Since 1986 Michael Waltrip has been a full-time competitor in NASCAR's Winston Cup Series. He was handed the ride of his life, however, when Dale Earnhardt selected him to drive for Dale Earnhardt Inc., in 2001. A strong midseason run this year enabled Waltrip to renew his contract with DEI. In this interview with Stock Car Racing, Waltrip talks about that renewal, about NASCAR, and his start in racing.
SCR: Your job with DEI appeared in jeopardy earlier this year, but you stepped up your performance and became the highest-ranking DEI driver. What was the key?Waltrip: Well, the key to the turnaround actually was in September of 2001 when Slugger (Labbe, crew chief) came onboard. He and I were able to work together in a productive and a positive way. Some things just take a little time. We would have been in trouble if someone just expected to say, "OK, we don't know what we're going to do with Michael," and Michael stopped performing. It doesn't work like that. What we were doing at the shop and the cars we were building and what we were preparing back here to go to the racetrack, it just took a little time for Slugger and me to get on the same page and for him to develop the cars to the point where we could run the types of setups I needed to be successful.
SCR: Sounds like a lot of it was an elusive concept called "chemistry."Waltrip: Chemistry, that's a crazy thing, but it's so very important. I guess over the years I discounted the importance of it. I just thought if you can do the job, you can do it; it doesn't matter. My relationship with teams over the years probably suffered from my ignorance of the importance of chemistry. I saw last summer that I had no chemistry and I didn't have a relationship with the crew chief at DEI, and I was determined to find that and get someone in here I could work with and we could feed off of each other.
SCR: You're no longer just Darrell Waltrip's little brother. You've progressed from that to a driver capable of holding a job with one of the sport's elite teams. How tough was that transition?Waltrip: I've never looked at myself as Darrell's little brother. I've always just taken what that meant and tried to use it to my advantage. When I was a kid growing up in Kentucky, nobody else's brother was off racing against Richard Petty in the Southern 500 and winning NASCAR races. When I started my go-kart racing and my local racing in Owensboro, I had a last name, and fortunately I had talent, too. I would win races and I would get sponsors. That was just the way I did my job. When I got to Winston Cup, I got here early. Racing was a lot different in 1986 than it is in 2002. We had a shoestring budget and we competed with used engines and used tires and used cars, and we had no hope of contending for a win. We basically were just trying to survive.
SCR: Was your family a big influence in getting your career started?Waltrip: My parents and Darrell never really helped me get started. You've heard "been there, done that." They had sacrificed so much in order for Darrell to start racing. For instance, I got a go-kart and just assumed I would keep it at my house, but they said, "No, you ain't keeping it here. We don't want to have anything to do with you having it." I even found a sponsor to get it for me. I was only 12 and didn't have any money, and all I was looking for was somewhere to put it, you know? And they wouldn't even let me do that. I remember calling Darrell when I was 10 or 11 and asking him for the money to buy a go-kart. He told me I was wasting my time. I thought, "I'll be darn; we'll see." Those were the early memories of trying to get started. Once I got the ball rolling, though, Darrell was real supportive and my parents were, too.