TALLADEGA, Ala. - Michael Waltrip came here in each of the past five years as half of the tag-team to beat in restrictor-plate racing. Now he's alone and "very" concerned, he admits, about making the field for Sunday's Nextel Cup race.
In a drafting tandem, Waltrip helped partner Dale Earnhardt Jr. to five wins, and won once himself, at Talladega Superspeedway from 2001-05. During the same period at the other plate track, Daytona, Waltrip won three times, including two Daytona 500s, and Earnhardt twice.
But Waltrip's contract was not renewed by Dale Earnhardt Inc. for this year, so he formed his own team, which has struggled. Now he's 36th in owner points, and only the top 35 are guaranteed starting spots for Sunday's Aaron's 499, which falls on his 43rd birthday.
"I have to qualify on speed," Waltrip said Friday, concerned about Saturday's time trials, his only window into the field.
Plate racing is so different from the majority of the schedule that all Waltrip has to go on is Daytona 500 week in February, and "I qualified poorly (30th) at Daytona," he said.
"A year ago, I'd just left Phoenix, where I ran second," he reminisced. "I came here and ran third."
Last week, he crashed at Phoenix and wound up 42nd. Thus the plummet of the Michael Waltrip Racing Dodge team to 36th in the standings and out of the safety net.
"This year, I kind of come in here back on my heels," he said. "But, honestly, I believe that if I get in the race, I'll be able to go up there and be a part of the story."
As part of the dynamic DEI duo, Waltrip learned a great deal about the swirling drafts and the aerodynamic pushes and pulls from other cars that are so crucial to doing well in plate races.
"I'm very confident in my ability," he said.
Tough as his task looks, at least he has a chance to prove he can make it on his own.
Before being hired by Dale Earnhardt for 2001, Waltrip had gone 0-for-462 races in his first 16 years on the Cup tour and mainly was known as the younger brother of three-time champion Darrell Waltrip.
Just at the moment Waltrip took the first checkered flag of his Cup career, in the 2001 Daytona 500, Earnhardt was killed in the fourth turn.
Waltrip's win was questioned by observers who felt he'd received enormous help from both Earnhardts in the draft. Three more wins for DEI made Waltrip a man to beat at plate tracks, but mainly, many felt, because he was a beneficiary of DEI power.
"With the situation I find myself in now, I really, really have it inside me to go out and fix all this (all the questions and criticisms) and make things better," Waltrip said.
One change he welcomes is NASCAR's new mandate of more fragile front bumpers for Sunday's race, in an attempt to cut down on the dangerous bump drafting that got so bad at Daytona in February it became known as "slam drafting." Drivers were rear-ending one another at full throttle at 190 mph.
"I've been out there and got hit in the back with a bump draft that was so hard you'd have thought you hit the wall," Waltrip said. "That's not going to be possible anymore.
"I know that softening the front bumpers is going to make the race safer. Will there still be a wreck? Probably . . . but you're not going to have just the reckless ability to go up and drill someone."
Just to be able to worry about all that, though, he has to make the show.
"Hopefully," he said of today's run, "it'll be a smooth two laps."
