Waltrip made his Cup debut in 1985
in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte.
He finished 28th in that race and
finished 57th in the series
standings after just five starts.
In
1986, driving for Dick Bahre,
Waltrip finished second in the Cup
rookie of the year race to Alan
Kulwicki on the strength of a pair
of 11th-place finishes at
Martinsville and Pocono.
In
1988, Waltrip began running Busch
Series events, making five starts
for his brother Darrell's fledgling
team. It didn't take long for
Waltrip to make an impact, as he
took the checkered flag at Dover in
just his fourth start.
Waltrip's most memorable Busch
Series effort came in 1993 at
Bristol. After taking the checkered
flag, Waltrip made a "Polish victory
lap" in honor of Kulwicki, who had
lost his life in a plane crash on
his way to that weekend's events.
What's more, he proposed to his wife
Buffy in Victory Lane that day.
While Waltrip had always been a
competitive driver through the '80s
and '90s -- he had even won The
Winston in 1996 -- he had the
dubious honor of having the longest
active streak of Cup point-paying
starts without a victory. That
463-race streak ended at the 2001
Daytona 500. Later that same season,
he finished second behind teammate
Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the Pepsi 400,
also at Daytona.
In
his spare time, Waltrip is a big fan
of the Dallas Cowboys and an avid
runner. In fact, he ran in both the
Boston and Tampa marathons in 2000.
While
many of his competitors started
racing cars when they were barely
old enough to walk, Michael Waltrip
waited until his teen years to start
tooling around the midwest in
go-kart races.
Waltrip's stock-car career got off
the ground in 1981, whe he captured
the Mini-Modified division track
championship at Kentucky Motor
Speedway. A year later, Waltrip
entered the Goody's Dash Series,
where he won the series championship
in 1983 and was voted the circuit's
most popular driver in 1983 and
1984...