MWR hopes to sing new tune and score hits in '08 (cont'd)

Too much, too fast?

Waltrip's older brother, former points champion and current television analyst Darrell Waltrip, said that he thinks Michael simply tried to accomplish too much, too fast.

"His vision was a multi-car team. I think he got caught up in the thinking that you have to have a multi-car team to be successful," Darrell said. "I think probably, in my view, I would have said, 'OK, I need a multi-car team to be successful -- but I'm going to start with one car in the Cup, one car in the Busch, and a truck team. And I'm going to grow that, and next year I'll add a second [Cup] car and the next year after that I'll add a third car, if in fact that's what I can do.'

New No. 2 man

David Reutimann will start out in the 00 car he drove in 2007, but will move over to the 44 once Dale Jarrett retires after the first five races in '08.

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"He had the sponsors, he had the drivers and he had Toyota, so he had the cars. But he didn't have the infrastructure. He didn't have the organization to be able to manage all of the entities. So he had everything out front, but he didn't have anything behind. So he had to work really hard.

"It was just he and Ty [Norris, MWR general manager] and Bobby Kennedy, and then he goes to Daytona and he gets in trouble and he gets Bobby Kennedy kicked out to where [Kennedy] can't come to the track. So then he's got him and Ty trying to manage three race teams -- three really high, visible sponsors and three really visible drivers. And it was just overwhelming."

Michael isn't so sure he agrees completely with big brother's sweeping assessment of what went wrong last year.

"It's easy to judge and say we should have done this and we should have done that," Michael said. "But I didn't exactly notice any of the Toyota teams doing overly well. And we did what we felt like we needed to do at the time.

"Hindsight is always 20-20. We can sit here and say could've, would've, should've -- but we don't choose to live that way. We wanted a technical director; we just couldn't find anybody to fill the role. We tried to add depth on our team, and we just weren't ready. We didn't know we weren't, but we weren't.

"And so what doesn't kill you, I think probably makes you stronger. What we learned last year is going to make us better this year -- and to me, that makes what we went through last year worthwhile."

Beefing up

MWR took on a partner with deep pockets late last season, bringing investment group guru Robert Kauffman and his millions into the fold. That has enabled Waltrip to beef up the very infrastructure that his older brother felt was lacking in areas a year ago. (read more)

Dr. Eric Warren has been added as technical director (a position he previously held for five years at Evernham Motorsports). Ryan Pemberton, a respected crew chief, will head up Reutimann's Cup operation, while Paul Andrews will serve as crew chief on Waltrip's own Cup car and Bill Pappas will crew chief the third Cup car that will be driven mostly by developmental drivers Michael McDowell and Josh Wise as Jarrett steps aside.

(Reutimann will begin the season in the No. 00, but will switch to the No. 44 when Jarrett retires after the first five points races, leaving the No. 00 to be piloted by McDowell and Wise).

"It's just a really neat lineup," Waltrip said. "We have a solid, solid group of people now -- way more than we did a year ago."

He added that Kauffman's involvement has been the linchpin that kicked all other late-season and offseason improvements into overdrive as soon as the new partner agreed to come on board in October.

"Rob's partnership with me just gave us a tremendous backstop that we lacked," Waltrip said. "There was a point in time last season when someone said, 'Well, we can't do that right now. We can't afford to do this or we can't afford to do that.' And my reaction to that was, 'Well, I'm pretty sure Mr. Hendrick can afford it, and Mr. Penske can afford it.'

"So I knew in order to stand toe-to-toe with those guys, I had to be able to spend the dollars necessary. And if we thought we needed something, we had to be able to figure out how to get it. Rob has offered his participation, and his partnership has secured the ability to do those things.

"It's not really a number and it's not really a piece of equipment here or there. It's really more of an attitude, and just a very confident feeling by everyone who works here. And that feeling is that if we need it, we're going to get it. It's up to our people -- who are very smart, talented people -- to justify why we need what we're asking for. And if they are able to do that, then we're going to acquire it." (Continued)