Waltrip trying to leave wreckage of 2007 behind (cont'd)

"Just employees, people who worked here who said, 'Come on now, this is bad, but we're going to be OK.' And I never lost faith. I believed they were right, that it was all going to be just fine. It feels better right now. It's easy for people to say we haven't run a race yet, but I promise this, and I challenge anyone to argue it: From the time the last race at Homestead ended to where we are today, we would have won that race. We've accomplished more during that period of time. Now granted, it's graded on a curve. We have more to accomplish than most organizations."

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In retrospect, it seems as if Waltrip embarked on his Cup ownership career before his organization was ready for prime time. He had drivers and cars in 2007, but not much else. His shop wasn't finished. He didn't have many executives, or as he would later learn, enough capital. When there was a decision to be made, it was usually decided upon by Waltrip and vice president Ty Norris.

"If there was a meeting going on about anything, me and Ty were in it," Waltrip said. "If it was about travel, we were in it. If it was about construction, we were in it. If it was about engineering, we were in it. Because we were the only two here. We were the main people running the meetings. Now, today, there are meetings going on simultaneously in many different offices."

He has Rob Kauffman to thank for it. A car nut and hedge fund billionaire who lives in London, Kauffman bought a 50 percent share of Michael Waltrip Racing in October, providing his new business partner with capital he needed to improve his operation. But Kauffman's involvement carried the stipulation of managerial depth, and prompted the hiring of a chief financial officer, the installation of former NASCAR team owner Cal Wells as Kauffman's eyes and ears on the ground, and the eventual addition of Eric Warren as technical director. There's also a reinforced engineering department that Waltrip said helps the team get more out of its testing.

That much was evident during the recent sessions at Daytona International Speedway, where Waltrip and Jarrett were both near the top of the speed charts. Daytona made Waltrip, as the place where he snapped his epic winless streak and recorded the two victories that define his driving career. But it also brought him a level of infamy he's still trying to live down, in the form of the illegal accelerant found last year in the fuel system of his No. 55 car. Crew chief David Hyder, who was eventually fired, took the fall. The aftereffects of that episode, and the 100-point penalty that caused Waltrip to miss so many races, are still being felt -- he's struggling to find full-time sponsorship for Michael McDowell's Sprint Cup car and Josh Wise's Nationwide ride, partly because corporations only know the MWR they saw last year.

"It's just sad," Waltrip said, looking back at the incident. "I felt like I was disrespected, and it made me mad. It was difficult to deal with. I felt I left good direction, and people knew what to do and how to act, and they didn't choose to do so. I can't do anything about it. It's sad. Other people made mistakes, too. I made mistakes. But I would have never signed off on that one."

In true Waltrip fashion, he persevered, jumping into Reutimann's backup car and racing his way into the 500 through his 150-mile qualifying event. This year, he's better prepared. His team is clearly more organized. His facility is complete. His cars showed slight improvement at the end of last season, and were fast in testing. Now all that's left is for Waltrip to show results on the racetrack, and leave the near-ruinous events of 2007 behind.

"I closed that chapter on Thursday afternoon last year when I got into a car that I'd never practiced, the first time I'd ever raced in a Toyota, and I drove from last without a starting position to race for the lead and make the Daytona 500," he said. "I didn't feel like I had anything I needed to prove at Daytona. I didn't feel like I owed anyone any explanations after that. Now, I walked around for months after that thinking, why did that happen that way? But that was more just soul searching and trying to not let what could have been determined a catastrophic event mess my brain up. But no, I'm good. I'm going to Daytona to win, I'm not going down there to prove that I have to have something weird going on to make that happen."