 | | Michael Waltrip Credit: Autostock |
By Dave Rodman, NASCAR.COM
May 4, 2005
02:57 PM EDT (18:57 GMT)
Michael Waltrip is in the midst of a three-race streak that has propelled him up through the Nextel Cup points standings and revived a season that got off to a rough start. At the same time, Waltrip is leading his own racing operation and remaining an icon in charitable works. Waltrip took a break before he went to Talladega Superspeedway to talk to NASCAR.COM senior writer Dave Rodman about his charity work, DEI's resurgence and the future of teammate Martin Truex Jr. Q: To any degree, do you feel like the competition has caught up to DEI on the restrictor plate tracks? Definitely, Hendrick's has won more plate races than we have, lately. So they're right there. We don't feel like we have any advantage performance-wise over those guys right now. I think it would be naïve of us to say that, because of the fact that they've been the story lately. With that said, we want to show that we are still formidable competition and they'll have to go through us if they want to continue to be successful. Q: In recent weeks, your team has put up the results -- career-best finishes at Texas and Phoenix -- that your performance has been predicting most of this season. Are you guys really hitting your stride? Yes, I feel real good about where we're at, and where we're headed. When we tested Texas we knew we were going to run good -- we were confident about what we had. I told the boys, "I like my car, and y'all have done a nice job of getting it set up for me." It's just a great feeling to have the confidence and the knowledge that what they've put under me is going to be good. They were hugely successful in 2004 and the thing I'm most proud of is that they felt like I could do the job. They thought that they could win races with me behind the wheel, and they stepped up and they said, "We'll take Michael and we'll show people that we can win with Michael." That's real special to me and that's why it's so important for me to reward them with victories. That might be why it was a little bit disappointing last Saturday night (at Phoenix) to run second. Because we were so close to winning and it didn't satisfy any desire of mine -- it just made the desire to win that much worse. Q: For people who might not understand, with Dale Jr. taking your cars and you taking his -- was that any kind of adjustment or do you simply change the bolt on pieces on the cars anyway? I don't understand the question. Q: When you made the crew swap -- Dale's fleet of cars went to your team and your cars went to his, so was that an adjustment? No. What happened when we swapped was I took my helmet and I went down to Tony Eury Jr.'s shop and I started driving Dale Jr.'s cars. And he went down to the 15 shop and started driving my cars. Those are the same cars that Junior drove last year and those are the same cars that Tony Jr. worked on last year. I just basically got in and they told me to go and that's what I've been doing. Q: Adapting your set-ups is something you do with a crew chief no matter where you are, correct? Yeah. I obviously have some feeling in my rear end that's different than what Dale Jr. feels in his -- and I need to have things set up particularly for me, and he for him. It's no different than if Dale Jr. had gone back to Phoenix with those guys again this year. Every day things change, things evolve, setups change -- the aerodynamics on the cars has changed. So whether it would have been me behind the wheel or Dale Jr. behind the wheel when they went to Phoenix, I venture to say that the setup would have been different because that's just the nature of the business. Q: Can you compare what it's like working with two different crew chiefs you've had in the past two seasons: Slugger Labbe and Tony Eury Jr.? No, I can't, really. I really have never had anyone that has been as much fun to work with as Tony Jr. has been. I've never had someone that I felt like was in charge but yet was one of the guys as much as Tony Jr. is. He is so smart and so savvy in what he wants to do. He is the leader and he runs the show -- but he has the respect of the guys and he doesn't ever flex his muscles. They just know he knows what he is doing and they line up behind him. He is a very unique leader and very talented. He does everything as the leader of that team that I would need somebody to do in order to be successful. He is perfect for me, with the way my personality is and the way I look at things. He has just been all that I could have hoped for and I can't tell you what it means to me. Q: Is Tony Jr.'s combative reputation overrated -- or was it a family thing with his cousin Dale Jr.?  |  | | El rey de NASCAR? Waltrip and DEI teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. Credit: Autostock |
|
Well, I can't answer that (because) I haven't seen it yet. I'm not combative either. If a gate guard tells me I can't go through there because I don't have the right pass, I would rather just go to another gate guard. I'm not the kind of person to argue. I have a bit of a philosophy in business, and this is not healthy -- but I kind of look at things and say, 'just ignore it and it will go away.' I don't like confrontation. That's not good. But now, there's no reason to have confrontation. Everything's perfect and I can't find anything that I would want to confront anyone about. Maybe it's too early to see where Tony Jr. and I stand on that. I'm not educated on how he and Dale Jr. got along, or how they handled things. I just know I have all the respect in the world for Tony Jr. and the boys that work on my car. And I can't imagine why I would ever get to a point that I would have to come back to them about anything. Q: Your teammate, Martin Truex Jr., has been batted around in the media recently, shopping around for different deals. What's the actual buzz around the DEI shops about that? That he'll be driving for DEI for many years to come. And that this is just the part of what happens when a cat is trying to get a contract signed up. It doesn't matter whether it's Martin or Casey Mears or whoever it is. Our sport's so big that if someone is just before signing a contract, there's going to be talk about "Will they go somewhere else?" or will they indeed sign that contract? I fully expect Martin to stay right where he's at. He's a great racecar driver and a great asset to DEI, so I can't imagine that he wouldn't be right where he is for a long period