Darrell Waltrip (Left) and Jeff Hammond (Right) celebrate in Victory Lane as they acknowledges his second Plasti-Kote Spray Paint award of 1989. (Photo: Getty Images)

Later, Waltrip said he didn’t put enough emphasis on the championship in the first part of his career.

“When I came into the sport, all I was thinking about was winning a race,” he said. “We’re going to race today, and I want to win. We’re going to race tomorrow, and I want to win tomorrow.

“That’s what it was about – instant gratification. I didn’t realize I could back it off a little bit and get that championship and that someday that might be more important than those wins. I threw one away in 1979. I had a shot at one in ’80, in ’84. From 1979 to ’85-’86, I should have won them all.”

As part of Waltrip’s early years in the sport, he picked up the nickname “Jaws,” courtesy of Yarborough, who’ll join him in the Hall class Friday night.

It happened at the Southern 500 in Darlington, SC in September 1977. Waltrip and Yarborough were involved in an accident about two-thirds through the race. Waltrip hit the car of D.K. Ulrich, and Ulrich hit Yarborough’s car.

Ulrich assumed that Yarborough had hit him and questioned the veteran driver about the incident after the race.

“I didn’t hit you,” Yarborough responded. “Jaws ran into you. You know, Jaws. That guy who talks all the time.”

Although Waltrip had success at DiGard, his relationship with the team owners soured, and he tried to void his contract to take a ride with a team owned by Harry Ranier. That move didn’t work, but Waltrip eventually bought out his contract – a first in NASCAR, at a cost of $325,000 – to accept the driver’s seat of Junior Johnson’s Chevrolets after Yarborough had decided to leave Johnson to race part-time.

It was his chance, Waltrip reasoned, to reach the championship. Yarborough had won three straight in Johnson’s cars from 1976-78.

As he was so often, Waltrip was right. He needed only a relatively short time to work magic, taking his first series championship in 1981 and winning 12 of 31 races. He repeated the dozen victories the next season and won the title again.

In 1983, he won six times but lost a bitter race for the title to Bobby Allison, who would be Waltrip’s biggest rival. Allison was exactly the sort of experienced veteran Waltrip targeted as he rose through the sport, and Allison, never one to back down from a fight, gave as good as he got. They are friends today, but the relationship retains something of an edge.

Waltrip soared to his third title in 1985, cementing his star status.

In 1989, driving for team owner Rick Hendrick, he finally won the Daytona 500 after failing in 16 previous attempts.

As Waltrip ran through the second half of his career, he mellowed in his on- and off-track behavior and soon became a fan favorite. Unfortunately, the final years of his career saw steady decline in his performance, although he stuck with it until 2000. He eventually returned to driving cars from his own shop.

In 1996, he talked of his decision to press on, one made in part because the sport was growing by leaps and bounds and he didn’t want to miss getting his piece of the pie, as he put it.

Darrell Waltrip (with trophy) gets a victory splash after winning the 1989 Daytona 500. (Photo: Getty Images)

“This is a great time to be in our sport,” he said. “The pie is huge. It’s not a small, little pie like it used to be when you got your great big hunk of it and everybody had to take what’s left. Today’s there’s a little room for everybody in there.

“That’s the biggest difference between then and now. I used to be the show. Now I’m just a part of the show.”

Waltrip didn’t win a race for the final eight seasons of his career, but his 84 victories put him in a tie with – ironically – Allison for fourth on the all-time win list.

He signed on with Fox Sports as a NASCAR race commentator and remains one of the key players in Fox and SPEED telecasts.

TUESDAY: Glen Wood

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 30 years. He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.