Special Place: Waltrip eager to race at Daytona

Michael Waltrip knows -- like few others -- the heartbreak of Daytona International Speedway, as well as the sweet relief that a good run there can bring to a tired NASCAR driver.

And Waltrip, now 45 and in his 23rd year on the stock-car tour, needs a good run at Daytona this week more than anyone else in the Sprint Cup series.

Life hasn't been great for Waltrip lately. He's fresh off a second-place finish in Sunday's Lenox Industrial Tools 300 in Loudon, N.H., but he is heading to Daytona, one of his favorite tracks, with no illusions about how this season is going.

It has been nearly five years since his last NASCAR tour win, at Talladega in the fall of 2003, and his best run this season before Sunday was 23rd, at Michigan. That's not much to inspire confidence. But Daytona has always been his bedrock, and he was on the front row in February for the season-opening Daytona 500 (although he slogged home 29th).

"I am hanging my career on it that Daytona is special," Waltrip said. "I have two Daytona 500 wins … and close to 700 tour losses. I believe my Daytona 500 wins have defined my career. I have been fortunate also to win the July race.

"My ability to run at the front and win the Daytona 500 is something I can be proud of. I would trade 11 victories for one win at Daytona…. Daytona is a place I always look forward to going to.

"We didn't get the result we thought we deserved in this year's Daytona 500. We got in a crash late in the race, after we finally got the car tuned up and ready to go after it. Then at our second restrictor-plate race of the season, we had a chance to win at Talladega before our engine blew on the final lap.

"So we plan to go to Daytona with the mind-set to sit on the pole and win the race."

Waltrip has been down so long that everything looks like up.

"I'm going to slip out with my 170 points, $150 grand, and start putting some patches on a sinking ship -- what has felt like a sinking ship for a year or so," Waltrip said after Sunday's rain-shortened race. "If you want to know disappointment -- I was coming to the white at Talladega (in April), with Jimmie Johnson glued to me, running 20 mph faster than the field, driving by him.

"We were going to win that race, no doubt. And it blew up coming to get the white.

"That (good run) was a game-changer for our team. Hopefully this can be a game-changer as well."

Waltrip and his guys need something to perk them up. Waltrip's schedule for the rest of the summer includes trying to land another sponsor, an uphill fight. Teammates David Reutimann and rookie Michael McDowell aren't doing much better. Reutimann's only top-10 finish this season was 10th at Lowe's Motor Speedway; McDowell's best finishes are 26th, at Talladega and Martinsville.

Whatever Joe Gibbs' guys have going with their Toyotas certainly hasn't translated to anything good for Waltrip, Reutimann or McDowell.

"We are met with challenges," Waltrip said. "We don't have a full-time sponsor for our third car. We haven't performed like we'd hoped we would.

"To see David Reutimann running in the top 15 most all day (at Loudon), and us being very competitive, those are the things we need in order to keep pace and try to hang in there and get a foothold in this garage, so in '09 we can become more of a force to be reckoned with."

Until now Waltrip and his team have been little more than a footnote. Building a team -- rather three teams -- from scratch has been a monumental undertaking. It took him to the poorhouse, and he has had to bring in outside financing to stay afloat.

But sooner or later, there have to be some results. Can Daytona deliver?

It has before for Waltrip.

"The story I told you about Talladega was all the inspiration I needed to go to Daytona and think we can win," Waltrip said. "We always figured out how to run up front; we're very confident.

"I just wanted to have a solid run at Loudon, a top-20 run. And I felt after practice we could be top 10. That was our goal.

"I told my team: we'll go down to Daytona and show them something. Hopefully we can do just that

If Saturday night's Coke Zero 400 comes down to a sprint to the finish, like the Daytona race in July typically does, Waltrip -- if he's there -- can't be counted out because he knows the right moves.

"You can win the 400 in many different fashions," Waltrip said. "The reason we see all the crazy finishes is because with 10 laps to go, there always seems to be a caution. And now all of a sudden it's a fistfight.

"A brawl will break out, and you don't know who will be the winner until the very end….

"This race can be won in many different ways … and that's why the end of the race at Daytona is so fun to watch."

■ Mike Mulhern can be reached at mmulhern@wsjournal.com.