Everyone at Michael Waltrip Racing is working hard to deliver great results to our owners, employees and sponsors. All organizations have a lot at stake each week as we are all measured by our performance and finishing position.
— Michael Waltrip
NAPA has been with me from winning two Daytona 500s, to missing races with a new start-up team, and back to victory lane again. The relationship grew far past that of just a sponsor, but more of a partner and a friend.
When there are challenges like there were up to and after Daytona in 2001, you remind yourself it will one day make sense why everything happens the way it does. You may not figure it out now on this earth, but in heaven, it will all make sense.
I won the Daytona 500. I won these races twice. I knew I didn't need anything cheating on my part.
I just feel so confident when I get in my race car that I'm going to do good, I'm going to win, I'm going to outrun everybody.
As a driver, you always want to win every race, but as a car owner you know that isn't very realistic.
You have to think that if you're starting first instead of 31st you've got a better chance to win.
The chances of me getting into the Hall of Fame as a racer are slim to none. But as an owner I have a chance to do something special, mostly because I learned a lot of secrets from Dale.
I've always loved comedy.
I know y'all have probably heard I lost a few races in a row before I won one, but I never gave up. Never believed I wasn't good enough.
My life is consumed by racing.
I've never had anything given to me. I've never had anything easy. My whole career has been that way.
When you've been ridiculed and talked about as much as I have over the course of my career, pressure doesn't exist.
There are several races that anything can happen and Talladega is one of those places for sure.
Whether you're Michael Waltrip or Jeff Gordon or Richard Petty, you can't be the Daytona 500 champion without it having an impact on people around you. When I say that, I mean the race fans. They want to congratulate you for winning the biggest race of the year. It has changed people's perception of me.
I don't understand why everybody can't remember how exciting the Daytona 500 has been over the years when Richard Petty and David Pearson and Darrell Waltrip ran just the three of them racing for the win. Why do you have to have 40 cars in a pack to say it's exciting?
You can't take your win for granted. Your next win might be your last win or you might never get to your next win, so I can't imagine not being overcome with joy by winning and never taking winning for granted.
You can only beat a guy down so far before he has a tendency to start listening to what you're saying.
There's been bumps in the road and serious challenges along the way, but my love for NASCAR and my zest for life is what's most important to me.
You have faith in who you are as a driver and stay strong when things go wrong.
It's as much looking out your rear-view mirror as the windshield. You want to make sure you put your car in front of the right line. You're constantly looking behind you.
If you look at my career statistics, it's not pretty.
You can always figure if it's a Busch race then I'm going to be at the front.
You will rarely get introduced as the two-time Pocono champion. You will certainly be introduced as the two-time Daytona 500 champion.
If you look up the definition of stand-up comedy, it's funny on purpose. A little bit of pressure there. It's basically acting. You're telling stories and acting them out for people. The more you make it seem real, really a person doing it, then it seems to me the better it works.
I'm pretty comfortable in a car to know what I'm doing, and I'm exactly the opposite onstage.
I'm used to being judged. I know what that feels like.
I like Miami.
I've been a pretty impatient driver my entire life.
When you're not successful, people look at the driver and say, 'what's wrong with him?' and sometimes the drivers look back and wonder 'what makes you think you're not the problem?'
Talladega is one of the macho tracks on the circuit and when I was a kid, I remember everyone wanting to go watch this race because the cars go so fast on the circuit; there were so many great battles.
The computer systems that we have on our cars when we go test just blow my mind.
I just was fortunate enough to be talented at what I was watching my brother do. It's great that it worked out that way; I might have been wasting a lot of time saying that's what I want to be, but when I got behind the wheel I had the ability.
I am just so proud to be able to take my NAPA car, my NAPA Toyota, to the West Coast and race in front of the fans in Southern California.
Driving the No. 26 Sandy Hook School Support Fund Toyota is like nothing I have ever been part of in my NASCAR career.
The racing team is the most important thing in the world to me. It's where all my eggs are fully in that basket. I go dance and do TV to try to make that world more important.
You don't win NASCAR races without ability.
When 'Michael Waltrip Racing' and 'competitive juices' are discussed, naturally the subject of jet fuel arises. I'm here to tell you that I can be competitive without jet fuel; that stuff tastes awful.
Charlotte is a place I always enjoy racing.
Anybody can be replaced. I can be replaced.
Dale was just trying to get third. Maybe he was thinking that he could get a run on everyone coming out of Turn 4. But the race was over. Junior and I had pulled away, so there was no need to block. That always hurt me when people said he was blocking for me, because it almost felt like it was my fault that he died. But I don't think that anymore.
No matter what town we went to, if there was a comedian playing, I'd go watch.
I do believe I'm not good enough to be a professional dancer. I believe that in my heart.
The Daytona 500 is what it is because of the tradition and history of this great event. People have been coming out in February since 1950 to watch this great race. It would be hard to ever change that.
Everyone who has ever aspired to be a stock car driver wants to win the Daytona 500. If someone says that it's better to win somewhere else, then that tells me one thing for sure - they've never won at Daytona.
I always thought if you run a Marathon in less than 4 hours, there is a tick of athletic accomplishment in that. Anything over that is just an old guy with a hard head who isn't going to stop until he's done.
When I showed up to drive for Dale in '01 it was a brand new team.
Once the race starts, it doesn't matter what you did yesterday let alone last year.
Obviously you can make a pretty good living these days as a crew member or a crew chief or as a driver. But the technology is expensive.
Anytime you're pushing the envelope as hard as you can to be successful at anything at life it's easy to go from hero to zero in a second.
