Waltrip driven to put embarrassing 2007 behind him

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FONTANA, Calif. -- Michael Waltrip has put a pathetic 2007 season filled with controversy and qualifying troubles behind him, but how could he possibly erase the memories? There was the embarrassment of the new NASCAR owner-driver being caught at Daytona 500 qualifying with an illegal fuel additive in his No. 55 Toyota, leading to the suspension of his crew chief and deduction of points in the Cup standings. On the track he qualified for only 14 races, and away from it he was charged with reckless driving and failing to report an accident after flipping his sports-utility vehicle in April. Dale Jarrett and David Reutimann, his other two drivers, struggled as well. "Someone said, 'You want to forget last year,' and I say ... no," Waltrip said. "I want to remember it like it was yesterday so that I know where I'm at today and can appreciate where I'm at today. I know where we were last year. To me, the past is an important part of moving forward. All those experiences have put us in a much better position to be competitive." Waltrip's sense of confidence was evident as the 44-year-old, two-time winner at Daytona took the outside pole for last Sunday's running of The Great American Race. While the weekend was far from ideal -- Waltrip finished 29th, and Reutimann's Nationwide Series car had its carburetor confiscated for technical violations -- Waltrip heads into Sunday's Auto Club 500 at Fontana with reasons for optimism. He has a new crew chief in Paul Andrews along with a newly created engineering department, part of an offseason restructuring of the Michael Waltrip Racing organization that now shares the Toyota stable with Joe Gibbs Racing. "He's committed to what he's started here, and you have to know going in that every year you're in business you should be improving, and things should be better from an owner's side and from the driver's side," Jarrett said. "He's very dedicated to making this work. "If he would have gone into the business as a car owner and starting a team and didn't feel like it was going to develop, then he obviously was doing the wrong thing, and he wouldn't have done that." As an owner, Waltrip said he has learned to delegate authority, freeing him to think more about driving. He's only 10 starts away from 700. "I should have already been there if I hadn't missed so many races," Waltrip said with a laugh, adding that he might have three to four years of racing left in him to get to 800. He'll need some strong finishes for the team, and needs Reutimann, 37, to continue to improve, as Jarrett plans to retire during the year. "He's pretty determined to turn the whole organization around, and we're a long way away from being where we want to be, but we're definitely on track to getting there," Reutimann said of Waltrip. "I think he's encouraged and I think we're all pretty optimistic about what this year can bring. "Every time somebody says something negative about the organization, that just makes you just more determined to prove them wrong. It'd be cool to make some of the naysayers eat a little bit of crow." So about last year's cheating scandal ... "It was a bad decision on one individual's part to jeopardize all we had built," Waltrip said. "You can ask all you want and care all you want, but it doesn't affect me."(Contact Diamond Leung at dleung@PE.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)