| | The Winston Cup series chugs into Pocono this weekend for race No. 15.
|  | | Waltrip has gone 442 races without a Winston Cup win, but his "personality has outshined his performance." |
Bobby Labonte is the point leader, leading Dale Earnhardt by 98 points -- the largest point lead of the season and the largest point lead of Bobby's Winston Cup career.
Labonte is a huge story right now. He's leading the points this season. He swept both races at Pocono last season. And he's driving a Pontiac, the brand of choice right now.
We could talk about Bobby, or his teammate Tony Stewart (two straight wins and climbing up the point ladder). We could talk about Earnhardt on the charge or Mark Martin fading. All of these drivers are Winston Cup race winners.
But I'd like to talk about Michael Waltrip. He has never won a Winston Cup race. It's a tag that has been attached to Michael ever since he made his Cup debut on May 26, 1986, at Charlotte.
Why talk about Michael Waltrip this weekend when we could be talking about the point leaders or potential race winners? Keep reading.
Just who is this guy?
"I'm a dad, and I'm a husband and I'm a son, " Waltrip explained last Saturday at the Michigan Speedway.
"I'm not a race car driver. That's just what I do. And I try real hard to keep those things separate. Although I want you to know that racing is a whole big part of our life. My wife and I load up and we come here and we do this and we do it every weekend. It's a lot of our life so it's very important."
And it should be. Although Waltrip has never won a Winston Cup race, he is a Winston Cup star. His personality has outshined his performance. He has made a living out of living. And there's a lot to be said for that. He is funny, refreshingly honest, a race car driver with a comedian hidden inside.
"That's just the way our family has always dealt with life," Waltrip says. "Most of the time I try to be happy. My second daughter (Margaret Carol, who will be three in September) has brought a lot of joy into my life. She's just a kid. I see her innocence and her happiness.
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“ |
I've
made up my mind that I can do this job. I can win
races. I can be a race car driver. And I'm going to
be good at it. I just have to work diligently toward the situation that puts me
there. Once I realized I was doing all I could do, and that beating my head against the wall wasn't going to help anything, I began to feel better about my career. ” |
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|
— Michael Waltrip |
"It just makes me want to be that way. I don't want to be grumpy or grouchy and sometimes I have my moments I know, but I try to be happy all the time."
Waltrip has 18 career top-five finishes and 82 top-ten finishes. He won The Winston All-Star race in 1996. He just has not won the life-changing, career-boosting Winston Cup point race. You know, lots of yelling, confetti, spraying champagne on some unwitting pit road reporter.
If you think Waltrip is happy now, wait until then! Of course, we've been waiting a long time ... 442 starts. But, he has been waiting, too, and smiling most of the time.
"More often in the past, though, I was happy on the outside and struggling on the inside. And now that's kind of all changed," he says.
What changed that?
"I think maturity," Waltrip says. "I know when I get in my race car that God has asked me to give all I can, and that's all I can do. And that's what I do. I have to be comfortable with that, or happy with that, or else how am I ever going to be happy?
"I've made up my mind that I can do this job. I can win races. I can be a race car driver. And I'm going to be good at it. I just have to work diligently toward the situation that puts me there. Once I realized I was doing all I could do, and that beating my head against the wall wasn't going to help anything, I began to feel better about my career."
In addition to being fast on the track, Waltrip has always been fast with a solid one-liner, using his keen sense of humor to brighten some dark days at the track. He might have a blown engine, but he rarely blows a chance to make light of it.
"And some people perceive that as me not being serious about what I do, or that I haven't been serious in the past. And that just flips me out," he says.
"What good would it do to be any other way? There are race fans that pay to watch us do what we do. And they deserve to be entertained. And so, I try to entertain them every chance I get. That's what (the humor) is all about. You think I wasn't mad that my motor blew up? Of course I was, but I can't do anything about it. We were doing all we could do. So when it's over, it's over. You handle it the best way you can, the best way you see fit and you go to the shop on Monday and try to work toward an answer."
While working to find the answers, Waltrip has heard one question over and over and over and over again. Does he think he can win in the Winston Cup series?
"I do," he says. "I believe it more today than I ever have. I just know it. I don't believe it. I know it.
"I've got a new car owner. Jimmy Smith is coming in. And the only thing you can hear about Jimmy Smith around this garage is that he'll get the job done. He likes racing. He is a racer. It's all he's ever done. It's all he's ever wanted to do. And he will make this thing work."
But Waltrip's belief in himself isn't why I bring him up. I wanted to talk about Michael Waltrip because Sunday is Father's Day. Michael has his wife, Buffy, and two daughters who will treat him like a king, or in Michael's case, at least a "Clown Prince." Of course, Michael does have to work on Father's Day. But something will be missing. Michael's dad, Leroy, died in January.
"I miss him," Waltrip says. "But I'm very thankful about one thing. My dad was 77 years old when he died, and the last five years of his life were the best five years of our lives.
"And so, I'm so thankful that God allowed him to live 77 years so that I could have the five that I got. I think about Kyle Petty and I want to hug him. I want to say so many things but I don't know what to say. And the thing I think about when I think about Kyle is that Adam was his best friend already. And while he only lived 19 years, they had what it took me and my dad 70-some years to get."
I had the pleasure of knowing Leroy Waltrip for almost 20 years. He could "zing" you with the best of them. And he seldom missed a chance to do it. That's where a lot of that Waltrip humor that Michael and his brother, Darrell, possess came from. But believe me, they would lose a war-of-wit to Leroy.
"He was truly amazing to me, up to the very end," Waltrip recalls of his father. "It was special to have such feelings in your heart for your dad that I did. I just loved being around him. And listening to him, because he was such a neat person, and so happy in his later years and so proud of his two sons. And his life was perfect.
"And as soon as I thought that, he'd come over and say we need to push all those trees down out of my yard or we need to take the car and get some new wheels put on it. He always had to have something going on, and that's probably what drove him to get up each morning because I know the last year of his life had to be real tough on him."
Sunday could be a tough day for Michael Waltrip. But he'll use his sense of humor to help him get through it. And keep this in mind, his best Winston Cup finish came at Pocono, in this race, 12 years ago.
It was June 19, 1988. Father's Day. | |
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Ask Bill Weber
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 ESPN's Bill Weber with the latest Winston Cup news and a special feature on Michael Waltrip.
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