Jarrett's best finish
this year, a 22nd, a far cry from last year where he had 2 top 10 finishes after 8 races and sat 11th in points.
While the teams that
Waltrip owns have been struggling this year, they still have performed better than Waltrip.
After the illegal substance
was found in Waltrip's #55 NAPA
Toyota, his crew chief at the time, David Hyder, did not know who had put the
substance in his car. He was suspended indefinitely by NASCAR; he has since been reinstated by MWR but not as crew chief.
Waltrip hired Derrick Finley from Bill Davis Racing to be interim crew chief in March, hoping to find some success -- or
at least some race starts, to no avail.
Over the Easter break,
the Owensboro, KY native got in trouble with the law, after
he fell asleep at the wheel of his street car, lost control, and crashed it one mile from his home in North
Carolina. Waltrip, who was approached by a witness, walked away from his car with cuts and bruises
and went home. He failed to report the accident and wound up getting charged for failure to report an accident.
The driver-owner showed his
embarrassment of the accident by calling himself an 'idiot' and failing to do any interviews the following week at the Texas
Motor Speedway.
The team named its third
crew chief this past week, Buddy Sisco. Perhaps hoping this would help get Waltrip's own team back on track. Those hopes were
short lived, as Waltrip failed to make his 7th consecutive race.
The biggest problem at MWR
does not look to be what happened at Daytona or anything after that. It looks to be with the short stint that Larry Carter
spent with the team.
In December, it was announced
that Larry Carter, a well-renowned crew chief who sent Rusty Wallace out with a bang in 2005, was hired at MWR to be crew
chief for the rookie Reutimann. Carter's stint at MWR was short-lived, as he left shortly thereafter to become crew chief
for Jamie McMurray at Roush Fenway Racing.
2006 StockCar Review.
