Daytona dividends

Waltrip-Labbe partnership pays off, but true test remains

Late Sunday, as NASCAR officials finished inspecting the car of Daytona 500 winner Michael Waltrip, nonsense suddenly burbled over garage speakers.

Crew members twittered and wisecracked.

More noise drowned out equipment banging -- think Tim Conway doing Carol Burnett Show sound effects -- and NASCAR's managing director for business operations, Kevin Triplett, spied the culprit.

"Get him away from the microphone," ordered Triplett, still in a good mood.

Across the garage, Waltrip's crew chief, Richard "Slugger" Labbe giggled and turned off the microphone. Behind him, a Daytona USA trailer awaited his winning car. Labbe's giddiness owed nothing to the bottled beverage in his right hand because Sunday's weather-abbreviated race marked Labbe's first career Daytona 500 win.

For his driver, it was celebration times two. Aside from Dale Earnhardt Inc.'s restrictor-place superiority, no one on the No. 15 might have been celebrating without Labbe.

"A driver can get frustrated real easy," he said of Waltrip weeks earlier, "and it's my job to make sure that he stays in the ballgame."

It's been a battle for Waltrip, whose first Daytona 500 win -- his first race for DEI -- was tarnished by his boss's fatal, last-lap crash in 2001. By midseason, then-crew chief Scott Eggleston was gone, and Labbe was recruited.

Another midseason slump in 2002 spawned the usual underachievement talk that's plagued Waltrip throughout his 18-year Winston Cup career, but he and Labbe rebounded to win the Pepsi 400 last July, and Waltrip and his primary sponsor, NAPA Auto Parts, signed new contracts with DEI.

This season, driver and crew chief kicked off 2003 with the singular goal of winning the Daytona 500. They'll have officially been together for two years in another few months, and Waltrip says the partnership is finally paying off.

"He took where we were when he joined us in 2001 and it's taken him until now to get it the way he wants it for a whole year," Waltrip said.

That means hiring and firing shop and road crew, learning each other's racing language. Waltrip and Labbe have always known each other and have always been friends. They're both gregarious and similar-humored, but they'd never forged a garage marriage until Labbe was asked to salvage the remainder of 2001.

And it wasn't just a fix-it. The late Earnhardt had installed Waltrip, his good friend, in a dream ride with dream backing, and until February 2001, Waltrip had never won in Cup competition. He finished 24th in the points standings that season, working amid tragedy, controversy and upheaval. Last season's 14th-place finish was an improvement, but it was still disappointing within the No. 15 shop and DEI as a whole.

Certainly, probably, not what The Boss had in mind.

"I thought when I got this ride that 2001 would be a huge year for me and we'd win many races and finish in the top 10 in points," Waltrip said some 10 days before his second Daytona 500 victory. "I just had that much confidence in my ability based on what I knew, based on fact. Maybe if we'd had the year in 2001 we had in 2002 we'd be happier, but now we just need to build on what we did good last year."

For the second straight winter, Labbe spent his offseason immersed in car construction. The difference was that -- by trial, error, arguing and false starts -- Labbe now knows what Waltrip likes and how to get it. Waltrip also understands his crew chief.

"I love my team," Waltrip said. "I really do. Slugger's done a great job of bringing the team together and preparing for the season. We've got tons of cars ready. We're definitely way ahead of where we were a year ago at this time."

If you listen to what you hear, Labbe's the constant on the No. 15 team. He's the taskmaster, the list-checker and the guy who can grab a bullhorn and aim it between Waltrip's ears.

"They're real tight," said Steve Hmiel, DEI's director of competition. "They can holler at each other and not break each other's heart. That's the kind of chemistry you're looking for. I don't want people hollering all the time, but if you get mad at somebody and don't feel like you're going to hate him for life, that's the proper way sometimes to communicate."

The test, of course, isn't what happened Sunday in Daytona. It's duplicating that success elsewhere, at tracks without restrictor plates, where Waltrip came within hundredths of seconds of clinching poles last season. Where, ultimately, he'd like to prove himself.

"We think we've done everything in order to accomplish all those things," Waltrip said. "We're going to be looking seriously hard at our midseason report card to see if we're right because we don't like the fact that there was not a DEI car in the top 10 in points last year. And we got to fix that."

Denise N. Maloof covers NASCAR for SI.com.

 

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