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Darrel Waltrip - Owner/Driver

• NASCAR Winston Cup champion - 1981, 1982, 1985
• Most Popular Driver award - 1989, 1990
• American Driver of the Year - 1979, 1981, 1982
• National Motorsports Press Association Driver of the Year - 1977, 1981, 1982
• Auto Racing Digest Driver of the Year - 1981, 1982
• Tennessee Professional Athlete of the Year - 1979

Glancing Back: Darrel Waltrip got his first taste of speed in a go-kart at the age of 12. Four years later, he make his way into the cockpit of a stock car. Waltrip and his father soon built a 1936 Chevrolet coupe which was prepared to tackle a local dirt track in their hometown of Owensboro, KY.

Waltrip soon traded dirt racing for pavement competition, where the smoothness he learned on the dirt became a valuable asset. By the late 1960's, he became a regular winner and a fan favorite at the fairgrounds track in Nashville, Tenn.

The combination of Waltrip's on-track ability and his determination to win quickly levated him to one of the nation's premier short-track drivers. His efforts paid of in 1972 when he made his first NASCAR Winston Cup start at Alabama's Talladega Superspeedway. Waltrip continued to terrorize the short-track competition in the Southeast while making sporadic NASCAR starts. That changed in 1975 when he decided to become a full-time NASCAR Winston Cup competitor.

Waltrip reflected: "Wherever I would go, I was almost assured I was going to win one or two races a week and I make a good living doing that. It was difficult to step to the leagues and be just another fish in a big pond. It took some time for me to make up my mind that I needed to get in there, give it 100 percent and make my mark."