Free In the Blink of an Eye by Michael Waltrip Page B

record, and neither was I. We were just race-car people, heading for the first and biggest race of the year. Man, I felt like a kid again, like that kid back in Kentucky who used to sit at his desk at Stanley Elementary School just waiting for his parents to scoop him up and deliver him to NASCAR’s holy land.
    Most years at Daytona, the pre-race routine was pretty much the same.
    You had to get your picture taken in your new uniform. I stood there proudly in my NAPA blue. You had to do interviews about the upcoming season. I did one after another. It seemed like everyone wanted to ask about me driving for Dale.
    Why not? This year, my story was better than most. I was the guy who’d never won, driving for the guy whose name meant winning. It was a solid two days of media swirl.
    What an unlikely pair we were! Just like we’d always been: the Intimidator and the Intimidated. No one could question Dale’s record. Everyone had questioned mine.
    Back in my little world in Sherrills Ford, I was the guy in charge. People looked to me for direction. Put me with Dale though: He was Batman and I was Robin. Holy skid marks, Dale! Whatever you say!
    Over the years, wherever we were, people would look at us and think: What do those two have in common? If we were on the boat, it was “Why’s the guy in the funny sunglasses and the mustache hanging around with the dude in the loud pink shorts?” In New York City, “Why’s the champ having dinner with the seventeenth-place guy?” It didn’t matter where we were, people didn’t get it. Now here we were in Daytona, and suddenly, to me at least, we didn’t seem that different at all. This was serious business here. We’d come with one thing in mind: taking the Daytona 500 trophy back home to North Carolina with us.
    I wanted everyone to see us as one. Owner and driver, one and the same, working together for a common goal. We were there to win. As we prepared for the race, I could tell that this was Dale’s mind-set as well. I wasn’t “goofy Mike” in Daytona, like I could be when we were on the boat. I was his driver. He had been working with me for months, making sure I was mentally prepared to win.
    Dale was cool. I guess he thought he was being subtle. But I got it. I’d heard his interviews. He’d say, “You better watch that #15 car. You better watch Michael. Keep your eyes on Michael. He’s the sleeper in Daytona this year.”
    He was using the pre-Daytona media to send messages to me. Messages I was getting. I didn’t 100-percent-for-sure know at the time where these messages were coming from. Looking back now it was as plain as the mask on Batman’s face. Dale’s plan was to make sure I knew what he expected from me. And that was a win.
    I know now he was just saying it to make sure I heard it. Gotcha, boss! Loud and clear!
    Everything up until practice began on Friday was just hype, spreading the story of Dale’s new driver. We were delivering our story to the media and the fans. That’s what this period was for. There were no cars on the track yet. NASCAR needed us to be doing something to make sure all the tickets got sold.
    “Say something even if you make it up,” they were probably thinking. But we weren’t making anything up at all. We were there with one goal in mind.
    Everyone’s dream of winning the race seemed downright plausible, even the championship. Before this race began, everyone was tied for the lead in points. Even a winless driver with a new team had no fewer points than a seven-time champion did.
    Las Vegas had set my odds of winning the 500 at 40 to 1. Most would say that was optimistic. They probably should have been more like 462 to 1. Maybe more. My goal was to make the 462 joke irrelevant.
    Daddy used to say, “Money talks, and bullshit walks.” I’m not sure how that applies here. But as practice was getting ready to begin, it seemed to relate. All the P.R. B.S. was fixing to take a backseat to what mattered the most: cars