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Fennelly: Through heartbreak, Daytona still the place for Waltrip

 
Michael Waltrip speaks with reporters at NASCAR Daytona 500 media day at Daytona International Speedway on Wed., Feb. 22, 2017. [Associated Press]
Michael Waltrip speaks with reporters at NASCAR Daytona 500 media day at Daytona International Speedway on Wed., Feb. 22, 2017. [Associated Press]
Published Feb. 24, 2017

DAYTONA BEACH — No place in racing has meant more to him.

No place ever has made him jubilant and heartbroken at once.

For all those reasons, this place is where Michael Waltrip will run his final race Sunday, on the high banks at Daytona International Speedway. One last Daytona 500 for the two-time 500 winner.

"It's my 30th and final one," Waltrip said. "This just seemed like the perfect place to do it."

Waltrip, 53, has no illusions. He finished just 35th in pole qualifying last weekend.

"Unless our strategy is, 'We got 'em right where we want 'em, they don't even know we're here,' we might be in a little trouble on this one," he said, grinning.

He grins when he comes to this place. This place matters. It has been so good to him. And so cruel to him. And to everyone else that February day 16 years ago.

It was at Daytona in 2001 when Waltrip — who simply had been Darrell Waltrip's little brother to that point, who had been winless in 462 races over a rather futile NASCAR Cup series career — brought home a victory in the biggest race in his game, the 500.

It was the greatest day of Waltrip's life.

And the worst.

As Waltrip and race teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. raced to the finish line on the final lap, their team owner, their inspiration and NASCAR's biggest star, rode up into the wall in Turn 4. And Dale Earnhardt was gone.

Michael Waltrip's first Daytona 500 win will never truly be his first Daytona 500 win. It will never belong to him.

It will always be the day the music died.

"I try not to get reflective or nostalgic, because it's too emotional," Waltrip said. "Mostly I think about racing the car. Obviously, I've faced a range of emotions that humans probably aren't designed to face, and it all happened within about 10 seconds. So that's hard to think about."

There was guilt. Waltrip wrote about it in his 2011 autobiography, In the Blink of an Eye. The book was a New York Times best-seller.

"I like to tell people I never read a New York Times best-seller, but I wrote one," said Waltrip, smiling.

In the book, he wrote about the juxtaposition between his 500 win and Earnhardt's death:

"That contradiction had me stumbling through a life I didn't want to be living."

He worked through it. Waltrip even won another Daytona 500, albeit a rain-shortened race in 2003.

Nothing was ever perfect.

Another smile.

"I know I got the trophy and the check. And they didn't shorten either one of those," he said.

He returned to that day in 2001:

"I wouldn't called it 'haunting.' It's just my life. I accepted it. I think I said it very well the days after that race. I think we have a number of days to live when we're born. Everybody has that number. And that was Dale's day.

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"As I think about your day coming up, it's a pretty good day when you're watching your two cars drive off to win the Daytona 500 and then you're in heaven right after that. Obviously, I wish I could have got a hug from him and everything had turned out different. That's just the way it was meant to be."

Michael Waltrip is a best-selling author and a NASCAR analyst for Fox. He has run 783 races in NASCAR's top division. He has won four times, including three at Daytona, where he won the summer race in 2002.

To him, this is the place, for so many reasons, even with the sadness. Waltrip thought of all those February trips to Daytona growing up.

"I would be at my elementary school in Kentucky, and my mom and dad would show up to get me on Wednesdays," he said. "And we would drive all night to get down for the (qualifying races) on Thursday. It was awesome. I'd sleep in the car. I slept on the back up in the window. It was the best 12, 14 hours ever, because I knew where I'd be when we got there.

"There's a great picture of me as a 12-year-old in a sports coat with Richard Petty and Bobby Allison. I couldn't get over coming to Daytona and seeing those beautiful banked turns. Despite the terrible loss that we all experienced here, the friends that have passed and the racers who have been taken away, it's still my favorite place."