Darrell Waltrip Tag

By David Morgan, Associate Editor Hendrick Motorsports’ sprawling campus sits in the shadows of Charlotte Motor Speedway, so it was only fitting that Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 was the place that the four-car juggernaut surpassed Petty Enterprises to be the winningest team in NASCAR Cup Series history. Petty Enterprises had been the gold standard in the Cup Series, with 268 wins over the course of a 50-year span from 1949 to 1999, including 10 championships, but the torch now passes to Hendrick Motorsports to be the standard bearer from now into theRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor As the Beatles’ song goes, “I get by with a little help from my friends.” If there was one line from a song that illustrated the final laps of the 1991 Winston 500 at Talladega, it would be that one after a controversial push from teammate Rick Mast helped ensure teammate Harry Gant had enough fuel to make it to the finish and claim the victory. As the second half of the 188-lap race played itself out, fuel mileage would be the name of the gameRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor When looking back at all the memorable moments Darlington Raceway has produced, all of them aren’t confined to just the Southern 500. Back when the track held two events each year, the spring race produced just as many memorable moments of its own. The CRC Chemicals Rebel 500 in April 1979 was one of those events. Richard Petty, driving his famous No. 43 STP car, and Darrell Waltrip, who then drove the No. 88 Gatorade machine for DiGard Racing, staged a battle for the agesRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer SONOMA, California — In 223 NASCAR national touring starts, with 155 in the Cup Series, Matt DiBenedetto has never scored a top-five. That all changed Sunday as a fourth-place result in the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway capped off a career-defining afternoon. Through tremendous strategy and a solid all around car, DiBenedetto and the entire Leavine Family Racing kept working on the No. 95 Procore Toyota Camry all afternoon, and it paid off as he’s now 25th in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series standingsRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer SONOMA, California — The tributes to NASCAR Hall of Famer Darrell Waltrip will continue beyond this weekend’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway. The latest driver to celebrate Waltrip’s career was Denny Hamlin, who unveiled the throwback paint scheme he’ll be running for this year’s Bojangles’ Southern 500, which left Waltrip amazed Friday morning. Hamlin’s throwback scheme commemorates Waltrip’s Western Auto paint scheme from 1991-95, where he scored his final five of his 84 NASCAR Cup victories. Alongside Hamlin, Waltrip’s wife, Stevie Waltrip, and Fox SportsRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor The Monster Energy NASCAR All-Star Race has seen its fair share of fireworks over the years, but in the fifth edition of the annual exhibition race in 1989, those fireworks spilled off the track to create one of the more memorable moments in the event’s history. Heading into “The Winston,” as the race was known in those days, both Rusty Wallace and Darrell Waltrip had won three races each and it appeared that the two would be fighting it out over the course of theRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer Darrell Waltrip is one of only four broadcasters (the others being Mike Joy, Larry McReynolds and Matt Yocum) that’s been with FOX NASCAR since its inception in 2001. Now after 19 seasons, the NASCAR Hall of Famer announced Thursday that he’ll hang up his headsets for the final time after the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway June 23. Over the past few days, fans and media members alike have been locked into a huge social media battle regarding their views on the three-time Cup SeriesRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – NASCAR Hall of Famer Darrell Waltrip found success at tracks of all shapes and sizes throughout his illustrious career, but one race eluded him for years on end – the Daytona 500. Coming into the 1989 running of the Great American Race, Waltrip was entering his third season with Hendrick Motorsports and had found moderate success, winning three races in the two seasons prior with the organization. Still, a marquee win at Daytona was missing from his resume and it would takeRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor Go Fas Racing and Matt DiBenedetto have found themselves in sponsorship trouble heading into Sunday’s race at ISM Raceway, but the NASCAR community has banded together to make sure they will make it to the grid for the TicketGuardian 500. Starting with a tweet from DiBenedetto on Tuesday morning, alerting the world of their predicament, the effort started picking up steam, with fellow drivers and others in the sport pitching in to help out the small team make it to the track. Though Go FasRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor Since returning to Watkins Glen in 1986, the 2.45 mile, 11 turn road course in upstate New York, has provided some of the most exciting racing on the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series schedule and the 1988 Budweiser at The Glen was no exception. As one of two road courses on the calendar at the time, Rusty Wallace entered the 90 lap race as the favorite as he had won the year before at Watkins Glen, as well as the two previous road course racesRead More