Read Online In the Blink of an Eye by Michael Waltrip - Free Book Online
Authors: Michael Waltrip
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car.”
And I would think: Well, make it happen!
It didn’t look like 2001 was a possibility. We were less than five months away from Daytona. You can’t build a team that quickly, and I knew it. Looked to me like I was going to be signing a contract with a team I knew it would be nearly impossible to win with.
“I don’t feel good about this, Buff,” I told my wife. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do. If I sign with the same team for 2001, I’ll feel like I’m giving up hope of finally winning races, just signing to have a job. And I don’t want to do that.”
But I made my living racing cars. That’s all I knew how to do. You know, the whole sitting-on-my-butt thing. I had a wife and a couple of kids, and I had to provide for them. Whatever I decided would be a compromise. My desire to win, from what I could see, would have to take a backseat to just making a living, and that made me sad. I never raced cars just to make a living. But it felt like that’s what I was going to have to do then.
The truth is this had been a pattern with me, just staying with a team for stability, I suppose. I wasn’t confident enough—didn’t believe in myself enough to take a chance by putting myself out on the market. I’d been taking the safe route—or what seemed to be the safest bet.
But I was over that. I didn’t want to just sign or settle. Not yet, anyway.
I was waiting around as long as I could, although I kept wondering why.
Tick, tick, tick. A lot of time passed and it didn’t appear that one of the top rides was going to be offered to me. They never had been. Why did I think one would be now? Time kept slipping away. And I kept losing races, feeling stuck. 0–450. 0–451. I don’t know how many exactly. One thing I did know, I wasn’t expecting the Hall of Fame to be knocking on my door anytime soon.
Maybe I wasn’t the most sought-after driver, but I was good enough that I had people calling me. I was better than most of the drivers who were available.
What was the answer? I was so confused.
My thinking about all that was interrupted by the ringing phone.
“Hello,” I answered.
It was Earnhardt. “Did you sign that contract?” he demanded in that familiar tone. I laughed to myself. He was always so direct.
“No, why?”
“Well, don’t,” Dale said. “I’m tired of Busch racing. Makes more sense for my company to have three Cup teams. And I’m gonna fly down to Atlanta today and tell NAPA that. I’m gonna see if they want to move up to Cup, and I’m gonna tell ’em I want you to drive. I’ll call you when I get back and tell you how it went.”
Just that quickly he hung up.
What just happened?
I don’t think I got another word in after “No, why?” It was just Dale being Dale after that, telling me what we were going to do and how we were going to do it. Just like he always did. And I loved it.
Okay.
That’s a call I’d been waiting for. But I damned sure didn’t see it coming. As soon as we hung up, I called Buffy and told her about Dale’s call. We were both ecstatic. We knew if this came true, it would be my best chance ever to win consistently, or even at all. Maybe my last chance.
I’d be on a multicar team. Multicar teams were just beginning to become a trend in NASCAR. Owners like Dale had figured out that the more cars you had under one roof, the more cost-effective it was. For example, while a fabricator was stamping out a part or a piece in the factory for one car, he could just simply stamp out a couple more for the other cars. So if it took twenty people to build one car, maybe it only took ten more to build a second or a third—and so on. The owner then could take the money saved on the stampers and spend it on research and development or on testing to improve the team’s performance.
That’s a basic lesson on the modern economics of NASCAR.
Driving for my friend Dale was the opportunity I needed. He was wanting to take me under his wing at the ripe
And I would think: Well, make it happen!
It didn’t look like 2001 was a possibility. We were less than five months away from Daytona. You can’t build a team that quickly, and I knew it. Looked to me like I was going to be signing a contract with a team I knew it would be nearly impossible to win with.
“I don’t feel good about this, Buff,” I told my wife. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do. If I sign with the same team for 2001, I’ll feel like I’m giving up hope of finally winning races, just signing to have a job. And I don’t want to do that.”
But I made my living racing cars. That’s all I knew how to do. You know, the whole sitting-on-my-butt thing. I had a wife and a couple of kids, and I had to provide for them. Whatever I decided would be a compromise. My desire to win, from what I could see, would have to take a backseat to just making a living, and that made me sad. I never raced cars just to make a living. But it felt like that’s what I was going to have to do then.
The truth is this had been a pattern with me, just staying with a team for stability, I suppose. I wasn’t confident enough—didn’t believe in myself enough to take a chance by putting myself out on the market. I’d been taking the safe route—or what seemed to be the safest bet.
But I was over that. I didn’t want to just sign or settle. Not yet, anyway.
I was waiting around as long as I could, although I kept wondering why.
Tick, tick, tick. A lot of time passed and it didn’t appear that one of the top rides was going to be offered to me. They never had been. Why did I think one would be now? Time kept slipping away. And I kept losing races, feeling stuck. 0–450. 0–451. I don’t know how many exactly. One thing I did know, I wasn’t expecting the Hall of Fame to be knocking on my door anytime soon.
Maybe I wasn’t the most sought-after driver, but I was good enough that I had people calling me. I was better than most of the drivers who were available.
What was the answer? I was so confused.
My thinking about all that was interrupted by the ringing phone.
“Hello,” I answered.
It was Earnhardt. “Did you sign that contract?” he demanded in that familiar tone. I laughed to myself. He was always so direct.
“No, why?”
“Well, don’t,” Dale said. “I’m tired of Busch racing. Makes more sense for my company to have three Cup teams. And I’m gonna fly down to Atlanta today and tell NAPA that. I’m gonna see if they want to move up to Cup, and I’m gonna tell ’em I want you to drive. I’ll call you when I get back and tell you how it went.”
Just that quickly he hung up.
What just happened?
I don’t think I got another word in after “No, why?” It was just Dale being Dale after that, telling me what we were going to do and how we were going to do it. Just like he always did. And I loved it.
Okay.
That’s a call I’d been waiting for. But I damned sure didn’t see it coming. As soon as we hung up, I called Buffy and told her about Dale’s call. We were both ecstatic. We knew if this came true, it would be my best chance ever to win consistently, or even at all. Maybe my last chance.
I’d be on a multicar team. Multicar teams were just beginning to become a trend in NASCAR. Owners like Dale had figured out that the more cars you had under one roof, the more cost-effective it was. For example, while a fabricator was stamping out a part or a piece in the factory for one car, he could just simply stamp out a couple more for the other cars. So if it took twenty people to build one car, maybe it only took ten more to build a second or a third—and so on. The owner then could take the money saved on the stampers and spend it on research and development or on testing to improve the team’s performance.
That’s a basic lesson on the modern economics of NASCAR.
Driving for my friend Dale was the opportunity I needed. He was wanting to take me under his wing at the ripe
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