk away with just minor bumps and bruises from my crash. And at that moment, as I watched him say "My brother told me the other day that all the great ones have flipped at Daytona, so I guess I'm one of them now" I was hooked.
I have been a fan ever since.
So congratulations on reaching this milestone Mikey. Here’s hoping you get another 1,000…maybe not as a driver, but as an owner.
One final note....hear that sound in the background? No, it's not the sound of race cars....it's the fat lady. She's warming up again, and she's doing it for Jimmie Johnson. By the end of the day today, at least one chase driver will likely be out of the championship hunt for good. Unless something major happens to the 48 team over the next four races, that lady will be singing "We are the champions" for the third time in a row in Homestead next month.
The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.
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