Michael Waltrip

Michael Curtis Waltrip is a professional race car driver who competes in the NASCAR Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series. He fields his own ride, the #55 NAPA Toyota Camry in the Sprint Cup Series. Early before the start of the 2009 season, Waltrip announced that he will be sharing the #99 NNS Aaron's dream machine with David Reutimann and Scott Speed.

Michael is a co-owner of Michael Waltrip Racing. The company is as a 50-50 partnership between Robert "Rob" Kauffman, the 44-year-old founder and managing partner of Fortress Investment Group, and Michael Waltrip, who first established the team in 1996. He is Darrell Waltrip's younger brother, a retired three-time NASCAR champion.

Waltrip is a part-time commentator for SPEED TV's coverage of the Camping World Truck Series and is a member of the "expert panel" on SPEED Channel's This Week in NASCAR program.

Waltrip's stock-car career got off the ground in 1981, when he captured the Mini-Modified division track championship at Kentucky Motor Speedway. A year later, Waltrip entered the Goody's Dash Series, where he won the series championship in 1983 and was voted the circuit's most popular driver in 1983 and 1984.

Waltrip made his Cup debut in 1985 in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte driving for Dick Bahre. He finished 28th in that race and finished 57th in the series standings after just five starts. In 1986, driving the #23 Hawaiian Punch car for Bahari Racing, Waltrip finished second in the Cup rookie of the year race to Alan Kulwicki on the strength of a pair of 11th-place finishes at Martinsville and Pocono. The following season, he posted his first career top-ten finish when he ended up tenth in the spring race at Martinsville Speedway. In 1988, Waltrip began running Busch Series events, making five starts for his brother Darrell's fledgling team. He took the checkered flag for the first time at Dover in his fourth start. In 1989, he had his first top-five finish in the #30 Country Time Lemonade/Kool Aid Pontiac.

1990 was remembered for a horrific crash at Bristol in the spring where Waltrip destroyed his Pontiac. Waltrip, after making contact with another car, hit the wall head on and the car collapsed into itself and disintegrated. Waltrip only suffered bruises in the incident. The accident was referenced in a 2008 NAPA Auto Parts commercial, where a fan showed Waltrip his customized die-cast replica cars, including pieces of the 1990 Bristol car.

In early race lineups he was referred to as "Mike Waltrip" or Darrell's little brother, it wasn't until 1991 that he began being referred to in racing lineups as Michael. Waltrip driving for Bahari in 1994In 1991, he gained new sponsorship from Pennzoil and won the Winston Open, as well as his first two career pole positions. He came close to winning the 1991 Transouth 500 with the team but had an incident that put him out of the running. Waltrip would have to wait 10 more years to get his first win. He stayed with the Bahari team until the end of 1995, when he was replaced by rookie Johnny Benson. He joined Wood Brothers Racing to drive their #21 Citgo Ford. He won the 1996 edition of The Winston . After posting one top-five finish over a period of three years, and missing his first race since 1986 at the 1998 Dura Lube/Kmart 500, Waltrip departed the Woods at the end of 1998 to drive the #7 Philips Chevrolet for Mattei Motorsports, posting three top-ten finishes and ending that season 29th in points. The next season, Nations Rent replaced Philips as the sponsor & he moved up to twenty seventh in points but finished in the top-five once, causing him and the team to part ways at the end of the season.

Waltrip was hired by Dale Earnhardt, Inc. to drive their new #15 NAPA Chevy entry. In his first race with the team, the 2001 Daytona 500, Waltrip broke a streak of 463 consecutive Cup races without a victory and won his first career points-paying Cup race. After the death of his boss Dale Earnhardt, he did not have another top-ten finish until the Pepsi 400, and finished 24th in the standings. The next season, he picked up his second career win at the Pepsi 400 and moved up to fourteenth in the standings. Throughout 2003, he won a career-high two races including his second career Daytona 500 win, and ran in the top-five for most of the season before falling back to 15th in points. Of trivial note, Michael Waltrip won the first three races at Daytona on FOX (2001, 2003 Daytona 500; 2002 Pepsi 400) with Waltrip's brother Darrell in the broadcast booth.

In 2004, Waltrip went winless and dropped five spots in the standings. Despite one pole and seven top-tens in 2005, Waltrip announced he and sponsor NAPA would depart DEI to drive the #55 Dodge Charger for Bill Davis Racing. After the former #77 Jasper Motorsports team closed its doors at the end of 2005, Waltrip split unofficially from Davis and assumed the former Jasper team's owner's points in order to be guaranteed a spot in the first five races for the season. Running under the banner, Waltrip-Jasper Racing, the team would be used to set up Waltrip's new Toyota operation in 2007. Waltrip failed to qualify for the first time since 1998 at the Coca-Cola 600. He bought a slot from the #74 McGlynn Racing Dodge from Derrike Cope to drive in the race and to keep his streak of 262 consecutive races. Waltrip ended up missing three races total in 2006 and did not have a top-ten finish.