~~~~ The Mikey Observer ~~~~
In Review: M. Waltrip
by Lee Montgomery, NASCAR.COM
4 December 2004
This is the first of our driver reviews for 2004. This month, NASCAR.COM will review the top 20 drivers.
Sunday: Joe Nemechek.
The good news for Michael Waltrip is that he moved up 19 spots in the Nextel Cup points standings from where he was after two races.
The bad news is he was 39th after two races.
Along the way, Waltrip posted two top-fives and nine top-10s but failed to win for the first time since he joined Dale Earnhardt Inc. in 2001.
Off the track was a bit tumultuous, too. Teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. warned at midseason that Waltrip needed to pick up the pace, and later, crew chief Richard "Slugger" Labbe was removed from his post.
Waltrip picked up a new crew chief in the offseason, as DEI essentially swapped crews between its two Nextel Cup teams.
"Our year was inconsistent," Waltrip said. "We had some really great races and had fast race cars, but did not perform up to our own expectations.
"Obviously 20th is not where we think we're capable of running, but I feel like our team is focused enough to put 2004 behind us because we are right on the edge of getting what we want.
"We survived the long race Sunday, and now we have some time to regroup and get revved up for 2005, where we'll look for luck combined with consistency."
Waltrip didn't have much luck at the start of the 2004 season. He's usually one of the contenders to win at Daytona, but a crash after only 70 laps of the Daytona 500 sidelined him.
Waltrip, in fact, crashed in three of the first five races and didn't finish on the lead lap until the season's sixth race (Bristol).
The modest 10th-place finish helped right the ship, and the No. 15 team was 15th or better in 10 of the next 13 races.
In the middle of that run, right after a strong runner-up finish at Charlotte, Earnhardt Jr. talked about Waltrip's future with DEI.
And it didn't sound promising.
"Michael would probably want to finish his career at DEI, but the chances of that happening I wouldn't say are 100 percent right now," Earnhardt Jr. said. "I don't make the call. I don't make the decision. All I can do is speculate, just like everybody else."
But DEI gave Waltrip a vote of confidence, and in July, the team announced that Waltrip and sponsor NAPA would return for 2005.
During that stretch, Waltrip was one of the strongest drivers in the sport. Starting with a 10th at Richmond that included 56 laps led, Waltrip posted seven top-10s in nine races.
He had moved into the top 20 in points and had eyes on the Chase for the Nextel Cup.
"I think we have a shot," Waltrip said. "I've crunched all the numbers, and quite frankly it's a stretch but not impossible. If one of those races that went so wrong early in the year didn't ... but unfortunately it did. That's what inspires people that are competitors to dig down. When you can make it work with the numbers, you don't give up."
But after a sixth in the first New Hampshire race, Waltrip had only one more top-10 the rest of the season. He got to 16th in the points as late as the second Martinsville race but tumbled to 20th by the time the curtain came down.
With six races left in the season, Pete Rondeau replaced Labbe as crew chief. But Rondeau was moved to Earnhardt Jr.'s team, with Tony Eury Jr. becoming Waltrip's crew chief.
Waltrip's future may be in doubt beyond 2005, so he'll need to get off to a better start than 2004. And he'll need to string together more runs like he had in the middle of the season.
Good start, strong middle, solid ending. Well, one out of three wasn't bad for 2004.
Caption: Michael Waltrip (right) went through a season of frustration in 2004. Credit: Autostock
~ back to news index ~
|
|