The other side of the story.
Earlier today (see the article below this one), I reported Michael Waltrip refused to withdraw an entry in the NASCAR Southwest Series race at Infineon Raceway for this past weekend’s event, the Australian Suncream 200. Based on the information I was able to gather from NASCAR and the car owner of the No. 77 Star Nursery.com entry, the No. 14 Michael Waltrip entry would not be pulled unless the No. 77 Star Nursery entry was also pulled opening up the door for the No. 17 Tyler McQuarrie entry.
Well, what I wrote was mostly true. But one thing needs to be clarified and that is the fact that Michael Waltrip never knew there was any drama surrounding his qualifying effort and subsequent withdrawal or lack thereof. Shortly after posting the article I received phone calls from both Rick Ruzbarsky and Mike David offering some explanation to the way things came down and I am happy to report the full story here.
It is my understanding that Ruzbarsky rented the No. 17 car that was to be driven by McQuarrie from Mike David and that Steve Johnson and Mike David share ownership of the No. 14 that was rented by Waltrip.
According to the Sonoma PR at the time we all were awaiting qualifying results, there was a protest going on, but according to both Ruzbarsky and David, Waltrip was not aware of any protest.
Ruzbarsky, David and Jerry Baxter (Waltrip’s crew chief) met in the NASCAR hauler to discuss the No. 14 Waltrip entry and at one point it was asked if they could bring the No. 17 car of Tyler McQuarrie out as a back up for Waltrip to start the race.
They were told no, they could not as the No. 17 car had already made a qualifying attempt. With the No. 14 looking as if there were no way to repair it to a drivable condition, the discussion turned to taking the car to Modesto to fix it.
NASCAR told those present in the trailer that they had to make a decision. According to David he was not aware that the qualifying lineup was being held up. What became important to those in the trailer was to get the State Fair sponsor in the race and it seemed the easiest way to do that was to put it on the No. 17 car. Problem was the next car in line to take a position on the starting grid was the No. 77 entry.
According to Ruzbarsky he offered the No. 77 Clark team money to withdraw their car, figuring if the No. 14 car was withdrawn and the No. 77 car was also withdrawn they could move the No. 17 car to a position in the field and run the State Fair Hot Dog sponsorship. Ruzbarsky figured he could get the money back from either the State Fair sponsor or David. But the No. 77 car also had sponsors to serve and wanted to wait to see if the No. 14 was going to withdraw.
Pressure continued to build but it was the opinion of everyone on the team that the final decision needed to come from Waltrip as he is the one that paid for the ride. Baxter tried calling him, but Waltrip did not answer. Next Baxter tried calling Waltrip’s PR, but there was no answer there either. The team asked for 5 more minutes but NASCAR said they needed to know now. The team did not feel right withdrawing Waltrip’s car without his permission and they also wanted to take care of the State Fair sponsor. With the time to make a decision expended the team left the No. 14 in the field and the starting order was set. There was no longer anything that would change it.
Neither McQuarrie nor Clark was able to start the race and it was not until 30 minutes after the decision that Waltrip finally found out what was going on. Alan Beebe accepted a deal to run the State Fair championship and the rest is history.
I will let Mikie off the hook on this one. It is a shame only 41 cars started what could have been a 42 car field. But I can understand both sides. Waltrip needed his sponsor in and the Clark needed his sponsor in.
Now if it would have been Australia (is that home of the Suncream?), all the cars could have started…oh well. On to the next race.
ORIGNAL ARTICLE ON MICHAEL WALTRIP'S QUALIFYING
The NASCAR Southwest Series qualifying results at Sonoma took two hours for NASCAR to print out. Up in the media center there were several beat writers from the local papers, some writers for national online sites and as far as I know some TV reporters coming in and out asking for the qualifying results. The track media coordinator could only say there was a protest.
The clock ticked and ticked and many of the people wanting results left, the rest of us all waited and waited for those results. After an hour or so passed we got the word it was Michael Waltrip, who crashed his car during qualifying after T-boning another car, who was raising a stink. Didn’t matter whom it was…we still waited on those results.
I sat there waiting with a friend of mine that writes for an LA paper and we were trying to figure out what he could be protesting. I thought maybe he was fool enough to protest because he didn’t get 5 full practice laps in. But, nah, what it really all came down to was that his car was not good enough to start the race, but he didn’t want to withdraw his entry and let the next car in line have a shot.
The next car in line was the #77 entry of Spencer Clark. It would have been the youngster’s first start in a Tour car at Infineon and the car was rented from Star Nursery’s Craig Keogh. Waltrip didn’t want that starting spot to go to the Keogh car. He wanted it to go to the #17 car of Tyler McQuarrie. Waltrip said he would only withdraw his car that would never be good enough to race if the #77 car withdrew and let the #17 start. Waltrip protested and protested and eventually he lost, because NASCAR did the right thing…but Waltrip made sure he wasn’t the only loser. He made sure Clark lost as well.
When race day came the drivers were introduced one by one, but as the announcer went from the drivers last to first he came to the place Waltrip should have been and announced to the fans in the stands that Waltrip was not present and would not be starting the race.
Waltrip could have done the right thing; he could have played the game fairly. Instead he turned it into a lose, lose situation. Waltrip didn’t start, Clark didn’t start and McQuarrie didn’t start. The only one that may have come out a little ahead on this deal was Beebe Racing Ent. by putting the Waltrip sponsor on the pole sitter’s car.
Waltrip, the veteran showed the Infineon fans he was more than a NASCAR Nextel Cup star… he showed them all he was a racing Scrooge. And he kept a regular Southwest Car owner’s car as well as a kid that was looking forward to his first Tour race off the track.
How does brother Darrell Waltrip say it? “Way to go, Mikie!”
