Darrell Waltrip

Darrell Waltrip has been getting letters of apology. They have come from fans, from competitors, even from writers who cover the Winston Cup circuit. All say much the same thing. All say they regret having said, thought or written that Old DW was washed up.Behind this abundance of regret is Waltrip's resurrection. At 51, the former three-time Winston Cup champion ascended from a fixture at the back of the pack to a contender. Over the past four months, Waltrip has become the eighth most competitive driver in Winston Cup racing and second only to Jeff Gordon among the Chevrolet drivers.

Jimmie Johnson is apologizing, but he's not exactly sorry. There's a big difference. Johnson admits he was out of line for criticizing NASCAR after he was penalized for a speeding penalty at Martinsville on Sunday. Two days later, Johnson admitted "we were wrong" but didn't let NASCAR off the hook completely. He probably isn't the only person in the world who thinks a simple solution to pit road controversy would be for NASCAR to make pit road speeds immediately available for drivers, crew chiefs and fans to see. Johnson got busted for a segment different than the one he thought he was busted for during the race.

"You know, as a NASCAR driver I'm a little afraid of that Dead Man's Corner." Darrell Waltrip Auto racing veteran, who was headed to Augusta National Golf Club

Short of Dale Earnhardt Jr. winning the Daytona 500 — a scenario that would have prompted Tony Kornheiser and others to scream "Shenanigans!" — NASCAR could not have scripted a better way to start the 2011 season. A refreshing new face popped out of the cluster of cars to win the Daytona 500. And a revered old one took a big step toward relevancy the next week in Phoenix. Trevor Bayne and Jeff Gordon represent a nice link to NASCAR's present and past. Bayne is among the new generation of rising, marketable stars.

9:40 p.m. [Encore] Checking the cast list in this Will Ferrell NASCAR movie, you see lots of people playing themselves - Dale Earnhardt Jr., Darrell Waltrip, Jamie McMurray, Wally Dallenbach, Elvis Costello. (Elvis Costello?) But you don't see Tony Stewart. Could it be that the producers were afraid Stewart might sock Ferrell (right)in the mouth?

DARLINGTON, S.C. -- It seems Davey Allison has see enough rain fall in his life this season. But yesterday, there was more, literally.On a day when he had a chance to win a million bucks, when his Ford Thunderbird was running strong, when it seemed he might pull off the biggest bonus payday since Bill Elliott collected the Winston Million in 1985, rain washed out the final 78 laps of the Mountain Dew Southern 500 and allowed Darrell Waltrip to make history...

HAMPTON, Ga. -- When Jeff Gordon arrived at Atlanta Motor Speedway yesterday morning, he couldn't wait to get on the track and start fine-tuning his Chevrolet. If he had known how the day would go, he might have stayed in bed.Before practice was an hour old, Gordon had wrecked. When qualifying for today's NAPA 500 was done, Gordon found himself starting 37th."This is not the way we were wanting to start out on the first day of the final race," said Gordon, who averaged 190.673 in his backup car. "Hopefully, we can get all the bad luck out of the way today and go on and race."

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Retired Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino never won a Super Bowl, but no one doubts his greatness. NASCAR driver Mark Martin should be so lucky. Now, sitting in his team's transporter, he is listening to remarks made by Fox television analysts Darrell Waltrip and Larry McReynolds, and Martin's blood pressure is rising. Speaking during a conference call a few days ago, Waltrip and McReynolds had a conversation that went like this: "Over the past couple months, Mark Martin has been the most consistent of the whole group [of drivers]

CBS is putting it this way -- it already had former players and a general manager, now it has a coach. The network announced yesterday it added former Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher to The NFL Today cast. Cowher joins host James Brown as a new analyst with Boomer Esiason, Dan Marino and Shannon Sharpe. (The former general manager is Charley Casserly, who has his own segment rather than talking with the crew at the big desk.) Cowher left the Steelers after the 2006 season, his 15th as their coach, and has moved to North Carolina to spend more time with his family.

The way Dale Earnhardt tells it, he and Darrell Waltrip were sitting together on Earnhardt's porch last month, looking out over some of Earnhardt's 300 acres near Kannapolis, N.C.It was a pleasant afternoon, until Waltrip spoiled it."When we get old," Waltrip said, "I'm going to enjoy sitting here with you, reminiscing about how you've never won the Daytona 500."Earnhardt has won five Winston Cup championships, the last one coming last season. But winning the Winston Cup without the Daytona 500 title is similar to being ranked No. 1 in tennis without having won Wimbledon.