of time. Q: Your own race team has continued to diversify itself, running cars for Jimmy Spencer, Kenny Wallace and Kerry Earnhardt. What's your take on that program and are you happy with Michael Waltrip Racing's 2005? No, not really. We've had three seventh-place finishes and we'd hoped to be better than that. We constantly try to get things better and I'm looking forward to the challenge of getting that car back to Victory Lane. I'm looking forward to the challenge of racing Kenny Wallace in the Aaron's Dream Machine in some Cup races. I just enjoy that. I had some sponsors that wanted to do some racing with me. I just try to do what I can in order to place them somewhere and to put a car on the track that they can be proud of -- that State Fair can use to sell their corn dogs and that Aaron's can use to lease quality home furnishings to people. If anyone ever pressured me into doing more than I'm doing now, I would have to back off because my main goal is to drive the No. 15 NAPA Chevy and be a NASCAR Nextel Cup driver. I just do this other stuff on the side to make sure I'm doing a nice job for all the corporate partners that we have. Q: Just For Men, I'm sure, has a diverse line of products, and knowing you're a devout user, have you ever considered NAPA blue highlights? Wow. I like where you're going with that, but I better stick with the natural color. That's what I like about Just For Men. People say to me all the time, "Why do you use Just For Men -- you don't have gray hair?" Q: Hello! |
| Inside the Numbers |
| Michael Waltrip in 2005 |
| Event |
Start |
Fin. |
Standings |
| Daytona |
3 |
37 |
36 |
| California |
30 |
38 |
39 |
| Las Vegas |
36 |
21 |
35 |
| Atlanta |
37 |
7 |
27 |
| Bristol |
27 |
19 |
27 |
| Martinsville |
31 |
30 |
30 |
| Texas |
21 |
6 |
24 |
| Phoenix |
28 |
2 |
18 |
| Talladega |
38 |
3 |
16 |
|
|
Well, that's why I use it. I do have gray hair and it perfectly matches my natural color and you can't tell. I love Just For Men. It's a wonderful product and they're helping us with raising money for Kyle and Pattie Petty's Victory Junction Gang Camp. You can go to justformen.com and enter the "Hit Your Target" sweepstakes. If you win the sweepstakes you get a trip to the race in (Homestead) this November and every time someone enters (Just For Men) is going to give a dollar to the camp. So that's a win-win situation and I'm real proud to be associated with Just For Men, with all they do for our sport -- particularly the camp -- and my hair. Q: Being a Clyde Frazier fan, they haven't ever tried to convince you to grow a beard and expand your use of the product line, have they? They did and I said, "I'm re-jecting that offer." It's not going to happen. Q: Short track racers dream of winning championships, Daytona 500s -- but did you ever think you would develop into such a humanitarian? I applaud your efforts and Buffy's efforts in this direction. Well, it just becomes obvious that you can use what little bit of recognition and popularity that you have, to benefit others. We just simply raised our hand with the marathon and with the commitment to raise a million dollars for the camp. We just raised our hand and said "We want to raise a million dollars and we're going to need a lot of people to help us do that." I committed to run the Vegas Marathon and we put on dinners in Maine and in North Carolina and just did all kinds of autograph sessions across the country where people gave us five, 10 dollars at a time. We've raised over a million dollars with the help of our wonderful sponsors. With Just For Men's commitment to the camp -- and the fact that it's gone so well -- we're going to continue Operation Marathon forward. Whether it be another marathon or a 5k or a 10k here or there -- or a dinner in different parts of the country, we're going to continue to raise money for the camp and continue to give people an excuse to give. It's my belief that if you just give people an excuse to do something good they want to do it. That's what Operation Marathon is and that's what the camp is, so I'm real proud to be a part of a sport and to have a position in the sport to where we can make such a tremendous difference by raising our hand and signing on to help. Q: Putting aside the fact that Buffy and the kids have gotten to do some of the commercials with you -- what is your favorite ad? That's not the production -- but to watch? Well, I like all the ones that are funny. The Aaron's one with Darrell painting his name on my car I think is hilarious. The NAPA ones -- from the time I was at the wrong track all the way up to now with our spoof on the home shopping network with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the products that we're selling there -- they're all funny. But I guess the one that's the most special to me is the little boy that recognizes me at the Best Western that we were coming out of the room to go to the races. That meant so much to me, because occasionally a young child or someone will recognize me and look up to me and say, "Hey, that's Michael," and that still brightens my day every time that it happens. And so Best Western, unbeknownst to them, they captured that. They froze a moment in time that is probably the neatest thing that happens to me -- when a child or someone recognizes me, and it means something to them. So when I get to see that it makes me smile, because I think it's a wonderful commercial; but it also makes me smile for all the times in my career over the years that it's actually happened. I will always be grateful to Best Western for that and that's probably my all-time favorite. Q: I kind of feel the same way, and I don't feel they paint that dad as a bad dad by any means, but he's kind of a jackass because the kid is having the moment of a lifetime and he's jerking him away to go watch a race. Well, I want to say that the dad just didn't see me -- or he would have let the kid stop. He just thought the kid was goofing off. I think the commercial was cool and I'm real proud of every part of it. I didn't even get that out of it, like what you said. I didn't think the dad was being a meanie. I think the dad just didn't see it was me and he was just telling his child to come on, it was time to get to the races. I thought it was a perfect ad. I wouldn't have liked it if I thought the dad was being mean. Q: He wasn't really mean -- but it was a lesson to slow down and smell the flowers and look at whom you're actually saying "hello" to. Yeah. | 
