The DVD was sitting in Michael Waltrip’s house for nine and a half years, while the accident churned inside him.
His big sister Connie recorded every race of his. As soon as the Daytona 500 went off the air that fatal day, she decorated the case with stars and happy faces to commemorate his first Daytona — his first NASCAR Cup victory ever — after 462 also-rans. Then she plopped the DVD into the case for Michael to watch when he got home.
Connie did all that before they knew about Dale.
Waltrip never looked at the DVD of the entire 2001 Daytona 500. He also left Dale Earnhardt’s death roiling way down deep. Better that way. Better not to think about why one man dies and another man raises a trophy — in temporary, blissful innocence, as Waltrip noted.
In recent years, Waltrip’s wife had moved out, taking their daughter with her. His racing team was penalized for having rocket fuel in one car’s system; he departed from a late-night wreck, which did not make the sheriff happy. Things were happening fast in Michael Waltrip’s life, not unlike conditions that day at Daytona.
Nine and a half years had passed since Waltrip looked in his rear view mirror and saw his mentor, his boss, his buddy, pretty much ruling Daytona from the third position. Good old No. 3, letting his teammates win the biggest race of them all.
Giving up the ball, in basketball terms — an assist. Dropping a bunt to move the runner across in baseball — a sacrifice “in a racing sense,” Waltrip said the other day.
He was in New York, talking about his new book, “In the Blink of an Eye,” written with Ellis Henican and published by Hyperion. Waltrip, 47 and phasing into ownership, will drive in the Daytona 500 today, in homage to Earnhardt, two days after the 10th anniversary of Earnhardt’s death.
Waltrip has been a surrogate son and brother to some of the biggest people in racing. He is the fifth and last child of a hard-working family from Owensboro, Ky. In a touching segment of his book, he describes himself as a late-life surprise to his parents, and says there are few baby photos, few mementos of his childhood.
His oldest brother, Darrell, 16 years older, moved out early, and won 84 NASCAR races — but Darrell let Michael make his own way in the world, with help from the middle brother, Bobby, who helped Michael get to North Carolina, the heart of the industry.
In that rather mobile society, Michael Waltrip was taken in by Kyle Petty, and he used to pal around with Kyle’s little boy, the doomed Adam, who would die in a crash during a practice session in 2000. Then Waltrip was shuttled to King Richard Petty, a guru with a big hat and mustache and shades, who instructed him to figure things out on his own.
Before long, the underachieving Waltrip was driving for Earnhardt, the Intimidator, who drove hard on the track and in life. In 2001, Earnhardt told Waltrip and Dale Jr., his protégés, that they might finish 1-2-3 at Daytona with those good machines he had provided them.
Late in the race, Waltrip was stunned to find himself leading the pack, with Dale Jr. right behind him and Dale Sr. right behind his son. He realized Dale Sr. had known exactly what he was saying. Now the paterfamilias was controlling the race from third place, content to let the boys win. A business decision. A game plan.
The narrative of those final dodgy laps at 200 mph is the highlight of the book.
“I just kept watching my mirror, and it kept looking just like Dale said it would,” Waltrip writes. “Dale Junior was right on my bumper. He was doing exactly what he was supposed to do. And behind him, Dale was moving around a lot. I could see Dale Junior, and there were times on the straightaways I could see Dale too. All those other drivers were drafting up on him. There was a lot going on back there. I could tell that.”
Waltrip has thought about it for 10 years, has decided that Dale was doing exactly what he wanted to do, and then there was a slight contact in the moving pack, and Earnhardt made a sharp, fatal right turn into the unforgiving wall.
Michael Waltrip did not see it. He was too busy crossing the finish line, too busy celebrating. He describes how he came down fast off that ecstasy when he saw the look on another driver’s face, and how grief enveloped racing fans all over the nation.
NASCAR has since raised its safety and technology standards, forcing drivers to use restraints, making the cars more flexible, not passing all that impact onto the driver. Nobody has died in a major NASCAR race since Dale.
Of course, Dale would have hated the safety measures, Waltrip said. Unless they were his idea.
Waltrip won the Daytona 500 again in 2003, and two other NASCAR races, but his career total remains at four as he phases into ownership.
With the anniversary coming up, Waltrip decided to write a book, almost to force himself to come to grips with the accident. Connie’s DVD of the entire race was sitting on a shelf in his house in North Carolina, where he now lives alone. He popped it in the player late one night last July and watched the entire show just to get the feel of the day that had transpired while he sat in his car.
He found himself alone, sobbing, realizing he had never dealt with the crash, never sought counseling — never was offered it by NASCAR, he said. In the middle of the night, he said, he texted his wife, Buffy, and said he now understood how he had sabotaged the marriage by going around frozen like that. They remain friendly, he said, but the divorce will be final any day. Life goes on.
Today he will drive one more Daytona, in homage to the Intimidator, whose life did not go on.