Darrell Waltrip got hosed. He belongs in the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Now, not later. A simple, straight-forward and honest assessment. Much like Waltrip himself, who has reinvented himself as a charismatic TV personality, starting right from the get-go with his signature "Boogity, boogity, boogity, let's go racing boys!" charge. And maybe that's the problem. Waltrip is an acquired taste. And voting comes down to personalities — voting on other personalities. So with all due respect to Ned Jarrett, who got in on the merits of 55 victories, two Cup titles and a long TV career, he can't match the resume of Waltrip, who doesn't get in despite winning 84 races, three championships and a long TV career.

Bristol's Food City 500 is the last time this season that last season's top 35 results are locked into a race. Starting next week, the cutoff will be based on this year's standings and there's potential danger for two Penske teams. Kurt Busch is the only Penske driver who is safe in points standings at 10th. Brad Keselowski's No. 12 Dodge is in 33rd place and Sam Hornish Jr.'s No. 77 Dodge is in 31st place. Both cars fell after last week's race - Keselowski because Carl Edwards wrecked him for revenge.

9:40 p.m. [Encore] Checking the cast list in this Will Ferrell NASCAR movie, you see lots of people playing themselves - Dale Earnhardt Jr., Darrell Waltrip, Jamie McMurray, Wally Dallenbach, Elvis Costello. (Elvis Costello?) But you don't see Tony Stewart. Could it be that the producers were afraid Stewart might sock Ferrell (right)in the mouth?

CBS is putting it this way -- it already had former players and a general manager, now it has a coach. The network announced yesterday it added former Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher to The NFL Today cast. Cowher joins host James Brown as a new analyst with Boomer Esiason, Dan Marino and Shannon Sharpe. (The former general manager is Charley Casserly, who has his own segment rather than talking with the crew at the big desk.) Cowher left the Steelers after the 2006 season, his 15th as their coach, and has moved to North Carolina to spend more time with his family.

"You know, as a NASCAR driver I'm a little afraid of that Dead Man's Corner." Darrell Waltrip Auto racing veteran, who was headed to Augusta National Golf Club

"In the old days, drivers trained on booze and women," the late driver Tim Flock once said, while recalling the earliest days of professional stock car racing. "I remember so many Saturday nights before the races when ... [drivers] partied all night and came to the race on Sunday morning with eyes that looked like two big red cherries." They'd knock each other around on and off the racetrack. They'd seemingly do and say whatever they wanted. Flock, in fact, raced for a time with a monkey - Jocko Flocko - in the seat beside him. But in the late 1970s, as major sponsors started coming into NASCAR's top racing series, the sport began to seriously change.

Darrell Waltrip got hosed. He belongs in the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Now, not later. A simple, straight-forward and honest assessment. Much like Waltrip himself, who has reinvented himself as a charismatic TV personality, starting right from the get-go with his signature "Boogity, boogity, boogity, let's go racing boys!" charge. And maybe that's the problem. Waltrip is an acquired taste. And voting comes down to personalities — voting on other personalities. So with all due respect to Ned Jarrett, who got in on the merits of 55 victories, two Cup titles and a long TV career, he can't match the resume of Waltrip, who doesn't get in despite winning 84 races, three championships and a long TV career.

ATLANTA - Gray flecks highlight Darrell Waltrip's dark hair. Lines of laughter and worry crease his weathered face. But at 53, he still looks capable of jumping in his race car and going for a rip-roaring Sunday drive. And that's what he'll do today in the NAPA 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway - if the rain and ice hold off. But it will be a different kind of drive. For Waltrip, who is tied for third on the all-time Winston Cup winners' list with 84 victories, it will be the final drive of a long and storied career.

BRISTOL, Tenn. - His victory lap was serenaded by a chorus of boos and beer cans being tossed from the grandstands. Just a hunch, perhaps, that Kurt Busch isn't a guy folks have embraced into their NASCAR family of folksy veterans and spunky young guns. Still, the guy who doesn't fit the typical Nextel NASCAR profile was the only driver smiling at day's end after bringing his Roush Racing Ford to victory yesterday during an anticlimactic two-lap shootout at the Food City 500. Busch, 25, continued the young man's dominance of this sport in the early season by holding off veteran Rusty Wallace to win his third consecutive race here and fourth in five tries before a rambunctious crowd of 160,000.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Retired Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino never won a Super Bowl, but no one doubts his greatness. NASCAR driver Mark Martin should be so lucky. Now, sitting in his team's transporter, he is listening to remarks made by Fox television analysts Darrell Waltrip and Larry McReynolds, and Martin's blood pressure is rising. Speaking during a conference call a few days ago, Waltrip and McReynolds had a conversation that went like this: "Over the past couple months, Mark Martin has been the most consistent of the whole group [of drivers]