Darrell Waltrip Retires: Drivers Reflect and Discuss

Three-time National Stock Car champion Darrell Waltrip is expected to run the final race of his career Sunday at the 1.54-mile Atlanta Motor Speedway. The popular and outspoken driver from Owensboro, KY., has been a favorite of fans - and of his fellow competitors - for years. Here is what some of those competitors had to say:

RICHARD PETTY, SEVEN-TIME NASCAR WINSTON CUP CHAMPION; LEVEL CROSS, N.C.

(PETTY CAME FROM 187 POINTS BEHIND TO WIN THE 1979 TITLE OVER DARRELL WALTRIP, THE FIRST TIME THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP WENT DOWN TO THE LAST RACE OF THE SEASON. THE RACE IS BEST KNOWN FOR BEING THE FIRST WITH "MIND GAMES’ BEING PLAYED, AND SOME FEEL WALTRIP LEARNED FROM PETTY. THE MOST NOTABLE QUOTE OF THE CHAMPIONSHIP CHASE CAME FROM PETTY, WHO HAD BEEN ASKED HOW MUCH PRESSURE WAS ON HIM TO CATCH WALTRIP. "NONE," PETTY TOLD A REPORTER. "THE WAY I LOOK AT IT, IT’S LIKE A HOUND DOG CHASING A RABBIT. THE HOUND DOG MIGHT BE THE ONE BEHIND BUT ALL THE PRESSURE IS STILL ON THE RABBIT.")

"Yeah, that was something (the 1979 chase for the title). I know a lot of people didn’t give us much of a chance to win the thing, especially when we were so far back, but we kept digging and kept digging. Right towards the end we started going back and forth in the points and it stayed really close. But Darrell got into some trouble at Ontario (California, the final race of the season) and we finished fifth (Waltrip finished eighth) and we won the thing.

"If either one of us learned anything, it was to go with what brung you. They had been running hard and doing pretty well but they started getting conservative. I guess it would be like ‘playing defense’ in a basketball game or something. They were trying to ride the clock out. We just kept doing what we had been doing all along, going into every race trying to win it. We just figured whatever happened happened, and we weren’t going to change the way we looked at things. Win races and the points pretty well figure themselves out. Even in the last race at Ontario, we were behind (by two points) going into it. The only thing we could do was try to win the race.

"To me, that’s still the way you look at running for the championship. The way the deal is supposed to work is everybody races hard all season long and when it’s all over, you count up the points and see where you stand. Everybody raced to win races. That’s what we were there for. We didn’t get conservative too often, and we didn’t try to stroke our way to anything. Course, we weren’t racing for no three-million dollar championship either. The guys these days win more for finishing 20th in the points than we did for winning the championship in those days.

"Now Bobby (Labonte) and those guys, they did exactly what they needed to do. They ran hard, built up a lead and then kept racing hard. They didn’t try to ride things out to the end. They had a great year and they deserved to win the championship.

"I know Darrell would have liked to have gone out with a championship. Me too. So would everybody. The deal is, you win the championship, why would you want to retire? If you don’t, well, you keep thinking that if you had just a little bit better car at a couple more tracks. . .

"You just keep going on (after retiring as a driver). You still gotta get out of bed in the mornings and you still got a family and you still have a life to lead. Your life might be a little bit different but things don’t change all that much. There are times you miss it (driving) and times you don’t. When you’re watching somebody really hooked up and having a great day then, yeah, you sort of think back on how good things were. When you’re watching somebody struggling to get the car to handle or riding around 10 laps down, you think,’Yeah, glad that’s not me.’"

MICHAEL WALTRIP, DRIVER #7 NATIONSRENT CHEVROLET; BROTHER OF DARRELL WALTRIP; OWENSBORO, KY.:

"When I was born, Darrell turned 16. When a race car driver turns 16, that pretty much means they’re on the road. They got what they’ve been after. They want to drive. I didn’t spend a whole lot of time around Darrell when I was a kid. Probably, the best memories I have of Darrell have been looking through a chain link fence at Nashville watching him win races or sitting in front of the TV watching him outduel Richard Petty at Darlington back in 1978 or ‘79, whenever that was. That’s kind of how I grew up with Darrell, watching from afar. Nowadays, we’re buddies. We’re more like friends now than we’ve ever been. That’s where we’re at with that.

