Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 22, 1990 TAG: 9007220109
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RANDY KING
DATELINE: LONG POND, PA. LENGTH: Medium
As Darrell Waltrip, only 15 days removed from a driver's-side lick at Daytona, talked about his urge to get back in a race car, I couldn't help but wonder about this bunch's sanity.
Have they all lost their lugnuts? Or are they merely running on empty?
Whatever. There's got to be some loose screws somewhere.
T-bone my hide in the left-side door at 175 mph and I'm history. Hope you have insurance, baby.
Throw me against a concrete wall with no warning and I'm looking for a new job. How about it, Yellow Cab?
Light my rear end on fire and I'm done. Stick a fork in me.
But obviously, race-car drivers don't think that way.
When hauled off in the meatwagon after a bad crash, drivers don't ask the paramedic, "How am I doing, Doc?"
Instead, their first words are, "How long will it be before I can race again?"
When the doctors in Daytona initially said it would be at least eight weeks before he could sit in a race car, Darrell Waltrip knew he had taken a wrong turn.
Forget three national championships, 79 victories and more than $10 million in prize money. Despite his age (43), his wealth and his loving wife and 2-year-old daughter, Waltrip said he never once pondered early retirement.
"Nope, I didn't think about quitting," said Waltrip, now outfitted with a special brace on his shattered left leg from foot to waist.
"Hey, I broke my leg. I didn't hurt my head. Head injuries are what we all fear the most.
"It's the hardest I've ever been hit by anything, and I feel like I held up well. I'm happy a broken leg is all that happened to me."
Indeed, Waltrip was lucky. He knows it. Like everybody else, he has seen and talked to less-fortunate victims Bobby Allison and Neil Bonnett lately.
Waltrip confessed that drivers are not so macho that they are oblivious to getting maimed or possibly killed in a race car.
"There's always the fear of being injured in a race car," he said. "In all honesty, I've never been hurt before, and I think I took a lick hard enough to kill a man and I was able to live through it.
"I really believe that's a good thing psychologically. I've been in such a major accident and had such a terrible injury and was able to bounce back from it.
"That's real encouraging to me. It makes me feel good that I still have the desire to get back into the car.
"That doesn't mean I'm going out here every week and see how many times I can do this."
Nevertheless, Waltrip drove two practice laps Saturday and will be in the car when today's AC Spark Plug 500 takes the green flag at Pocono. In order to be credited with championship points, he must drive the race's first lap. After that, he plans to surrender the steering wheel to young recruit Jimmy Horton.
"I had no problems whatsoever," a satisfied Waltrip said after running two semi-hot laps around Pocono's tricky 2.5-mile layout.
"I can't believe that two weeks ago today I was sitting in bed watching the Daytona Firecracker 400 on television wondering how long it would be before I could get back out there. It felt great."
Waltrip, like every other driver in the stock-car car garage, said the high of driving a race car is as addictive as any drug known to man. Like a junkie searching for a needle, he admitted to having to find a fix. Translation: Climb back behind the wheel.
"It like to have killed me lying there in Daytona and watching that [No.] 17 car go around without me in it," Waltrip said.
"I simply couldn't stand it.
"You've got to understand that this is what I do. I've been driving a race car for 20 years and this is the first time I've ever physically not been able to do my job. It's the first broken bone I've ever had. It [Daytona] was the first race I've ever missed."
A man's addiction to driving a race car also can prove harmful to his surrounding family.
Waltrip said, "I was joking around last night and said to [his wife] Stevie, `This feels good. I believe I can run to the first caution.'
"I said that and the next thing I know she was in the emergency room in Wilkes-Barre. She woke up in the middle of the night and broke out in hives.
"It's all nerves. She's taking this harder than I am."
For good reason. She's just normal, Darrell.
by CNB