Dave Despain, the popular host of Wind Tunnel on SPEED. (Image: SPEED)
Darrell Waltrip, three-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion and SPEED and NASCAR on FOX analyst, joined Dave Despain and guest co-host Robin Miller Sunday on Wind Tunnel with Dave Despain on SPEED to review the latest news in NASCAR. Following is a transcript from Waltrip’s interview, including a discussion on Jeremy Mayfield, Kyle Busch, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the NASCAR Chase for the Sprint Cup.
Dave Despain: Mark Martin leading in wins, which is a big help when they reset the points, assuming he is in the top 12. Right now he is only a couple of points to the good. Who impresses you, who doesn't and who is gonna win the Sprint Cup?
Darrell Waltrip: Well, and I’ve said this a dozen times, somebody has got to prove to me they can beat Jimmie Johnson. if you look at the way the 48 car has run, he always runs well on the tracks that are in the chase. and they have the experience. I believe he can win four in a row, but I tell you the guy that is gonna be breathing down his neck the whole time is old Smoke. that team, with Darian Grubb and the momentum they have, i think he is gonna give Jimmie Johnson a run for his money.
Robin Miller: Darrell, you’ve got to help me with my NASCAR education. Mark Martin is a 50-year-old man, he is kicking everybody’s butt, what does that really say about the competition?
Darrell Waltrip: It doesn’t say anything about the competition - it says everything about the car. this is an old-guy car. I mean it drives like the cars from back in the ‘80s. It’s a real clumsy, slow-reacting car, you’ve got to really, really have the finesse. It’s not like the car that a lot of these young guys had a couple years ago, this thing takes experience, it takes patience, you have to wait on this car. Young guys don’t like to wait on the car. They want the car to be there when they are ready to go and this car doesn’t drive that way. I think that’s why it favors a guy like Mark Martin and some of the guys that have really adjusted well to this particular car. It’s a hard car to drive. Look at Joey Logano - he can go over in the Nationwide Series and run away with it. he gets in the COT in this Cup car and he is lost.
Dave Despain: I got to ask you this. the Jeremy Mayfield story got uglier and more unreal. He tested positive again for methamphetamine, his late father’s wife had filed an affidavit saying she has seen him use meth repeatedly, he claims he has been tested repeatedly, the only two tests he has failed is NASCAR and hinted the woman who is his stepmother was paid for her testimony and had something to do with his death. Jerry Springer would love all of that. I’d be interested in your opinion.
Darrell Waltrip: Dave, oh, what a tangled web we weave. Here is my take, to use your phrase … you have to follow the money in my mind and what I am seeing here is I got to ask myself why, ‘why would Jeremy, if he had flunked the drug test, and NASCAR comes to him and says "look you flunked the test," and they have what they call a road map, here is your road map for getting back and getting reinstated.’ He chose not to do that. And here is the only reason and the only conclusion I can come up with - he has gotten the judge to side with him, he is saying he has passed all the other tests past NASCAR, his career is ruined, he is never going to be able to drive a car in NASCAR again. What would he probably want? He would probably want a settlement and I believe he is trying to leverage all this, all of his side of the story against NASCARS’s side of the story and maybe they will pay him to go away. That’s the only reason, that’s the only way I can make this all come together and work in my mind.
Dave Despain: When you look at this whole thing about “Little E,” he has won 18 races but having a miserable season. Does Jr. have too much money, not hungry enough, is there anything to that?
Darrell Waltrip: I think athletes, for the most part, are fragile and their psyche is fragile and the distractions … when you get too many distractions you can’t do your job and I think … I asked Jr. this a few weeks into the season after the debacle we had at Daytona … I said I wish what you would do is put all of your outside activity aside and give me six weeks of nothing but focusing on driving that 88 race car and let me see what kind of results we would get.
I believe his confidence is not there, I believe the thing with Tony Jr. and him getting separated, I believe the fans, I believe the media, I believe all these things have really, really taken its toll on his ability to focus and drive the car and do the job that I think he could do. but he is just going to have to get rid of a lot of these outside activities and distractions. The Nationwide team, all the other things he is into, he needs to get all that out of the way, let somebody else run that side of the deal and focus on driving that race car and I think you might see a difference.
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