This Waltrip Can’t Win for Losing

After 437 races without a victory over 15 Winston Cup seasons, you might not expect the driver involved to be oozing confidence.

But you don’t know Michael Waltrip.

Race No. 438 is the NAPA Auto Parts 500 Sunday at California Speedway and this is how Waltrip sees it:

“If I can come out of 500 miles with a problem-free day, it could be the race that I win for the first time. Our car, a new Chevy Monte Carlo, has been running really good all year long.”

It doesn’t matter that he finished 31st in his last race, at Talladega, or that in nine races this season he was been in the top 10 only once, or that he has finished worse than 20th in seven of the nine.

“If you look in the newspaper and read the statistics, we haven’t been all that impressive, but the way we ran in the two we finished makes me excited about the next race,” he said.

“In the nine races, we had problems in seven--two crashes and five mechanical failures put us back in the finishing order--but when we finished 11th at Bristol [Tenn.] and third at Martinsville [Va.], we were passing cars, and that’s what racing is all about.”

When Waltrip started 34th and finished third at Martinsville, he won the Exide Batteries All Charged Up Award for passing the most cars.

“If you are passing cars, even if something bad happens to you, it’s encouraging,” he said. “We’ve done more passing than getting passed this year. It just doesn’t show in the statistics.”

Most disappointing to Waltrip were the Daytona 500 and Talladega. He was running in the lead pack at Daytona with only a few laps remaining when Jimmy Spencer’s car got loose, causing Waltrip to bump Dale Earnhardt and trigger a six-car accident. At Talladega, he got caught in the Scott Pruett-Robby Gordon wreck.

“We had the car to win that race,” Waltrip said of Talladega. “Chevies finished in the first four and mine would have been in the mix if I could have finished.”

The record books, like this year’s statistics, don’t tell the full story, according to Waltrip, whose brother Darrell won three Winston Cup championships before Michael joined the fray.

“You talk to any driver and he’ll tell you that he’d love to win the Winston [not a points race], it’s sort of our all-star race, and I won it in 1996,” Waltrip said. “I cherish that win, as much as I would any Cup win, and everybody was so proud of me when I won it. I beat the best in the world that night. All the guys I beat know it.”

What made the victory even more remarkable was that Waltrip had to qualify through the Winston Open earlier in the day and then start last in the main event.

“It was very improbable that I would win that race,” he said.

Waltrip has done other improbable things, such as running in, and finishing, this year’s Boston Marathon.

Then too, he proposed to his girlfriend while being interviewed by Benny Parsons in Victory Lane at Bristol in 1993--after taking a Polish victory lap in memory of the late Alan Kulwicki.

Waltrip explains:

“On Thursday, Alan was killed in a plane crash on his way to Bristol. The next day it rained, it was really dreary and everyone’s heart was hurting. The following day was the Busch race and I won it. When I won, I remembered Alan doing his famous Polish victory lap where he drove around the track the opposite direction, so I did it in his honor.

“I had been planning on proposing to Buffy, but I had no idea when or where. I had the [engagement] ring back in the hauler. When Benny Parsons was interviewing me, I just came out and asked her to marry me. I told her the ring was in the hauler. Thank goodness she accepted, or I would have looked like a real jerk. It was quite a day, winning a race, doing the Polish lap and getting engaged.”

Michael and Buffy live in Sherrifs Ford, N.C., on Lake Norman, with their two children, Caitlin Marie, 9, and Margaret Carol, 2 1/2.

In a coincidental sidelight, Waltrip drives No. 7, Kulwicki’s old number.

“No, I’m not discouraged,” he said when asked if not winning ever got him down. “I’ve come close to winning and I’ve been competitive. I don’t feel I have anything to prove. The guys I run against know what I can do. I’m proud of that. I’ve been so close to winning it was scary. It’ll come. I know that.”

He was closest in consecutive races in 1991.

“In March, at Atlanta, I had a huge lead when I had a problem on my pit stop and had to make an extra stop late in the race,” he said. “I thought I could catch up, but the race stayed green a long time and I couldn’t make it up. I was totally dominant that day. It just didn’t happen.

“The next week at Darlington, I led all day long, as much as 15 to 20 seconds. When I came in for my last routine pit stop, it took almost a full minute. The guy changing the right front tire got a lug nut hung in his wrench and couldn’t get it unstuck.

“Knowing that I almost won the week before at Atlanta and knowing how I’d led all day, it didn’t discourage me because I knew for sure the way the car was running, it was only a matter of time.”

That was nine years ago.

“I went into a funk in 1992 and there were times when I hung on by the tips of my fingernails,” Waltrip said. “Dick Bahre, my first car owner, stuck by me and kept me in a car until Chuck Rider bought the team.

“I wasn’t anything special. I was just a kid from Kentucky whose brother happened to be the Winston Cup champion, but things were different back then. It was tough for a young kid to get a ride. All owners talked about was experience.

“It’s different now. I call it the Jeff Gordon syndrome. Everybody seems to want to take a chance on an unknown kid, hoping he’ll strike gold.”

How about a guy with 437 starts and zero checkered flags?

“All I ask is for a chance,” Waltrip said. “Sunday might be the day. I like California Speedway and I like my Monte Carlo. I’m going out there expecting to pass people. That’s what it will take.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Race Facts

* What: NAPA Auto Parts 500.

* When: Sunday, 11 a.m.

* Gates open: 7 a.m.

* TV: Channel 7

* Defending champion: Jeff Gordon