Daytona in Sights, Kulwicki Flies Solo

When Alan Kulwicki won the Winston Cup season title and its $1 million reward at Atlanta in November, he celebrated as only he can, spinning his No. 7 Hooters Ford around after the finish to run a celebratory lap backward -- clockwise -- while waving out the window to the cheering crowd.

So goes Kulwicki’s rare, self-proclaimed “Polish victory lap,” the same one he ran only once before in Phoenix after his first NASCAR victory in 1988. At Atlanta, the assembled throng asked at a news conference what he’d do with all his sudden winnings.

“I could really go for a back rub and a bratwurst,” deadpanned the winner in flat, Midwestern tones.

This, then, is a stock-car driver who marches to a slightly different drummer. Kulwicki, who will drive in Sunday’s Daytona 500, is the only full-time Winston Cup driver with a college degree, which he earned in engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he grew up. He’s also the first in 32 years to win a season title as an owner-driver, and certainly one of precious few to espouse a non-materialistic philosophy in this money-mad sport.

“His credo is: Work to achieve, not to acquire,” said Wayne Estes, a spokesman for Ford, the company that makes Kulwicki’s car of choice, Thunderbird.

And work he does -- indefatigably, on everything from sponsorship to shock absorbers, from personnel to payroll, say those who know him well. As a result, Kulwicki, a lifelong bachelor, has had neither the chance nor the inclination to spend much of his windfall winnings from last year, which totaled more than $2.3 million.

“I bought a new Armani suit and an Armani tux for the awards dinner in New York,” said the dapper, diminutive 38 year old. “Other years I would have just rented the tux. But besides that, I haven’t even had time to invest the money. It’s just sitting there.”

Now dawns another racing season and Kulwicki isn’t likely to find time for anything to break the tyranny of his expanding daily responsibilities as owner, driver and head man of the reigning champion.

“Where’s Alan?” the mechanics, chassis men, tire men and others are asked endlessly at the garage spot here where the white-and-orange Hootermobile is lodged.

“He could be anywhere,” says crew member Preston Miller, shaking his head. “He’s gone off to the four winds.”

“Everybody wants something,” said Kulwicki on returning from another round of interviews. “I used to get out of the car, study my notes, focus on problems. Now everybody wants me -- the sponsor R.J. Reynolds, the newspapers, TV people, radio, charities. ... “

Come Sunday, Kulwicki will be safely tucked away from the madding crowd in Row 5 of the starting grid for the Daytona 500, NASCAR’s richest event and the one that annually starts each new Winston Cup season.

And he’ll be in the thick of it in subsequent weeks at Richmond, Rockingham, Dover, Talladega, Charlotte and Pocono, defending the title he snatched from Bill Elliott by a hair’s breadth on the last day of last season.

Kulwicki came a long way in a short time to get where he is. Two years ago, having lost a two-year arrangement with Zerex antifreeze, he raced Daytona without a title sponsor, accepting a last-minute $50,000 gift from Winston Cup organizers to paint his rig camouflage and carry the colors of the U.S. Army in a bid to generate support for Operation Desert Storm.

A month later he won the pole at Atlanta in a plain, white car, the first time in memory that an unsponsored rig had taken top spot for a major race. That’s when Hooters, the national beer-and-oysters restaurant chain, signed on to pay the estimated $3 million annual cost of running Kulwicki’s campaign.

Kulwicki went on to win almost $600,000 that year, finishing 13th overall, then upped his game a huge notch to take the honors last year.

As top dog, he’s won the respect of foes, say race-track veterans, but at the same time Kulwicki keeps his distance from the good-old-boy network of mostly Southern drivers in the NASCAR old guard.

At least a half-dozen top car-owners have asked Kulwicki to drive for them, said Estes. But he said no every time, including twice to the legendary Junior Johnson. “People told Alan he was crazy,” said Estes. “Junior was offering him millions to join a good program and all he had to do was show up and race the car.

“But Alan had finally built a nice, new shop in Charlotte by then,” said Estes. “He told me, ‘I came down here (in 1986) with a pickup truck, one race car and two engines.’ In three years he’d built up to six cars, 15 employees and a new facility. He said, ‘I don’t want to give it up.’ ”

Kulwicki had practice aplenty carving out his own way. His mother died when he was in second grade and he lost his only sibling, a brother, to leukemia six years later. His father, Gerald, a race-car engine-builder, discouraged him from auto racing but Kulwicki struck out on his own anyway, racing locally in the Midwest before packing up to join the Winston Cup circuit in 1986.