Darrell Waltrip heads up HoF class

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Dar­rell Wal­trip was nick­named “Jaws” as a dri­ver for his out­ra­geous trash-talking. His loqua­cious­ness launched his sec­ond career, as one of NASCAR’s most rec­og­nized — and out­spo­ken — tele­vi­sion analysts.

But on the eve on his induc­tion into the NASCAR Hall of Fame, ‘ol DW has no idea what he’s going to say in Fri­day night’s ceremony.

“I’ve writ­ten 10 speeches and after the 10th one, I threw it away, and said ‘I can’t write a speech,’” Wal­trip said. “I’m pretty spon­ta­neous, so I’m just going to get up and say what I think and hope it’s the right thing.”

Wal­trip hasn’t always said the right thing in a career that dates back to his 1972 debut in NASCAR’s top series. He angered his rivals as a dri­ver, and his strong opin­ions as an ana­lyst for both Fox Sports and Speed have made him one of the more polar­iz­ing com­men­ta­tors in NASCAR.

Some might even think it cost him a shot in last year’s vot­ing, when despite three cham­pi­onships and 84 vic­to­ries, Wal­trip was shut out of the sec­ond Hall of Fame class. Wal­trip had signed on with Speed as an ana­lyst for vot­ing day, and from his perch on the stage at the back of the Great Hall, his face couldn’t hide his heart­break over not mak­ing the sec­ond class.

He tried not to get his hopes up this time around, but every­body knew how badly Wal­trip wanted to be included in the third class. Brian France called his name last June, Wal­trip rushed onto the podium and kissed the NASCAR chairman.

Wal­trip goes into the Hall of Fame with three-time cham­pion Cale Yarbor­ough, NASCAR mod­i­fied great Richie Evans, inno­v­a­tive crew chief Dale Inman and Glen Wood, one of NASCAR’s orig­i­nal team owners.

The show will belong to Wal­trip, though, who knew as a child he wanted to be an enter­tainer and found a way to incor­po­rate his desire to per­form into his NASCAR career. He was brash and bold and loved being in front of the cameras.

His style, his show­man­ship, was like noth­ing NASCAR had ever seen before and paved the way for more per­son­al­ity from the drivers.

“I always thought it would be fun to be an actor, or a come­dian, but I guess race car dri­ving suited me,” he said. “I like to make peo­ple laugh, which is bet­ter than mak­ing them cry, right? Some peo­ple take the path of least of resis­tance, but I take the path I couldn’t resist. I looked at every­thing I did, what if I did every­thing that every­body else is doing as they go down that path.

I fig­ured there’s a lot more room going in this other direc­tion then there is in that direc­tion with all the other guys who chewed Skoal and wore belt buck­les and cow­boy hats. I’m not mak­ing fun of them, I just chose not to go down that route, to be more upscale, in a class by myself. I was a Penske guy liv­ing in an Earn­hardt world.”

He will be again on Fri­day night when his larger-than-life per­son­al­ity is sure to out­shine Yarbor­ough, Inman and Wood. Evans, win­ner of nine NASCAR national mod­i­fied cham­pi­onships over a 13-year span, was killed in a 1985 acci­dent at Mar­tinsville Speed­way. He was 44.

Yarbor­ough from 1976–78 became the first dri­ver in NASCAR his­tory to win three con­sec­u­tive cham­pi­onships, a record that stood until Jim­mie Johnson’s run of five-straight titles. He fin­ished sec­ond in the stand­ings another three times, and ended his career with 83 vic­to­ries — sixth on the all-time list.

Yarbor­ough was a four-time Day-tona 500 win­ner, but decided in 1980 to run only par­tial sched­ules for the final nine years of his career.

“I real­ized I had three daugh­ters grow­ing up and I was away from them all the time,” he said. “Even though rac­ing was very impor­tant in my life, I felt like they were a lit­tle more impor­tant so I was going to spend some more time with them and be with them in their growing-up years. There’s no telling how many wins I left on the table, but I def­i­nitely made the right decision.”

Inman led his cousin, Hall of Famer Richard Petty, to a record seven cham­pi­onships. The crew chief won an eighth title with Terry Labonte. From 1958 to 1992, he led dri­vers to 193 wins and 129 poles.

His stand­out year was 1967 when he guided Petty to a NASCAR-record, 27 races — includ­ing 10-straight — in a sin­gle car built a year earlier.

“Dale was a rac­ing bench­mark,” Petty said. “He was the sport’s first offi­cial crew chief and peo­ple mod­eled them­selves after him. He knew what, when and where — and when he made a mis­take he wasn’t afraid to admit it. Every­one respected him for that. Nobody even comes close to the num­ber of wins that Dale has recorded.”

Wood, at 86 the old­est mem­ber of this incom­ing class, formed a race team that still com­petes today in Stu­art, Va., with his four broth­ers. Trevor Bayne won the Day­tona 500 last year for the Wood Broth­ers, giv­ing the team its 98th vic­tory span­ning seven dif­fer­ent decades. Bayne’s win was the team’s fifth Day­tona 500 vic­tory, and the Wood Broth­ers also won the 1965 Indi­anapo­lis 500 with Jim Clark.

Wood’s brother, Leonard, chore­o­g­ra­pher of the mod­ern pit stop, is a NASCAR Hall of Fame nominee.

“It’s such a long trip from 1950 to now. It’s sort of hard to believe,” Wood said. “It’s one of the biggest hon­ors you could have. I didn’t come here alone; I had a lot of help. There’s five of us broth­ers. All of those helped at one time or another.”

Posted by Jon Kleinknecht on Jan 20 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.