Darrell whale trip

Darrell Waltrip (1979)

Darrell Waltrip Lee (* 5. February 1947 in Owensboro , Kentucky ) is a retired American NASCAR -Rennfahrer, three-time champion in Winston Cup , former NASCAR team owner and sports commentator for FOX .

Beginnings

Local racing driver

Waltrip started racing at Kentucky Motor Speedway and Ellis Raceway near his hometown Owensboro, Kentucky. After initial success, he moved to Nashville , Tennessee and drove on the Nashville Speedway USA to the Tennessee State Fairgrounds, where he was able to win the course championship twice. Waltrip was also featured on local television, promoting the weekly speedway races. He did not shy away from regular appearances on a television show, while other drivers canceled appearances. The show often made fun of the other drivers, for example Coo Coo Marlin or James Buford.

The fans didn't like this kind of thing very much, but the management of the circuit was delighted with the performances, as it helped to sell tickets, which is why Waltrip received a lot of extra money for his advertising appearances. In his actions he also included the radio presenter Ralph Emry, who had a significant influence on the development of Waltrip's mouth. Waltrip was a replacement for Emry's TV show in the 1980s.

NASCAR

Waltrip raced in the Cup series in the 1972 season with an old Mercury Cyclone, originally the Ford of Mario Andretti was that during its victory at the Daytona 500 was used in the 1967th The car was later converted into a Mercury Cyclone for Rolf Stommelen and its use on the Talladega Superspeedway before Waltrip bought it. It was Waltrip's truck for its first few seasons.

After switching to the Cup series, Waltrip got the nickname "Jaws" based on the film " Jaws " (" Jaws ") because of his aggressive driving style and his direct manner . Originally this moniker came from his rival Cale Yarborough when interviewed after an accident in which Waltrip knocked him out of the running. He himself preferred the nicknames “DW” or “D-Dubya”, but paid tribute to Yarborough when he placed an inflatable toy shark in the pit lane for the next race. The nickname “Jaws” hardened when Waltrip made a famous comment about his rival Dale Earnhardt , claiming he could say whatever he wanted about Dale and his team because they wouldn't be able to read it anyway.

At the height of his NASCAR career in the early 1980s, Waltrip was often booed by fans, but his wit and hilarious foolishness convinced many of his critics. So after a victory on the podium he silenced the crowd booing him when he asked them with "Boo if you love DW" to boo him if they would love him. Waltrip delighted its sponsor Mountain Dew with statements like “They were saying Dew!” (“They said 'Dew'!”).

Waltrip's success also ensures that the Buick GNX is better known , as the Buick Regal he drives served as a platform for the GNX.

During his career Waltrip won a total of 84 races, but he scored a victory at the Talladega 500 in the 1977 season, but Donnie Allison was attributed as he was only used as a substitute driver.

Late 1980s

Waltrip's success with team owner Junior Johnson resulted in three championship titles in the Winston Cup. At the same time, however, doubts within his friends also increased. Cortez Cooper, his pastor, thought about Budweiser as the main sponsor. After parents also complained that Waltrip was promoting the idea of ​​alcohol, fast cars and success, he seriously considered a team change. At the end of the 1986 season he switched to Hendrick Motorsports with Procter & Gamble's “Tide” brand as a sponsor.

During 1986, Waltrip and Hendrick began an off-track partnership, opening a Honda dealership in Franklin , Tennessee, and adding a Volvo division in 1994 .

Waltrips car of the 1989 season

In the 1989 season, Waltrip won the Daytona 500 for the first time in his career , which ended in a gamble which driver still had enough fuel in the tank. In an interview after the race with CBS pit reporter Mike Joy, Waltrip shouted the now famous words “I won the Daytona 500! I won the Daytona 500! ” (“ I won the Daytona 500! I won the Daytona 500 ! ”).

After Waltrip developed the new Chevrolet Lumina in 1989 and helped him win the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe's Motor Speedway - his fifth win at the Coca-Cola 600 - Waltrip prepared for the final big race before, which he still lacked to win and with which he could simultaneously reap the bonus of one million US dollars , the so-called Winston Million : the Southern 500 on Darlington Raceway . The pressure on Waltrip ensured that he hit the wall early in the race and was no longer a serious contender for the rest of the race.

However, he could not take the success of the 1989 season with him into the following season and remained without a win for an entire season. In training for the 500th start of his career with the Pepsi 400 , his car skidded on spilled oil and was rammed sideways by Dave Marcis . He broke both arms and one leg and suffered a concussion. On the Pocono Raceway returned Waltrip on the race track back, but drove only one round and then handed the car to Auswechselfahrer Jimmy Horton . Despite having to pause five races, he still finished the season 20th in the championship. In 1990 Waltrip was without a win for the first time since 1974.

Driver and team owner

At the end of the 1990 season, Waltrip and his crew chief Jeff Hammond started their own team with DarWal Inc. Waltrip previously had its own team in the 1970s before it was bought by Bud Moore Engineering . The first season as a driver and team owner was relatively successful when he took two wins and finished eighth in the championship. In the 1992 season, three more victories followed, including his long-awaited victory at the Southern 500 in Darlington. This season, which Waltrip finished ninth in the championship, was also the last in which he could achieve a win.

