Many to precede Stewart learned ownership's risks

All the pieces, it seemed, were in place. The two lead drivers were established, bankable personalities and multiple Daytona 500 winners, one a former series champion as well. Major sponsors had signed on. They had backing from a manufacturer so awash in cash, that teams of rival car makers were girding themselves for metaphorical war. They had a technical whiz of a crew chief who had won 12 races in the previous five years. They unveiled plans for a state-of-the-art race shop. Michael Waltrip Racing looked like it had everything it needed to be successful as a budding organization on NASCAR's highest level.

Michael Waltrip Racing

Results by Car

	55	44	00
Starts	53	60	59
DNQs	19	12	9
Wins	0	0	0
Top-5s	1	0	0
Top-10s	4	4	0
DNFs	6	13	13
Poles	1	1	0
Avg. St.	29.1	28.5	30.2
Avg. Fin.	28.3	28.5	29.1

Except, that is, for timing, good fortune, and those precious owners' points. Everybody knows the story -- Waltrip's car was busted at Daytona for an illegal substance in the fuel system, NASCAR changed the rules so a past champion's provisional could be used only six times in one season, and the team spent the remainder of that 2007 season just fighting to make races, much less compete in them. The DNQs piled up, eventually totaling 39 between Waltrip, Dale Jarrett and rookie David Reutimann, but even those were eclipsed by the heartbreak.

Things have improved a little for the Waltrip team since then, but not to the point where they're a threat to contend every week. The team's top two cars made every race last year, Waltrip earned a rain-assisted runner-up finish at New Hampshire, and Reutimann scored a pole at Homestead. But it's still been a slog, with funding issues, one big sponsor leaving for another organization, and economic reality prompting the formation of an alliance with another team. Nothing has come easy. No wonder Waltrip is pondering retirement after this season if his team's fortunes don't turn around.

And now comes another well-known driver breaking into the ownership ranks. After 10 successful years and two championships, Tony Stewart left Joe Gibbs Racing after last season to take control of a struggling operation formerly known as Haas CNC Racing. Once again there's the marriage of a champion and a former Daytona 500 winner, this time in the form of Ryan Newman. Once again there are big sponsors on board and solid manufacturer backing. There's even Matt Borland, the former crew chief at the Waltrip shop, winner of all those races on the pit box with Newman at Penske Racing, now at Stewart-Haas Racing in the role of technical director.

But also present on Stewart's new team are several advantages Waltrip didn't have. Stewart-Haas will race tried-and-true Chevrolets and get its engines from juggernaut Hendrick Motorsports; in comparison, the fledgling Toyotas the Waltrip outfit rolled out in 2007 weren't quite ready for prime time. There's an owners' points issue, but it's not as dire -- whereas Waltrip fielded three cars with no points, Stewart has only one outside the top 35, a fact mitigated somewhat by his past champion's provisional. At 37 and 31, respectively, Stewart and Newman are in the prime of their careers; Waltrip was 44 and Jarrett 50 when Michael Waltrip Racing as we know it went full-throttle two years ago.

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So the Waltrip organization of 2007 and the Stewart-Haas team of today are in some ways vastly different, with the latter clearly more prepared to contend immediately than the former was two seasons ago. There was Stewart, in his first event in his new red No. 14 car, mixing it up at the front of the Budweiser Shootout on Saturday night. But if Waltrip's experiences teach us anything, it's that there are no guarantees. He may not have considered himself a championship contender from the first race, as Stewart does today, but the upheaval of the past two years obscures the fact that Michael Waltrip Racing started with plenty of assets that teams would fight over today. UPS, NAPA, and Toyota carry plenty of weight. Put Stewart and Newman in the same situation Waltrip and Jarrett were in two years ago, and would their expectations be any different?

Maybe not. And yet, it's been a struggle for Waltrip from the very beginning. There's not a riskier economic venture in all of sports than starting a Cup team. Who was the last start-up owner to really succeed, to the point where his cars could contend for race wins on a regular basis? Ray Evernham, who opened doors in 2001, won 15 races -- no small feat, in retrospect -- and is now all but out of the sport. Before that it was Dale Earnhardt in 1999, and Gibbs in 1992. Seventeen years, countless hopeful new car owners who have entered the sport, and three who can truly say they made it. And two of those were eventually forced to merge. Only one has won a championship. NASCAR is a sport that eats its young.

So even if Waltrip hadn't been busted for that illegal substance two years ago, even if he hadn't suffered through the then-record penalties and point deductions that followed, it still almost certainly would have been difficult. Toyota backed another start-up franchise that season, one with all the money of the Red Bull energy drink empire behind it, and even that organization is only now beginning to find its footing and race at the front with anything resembling regularity. Remember Tim Beverly? Remember Andy Petree? Remember Jim Smith? Remember Cal Wells? They all started with high hopes, too. Some of them even won races. None of them lasted.

To a man, executives at Stewart-Haas believe they're going to be different, believe they're going to win races and challenge for Chase berths, believe they can do it as early as Sunday afternoon. They may very well succeed. They'll also be defying a lot of history in the process. What will be the difference? Stewart believes it's people like competition director Bobby Hutchens, and crew chiefs Tony Gibson and Darian Grubb.

"I think the people are the key," Stewart said. "Everybody with the rules package has pretty much got the same thing. I think what makes the difference, and Joe [Gibbs] has said this, which makes me feel more comfortable, too, is it's the people that make the difference. That's why the hardest part for me was hiring Bobby and hiring Darian and Tony Gibson and Ryan, and making sure we got those key people in place right away. Once we got that done, it seems like it's taken a little bit of the pressure off me and put more of the weight on their shoulders. I don't feel like I have to do it all by myself."

He doesn't, but this is still his team, with his name on it, and he'll receive any requisite credit or blame. On that, Waltrip can surely relate. And should Stewart ever need a reminder of the unpredictability of the venture he's embarking upon, he can always look inside the No. 55 car, where he'll find a living, breathing cautionary tale.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.