Confidence boost

Michael Waltrip is finally primed for success

Michael Waltrip hopes his victory in Thursday's second 125-mile qualifying race is only the beginning. Chris Stanford/Getty Images

By Denise N. Maloof, CNNSI.com

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Swagger doesn't come easily to Michael Waltrip.

He's a 6-foot-5 gentle giant, one of NASCAR's most approachable drivers. Trash talk isn't his modus operandi, but over the past year, he's learned to use it on himself.

"You can't be beat before you start, or you'll never win," he said.

Waltrip enters Sunday's 44th Daytona 500 as both the defending champion and an unprecedented optimist. He's beginning his second year with Dale Earnhardt Inc., one of Winston Cup's top stables, and already has one win under his belt -- the victory in Thursday's second 125-mile qualifying race. In mental lockstep with crew chief Slugger Labbe, Waltrip thinks he's finally primed for the success many predicted last season.

"I don't know what other people's expectations are," he said. "I just know what mine and Slugger's are, basically. And we've talked about them somewhat, and we kind of agree that we can win more than one race this year."

The reason? His most important lesson from the 2001 season that didn't involve life or death. Having driven for back-of-the-pack teams for much of his 17-year Cup career, he's still developing a leader's mentality.

"I can't imagine -- I can imagine now -- how good it must feel to be Jeff Gordon or Tony Stewart or some of these guys when they come to the race track," Waltrip said. "They walk in and they say, 'I'm going to beat these guys this week.' That is priceless. You can't buy that."

Transforming one's personal psyche comes with a price, and it wasn't last year's 24th-place finish in the points race. In less than an hour last Feb. 18, Waltrip swung from the high of his first career Cup win, to the horror of losing his new boss and old friend, Dale Earnhardt. Rather than building off celebration and accomplishment, he attended memorial services. And while the deep, daily grief gradually eased, his troubles on the track mounted.

Finishes of 19th, 13th, 23rd, 25th, 22nd, 39th, 24th, 28th and 39 followed the Daytona 500 win. Then-crew chief Scott Eggleston left the team after the 13th race of the season, on June 7th. The parting was described as mutual, and Steve Hmiel, DEI's director of operations, took over on an interim basis, but Waltrip continued to slump.

"Man, I was down-and-out in July, August and September," he said. "I didn't know what I was going to do next."

His second-place showing behind teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr., in the series' July return to Daytona was a temporary respite, but away from Daytona, Waltrip's struggles continued. Earnhardt and DEI's other driver, Steve Park, excelled, and at a summer meeting with DEI brass, Waltrip reiterated his will to win.

"I always just asked for a chance -- just give me a chance," he said. "And then I'm sitting here with a wonderful chance and Dale Junior's hauling the mail and Steve's running good and I'm struggling and I'm thinking, 'This sucks.'"

Enter Labbe, who joined the No. 15 team for the Sept. 8 race at Richmond.

"They just needed a leader," Labbe said. "Steve Hmiel was doing it for them, but he's the director of operations, so he'd be up in the 8 shop, he'd be up in the 1 shop, and the fab shop and down in the wind tunnel, and no one was here running this deal. So they just needed a leader."

"As down and out as I was, I wasn't ready to say it's me," Waltrip said of his DEI meeting. "I don't think it's me. I don't think I've had a fair chance. And so they gave me that opportunity with Slugger, and week by week it got better and better and better."

Labbe said his most pressing task was to make sure all of Waltrip's cars were consistent in construction and set-up. Then he went to work on his driver.

"We're good friends," Labbe said. "I've known him before, so the friendship thing is there already. It wasn't something we had to develop. I knew what he liked, he knows what I like and how to talk to each other. It wasn't like we were starting from scratch."

Waltrip's finishes didn't improve much in the final 11 weeks -- his only top-15 showing was a second-place finish in Miami on Nov. 11 -- but his confidence crept back. He was enthused by a fast test session in Atlanta, and strong efforts at Rockingham and New Hampshire that weren't reflected in his 21st- and 40th-place results, respectively.

"His confidence was in the basement," Labbe said. "He had wrecked a lot of cars and he had no one to go to his motor home with him and hang out and talk about racing. And that's what I'm doing, is trying to build all the confidence in him that he can do this, and we know that he can."

Waltrip said he took quality time off during NASCAR's offseason, spending time with family and attending a few concerts (Hootie and the Blowfish are a particular favorite). He knows his image may be that of a driver with only one victory in 498 career Cup starts, but he thinks he's turned a corner.

"There's some weekends when you might concede and say, OK, if we can just finish in the top 10 today it's going to be good," Waltrip said. "But you've got to head to that race track mentally focused on winning the race."

 

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