For 1993 he signed engine builder Lou LaRose from Richard Childress Racing and Barry Dodson as crew chief. Waltrip itself achieved four top 10 results with a third place as the best result. The 1994 season should be the last, which he finished ninth in the top 10 of the championship. Instead, he was a consistent driver as he finished 40 races without a retirement. The only engine failure during this time occurred after crossing the finish line.

The 1995 season finished Waltrip as 16th in the championship and was overshadowed by an accident at Winston when he had to leave the wheel to substitute drivers for several weeks. In the second half of the season, Waltrip achieved the last pole position of his career at the NAPA 500 .

In 1996 Waltrip delivered two top 10 results. While the year was one of the most profitable for him, his results continued to decline. At the UAW-GM Quality 500 , Waltrip failed to qualify for a race for the first time in over 20 years. Since Terry Labonte also did not qualify directly for the race, he could claim the master rule as a former master of the series, as his title was shorter than that of Waltrip. Since he was too far behind in the points of the car owners, this form of qualification was also ruled out. Towards the end of the season, the team struggled to find sponsors. A sponsorship contract with Speedblock for the 1998 season was only signed at the last minute. Since Speedblock only paid part of the agreed amount, the contract was terminated. Since Waltrip was nearly bankrupt at this point, he sold the team to Tim Beverly .

Beverly decided not to go to the start with the team right at the beginning of the 1999 season, but rather to rebuild it first. Waltrip signed a deal with Dale Earnhardt, Inc. to stand in for injured rookie Steve Park in the number 1 Chevrolet. During this time Waltrip achieved a fifth place in the California 500 and led until shortly before the end in the Pocono 500 , which he finished in sixth.

Last years

Beverly restarted Waltrip's former team for the 1999 Allstate 400 at the Brickyard, and Waltrip got into the number 35 car. At the end of the season, he left the team and thought briefly about retiring. But he signed with Haas-Carter Motorsports and in the 2000 season drove the Ford Taurus with starting number 66. He was unable to qualify a total of seven times due to the new qualifying rule. Waltrip delivered his best race at the Brickyard 400 when he qualified for the front row and finished eleventh. His last active season he finished 36th in the championship.

Craftsman Truck Series

In 1995 Waltrip formed a team in the Craftsman Truck Series . The team's most successful year was the 1997 season, when Rich Bickle won three races and finished second in the championship. With the loss of his sponsor in the cup series at the end of 1997, he also lost the sponsor of his CTS team at the same time. Waltrip then closed the team and did not return to series production until 2004 as part of Toyota's development program .

Together with the Japanese industrial giant NTN as sponsor and David Reutimann he started as a team owner in the 2004 season. After Reutimann's title as Rookie of the Year, Waltrip enlarged the team to two cars in the following season. The resurrected team's first win was the Toyota Tundra 200 on the Nashville Superspeedway with Reutimann at the wheel.

Sports commentator

After retiring from active racing, Waltrip signed a contract with FOX and became one of two analysts during the NASCAR broadcasts. His first annotated race was the 2001 Daytona 500, won by his brother Michael , in which Dale Earnhardt had his fatal accident.

His style as a commentator led to controversial opinion during Waltrip's first broadcast. A week after NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt died at the 2001 Daytona 500, Waltrip interviewed NASCAR President Mike Helton ahead of the North Carolina Speedway broadcast . Waltrip was convinced that the four deaths in the previous ten months, each from a fractured skull , were too many and wasn't shy about asking Helton for an explanation.

He advocated mandatory head and neck protection, and just two weeks later at Atlanta Motor Speedway , he introduced such a protection system. Seven months later, NASCAR made the system mandatory after Blaise Alexander had a fatal accident during an ARCA Racing Series race after qualifying for the UAW-GM Quality 500 .

When waving the green flag at the start of the race, he was looking for a more interesting address than usual. His opening words "Boogity, boogity, boogity!" Are legendary. He got this from the first track The Streak on the album Boogity Boogity by Ray Stevens .

In 2007 Waltrip was nominated for an Emmy in the category "Outstanding Event Analyst".

He commented on his last race on June 23, 2019.

Others

Darrell's younger brother Michael was also an active NASCAR racer and winner of the Daytona 500 in 2001 and 2003. Since Darrell and Dale Earnhardt were good friends, Darrell was in his brother's victory in the Daytona 500 in 2001, the first race he was for the television commented, torn as Earnhardt was killed in that race.

Waltrip has occasionally competed in fewer than a handful of races in the Craftsman Truck Series and Nationwide Series since retiring , usually at Martinsville Speedway or O'Reilly Raceway Park at Indianapolis .

Books

Waltrip is also successful in the field of print media. He was the cover story in the Christian "Guideposts Magazine", which also reported on his last race in the 2000 season. In 2003 his autobiography was published by the Pearson Publishing Group . In 2004 the biography "DW: A Lifetime Going Around in Circles" followed. In May 2004, Waltrip was the second athlete to appear in Jay Carty's one-on-one series of devotional books, Darrell Waltrip One-on-One: The Faith That Took Him To The Finish Line .

Web links

Commons : Darrell Waltrip  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Statistics on NASCAR.com
• Driver statistics on racing-reference.info
• AllWaltrip.com

Individual evidence

1. ↑ https://www.nascar.com/news-media/2019/04/05/behind-the-boogity-darrell-waltrip-boogity-origin-story/