"This job is a lot more difficult than people realize. This is one of the greatest names in our sport, and I think he is still better than a lot of guys who are out there today. Remember, Darrell was very, very competitive in Dale Earnhardt’s car. He got in that car a couple of years ago, and he proved he could still run up front and still be competitive. Last year and this year have not been what we all I think, at least me, had hoped for out of him. I think it’s unfair to scrutinize him, to look at him and say he’s just been running around for three years. There’s more to it than that. I read stuff in the paper sometimes that’s negative about my brother, and it really makes me mad.

"I remember watching Pebble Beach a few months ago, and Jack Nicklaus was making what was maybe his final appearance in the U.S. Open, and he was struggling home. He got in on an exemption, and they said it could be his last one. If they couldn’t figure out how to get Jack into one more, this could be it. I got to thinking about our sport, and I thought, ‘Why can’t people be talking about Darrell that way? Why can’t they be saying, ‘Man, this is going to be the last time we see Darrell Waltrip in a Winston Cup car?’‘ Please just grasp this moment, he’s meant so much to this sport. He’s going to be gone. Instead we’re saying, ‘Look at him. He had to use a provisional again.’ That’s the kind of comments he got some this year, and that kind of got on my nerves. It doesn’t seem fair.

"He’s won the Daytona 500. He’s been very competitive. I just hope he can have a good race at Atlanta. That’s the only thing I hope for him every week we go race. I just want him to get

his car right and go out there and show everyone how good he can still drive a race car. I hope all those things for Darrell. I hope he can qualify good, doesn’t have to jack with starting in the back but can get in there and make his car handle and show people he can still do the job on any given Sunday."

JEREMY MAYFIELD, DRIVER, #12 MOBIL 1 TAURUS; OWENSBORO, KY.:

"There are two things that always come to my mind when I think about Darrell Waltrip, one kind of recent and one years ago. He has always been somebody I looked up to, somebody who had set his sights on what he wanted, then went out and got it. That’s pretty much the way I came up. If Darrell wanted to race in Winston Cup, then he had to work hard. Nobody was going to give him anything. He worked hard and got what he wanted. It was the same with me. If I wanted to race in Winston Cup, then I had to work hard. Nobody was going to give me anything. We both got help along the way. I try to be as good as Darrell in giving help too.

"I guess I was a senior in high school when Darrell came to speak. They had pretty much figured out by then that I wasn’t planning on attending Oxford or anything. My plans were a career in stock car racing and my plans definitely included following in Darrell’s footsteps, and making my way from Owensboro into the big time for stock car racing.

"After Darrell spoke to the students, my shop teacher arranged me for to spend a few minutes talking with him alone. Man, that was a thrill! At least, it was for me. I’m not so sure about Darrell. But I told him what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go. He listened to me and talked with me, and he offered some advice. He basically just spent some time with a kid who had a dream.

"When I deal with fans, especially younger fans these days, I think back about that day. It meant the world to me, some high school kid in Owensboro with big dreams. The funny thing is, Darrell probably doesn’t remember it - and I have never forgotten it.

"The second thing that I think about is when I won my first race (Pocono, 1998). When I took the lead for the last time that day, I passed Darrell on the frontstretch. He ran me hard but he gave me room too. I think he ended up finishing fifth in a really good run. He was driving Earnhardt’s car that day, and showed what he could do with a good race car.

"Darrell Waltrip has meant so much to this sport. He carried us into the modern age as a driver. I think he was important in the way he changed our sport with his personality, and the way he proved that you didn’t have to live in the ‘Heart of Dixie’ to play a big role in this sport. You know, when you think about it, Darrell kind of paved the way for the guys not just from Kentucky but from the northeast (U.S.) too. He made a lot of inroads into making us a national sport, and we all owe him a lot for that."