After Michael Waltrip won the 1983 Goody's Dash Series championship, he honestly thought he'd next set the NASCAR world on its ear.
"You go back to that point," Waltrip said through a smile in the lounge of his No. 55 hauler at Martinsville Speedway. "And if you had told me then that I wasn't going to be the next Richard Petty, I would've told you that you were crazy. But it's been a long, steady march and I've appreciated every step of the way."
Twenty-five years later, Petty's record is still the mark for stock-car excellence. But when Waltrip takes the green flag Sunday at Atlanta for his 1,000th start in NASCAR's national touring series, he'll be second only to Petty in total career starts.
"The 1,000 starts defines my attitude, which has been, for a long, long time, that I'm all-in," Waltrip said. "I love racing. This is what I do -- whether it's TV commercials or TV shows or the Truck broadcasts. Whatever it is, it's all about the sport and trying to deliver it to the masses, whether it's on TV or the way I race my car.
"I want people to love my sport as much as I do. So every day, when I wake up I hope that I can make somebody like my sport as much as I do."
Asked to narrow his career down to its five most significant events, Waltrip couldn't do it; and with so many, that's probably not surprising, as he cited one early example.
"I think about Pocono in [June] 1988, when I finished second," Waltrip said. "We had enough gas to make it, Ricky Rudd had enough gas to make it and nobody else did. But it was a day where we ran very competitively and used gas mileage to get a second-place finish. That was the first real success I'd had at the Cup level.
"And then you fast forward to gaining the confidence and the respect of NAPA and Aaron's and Best Western and Toyota -- all the sponsors that have enabled me to own a team is special to me. We haven't had any spectacular moments that are worth dwelling on, on track, but we've survived and we've begun to compete up front and had a chance to win a couple races.
"[David] Reutimann leading the most laps at Richmond, you can see progress and that was pretty cool."
When he really mulled over 1,000 starts, Waltrip managed to get them into five significant groups, after he summed up his career.
"This has just been me, saying 'I love this, this is what I want to do, and I want to do it as much as I can,' " Waltrip said. "The on-track stuff is what gets us up in the morning, but to me, having the privilege of having SPEED TV wanting to have me on TV telling people about it is just another part or piece of the story.
"In the Nationwide Series, over my career I've got some pretty good numbers. I think I won 11 races, but somehow I managed to lose 11 and I might have finished second more than anybody. I used to finish second all the time, but I've been real fortunate over there and had success -- and I'll put those numbers up against a lot of peoples'.
"Throughout my [Cup] career I just never was able to line up the stars to have multi-win seasons and accomplish a lot that I'd hoped I would in the Cup Series, but God blessed me with two Daytona 500 trophies and I'll take those, any day.
"They can have a bunch of North Wilkesboro or Rockingham trophies, for all I care and I'll just take my two Daytona 500 trophies and be happy about it."
Darlington Raceway, 1986 Southern 500
"Maybe one of my first memorable moments was the Southern 500 in 1986. If you look at the results, I think it'll say I finished 13th, but I blew up with seven or eight laps to go. It was my rookie season and Darlington was one of the toughest tracks and it was the day that I finally felt like I got it, like, 'yeah, I can run with these guys.' And that wasn't just at Darlington -- it was that I could compete in Cup racing in general. But the Southern 500 made it even more cool, and Darlington was just hard.
"Darlington's a memory. I ran there in 1985, we made the race and I was competitive. But I thought that they were kidding. I made a couple laps and came back in and said 'somebody's playing a joke on us, right? You're not supposed to actually going around this place like that, are you?' But in 1986 we were running the top 10 and just felt great. That should have made me realize how tough NASCAR Cup racing was, because we raced all day and didn't knock the wall down and were running in the top 10 with seven or eight laps to go and the motor broke. So that day was big for me.
"In 1991 was the race at Darlington in the spring where we led the most laps and had, like, a 30-second pit stop on our last stop and didn't win. We finished third. I don't really remember that very much [laughing] because I was so disappointed."
Lowe's Motor Speedway
"Another big one was in 1990 when I ran third in the World 600, behind Rusty [Wallace] and Bill [Elliott] -- and it was Rusty, Bill and me, right there," Waltrip said, forgetting that he actually finished fourth, behind Mark Martin. "That was the first time in Cup that I was racing to win a race. I never will forget that, because they crossed the finish line, and there the winner was, and I was right there with 'em.
"That was obviously quite an accomplishment. I felt like I was learning or I wouldn't have been in that position, but I felt like that was another day where I said, 'I could win one of these darned things. I almost just won one of them.'
"Winning the all-star race in 1996 for the Wood Brothers was pretty cool. I just wanted to win for them, because it was their family business and they hired me and they said 'we think you can go win' and I wanted to win for them. To be able to accomplish that was a special feeling.
"We came to the all-star race and the 600 in the top 10 in the points, we won the all-star race and were sixth in the 600 and we said 'we've made a good decision; we are capable of winning.' And we never did win again, but it made me feel real happy that I was able to accomplish that for them."
The Daytona 500
"The two Daytona 500 wins were big. The first one [2001, when car owner Dale Earnhardt was killed on the final lap, within a half-mile of the finish line while Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished first and second] was a mess and I don't have much to say about that.
"But then to be able to go back -- in '02 I think I could have won, or should have won -- and still finished in the top five. And in 2003 to go back and lead the most laps and win a race at Daytona and to be able to celebrate both my wins on that day was special."
First Busch Series victory, Dover 1988
"In [1988] it was pretty cool to win at Dover in my [fourth] start in the [Busch] Series in [brother] Darrell's car, because I had never driven for Darrell," Waltrip said, citing the wrong year, 1989 and the wrong start, his third, in the process. "I'd always been off doing my own thing, trying to get established, and Darrell got hurt at Bristol, so I drove the car at Darlington and finished third, and he said 'OK, you can run it again next week, because you did so good. And I won. That was big to be able to win in that series."
The 2005 season with crew chief Tony Eury Jr.
"The last thing that was sort of a highlight of my career was the '05 season with Tony Jr. I remember telling [wife] Buffy one day when I went to work, and they said 'OK, Dale Jr.'s got your team and now you go this.' And I told Buffy, 'either the greatest thing in the world happened to me or the worst thing. I don't know which -- but I can't wait to find out.'
"So we go to Daytona and win our 150 [qualifying race] and had an awesome car in the 500 and broke. We went to Phoenix and raced with Kurt Busch to the very end and almost won, so just relating to Tony Jr. and having him pat me on the back and say 'this is fun -- I appreciate you being here.'
"We got the pole at Pocono and we never did win together, but we came close a few times prior to going to the shop one day and they said 'that was fun, but we're switching you back now [laughing].' So I said 'I think I'm going to go somewhere else to work.'
"Tony Jr. is a great racer and he understands racing as well as anyone that I've ever had the pleasure of working with."
This is my daughter, Sarah and her avitar...her business alter-ego, Intellagirl. I have two daughters. Our older daughter, Lara, is a nurse and having been a nurse myself, I have a good understanding of what she does for a living. But Sarah's job...or jobs...are a little more obscure. I know she lectures all over the country and several foreign countries about "emerging media" and "virtual education" and "Web 2.0" among other things. But when her dad and I are asked what she does, we mainly just answer that "she works in computers and education"!
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