Darrell Waltrip, Muhammad Ali of NASCAR

Darrell Lee Waltrip was a good race car driver, but maybe he was even better when trash talking about his fellows on the race track. Born on February 7th, 1947, in Owensboro, Kentucky, he was three time NASCAR Cup series champion (1981, 1982, 1985) and still holds many of NASCAR records, even though he retired more than ten years ago. Officially, he won 84 NASCAR cup races.

Waltrip always knew – if you want to get to the newspapers, you have to fight with somebody. Media loves that. So, that’s what he did. Simple formula: you talk how great you are, you put down another driver – boom, sport pages are full of you. Of course, it’s even better if you are trash talking legends like Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty.

Darrell Walltrip

On the other hand, it all had deeper meaning – promotong motor sports and safety in racing. After retiring from the track, Waltrip became a  television commentator. Because of his big mouth we should call him Muhhamad Ali of NASCAR. Ali, as we all know, was one of the greatest boxers of all time, but also a great trash talker.

In the meantime, Waltrip became very religious, so his statements about other people were much more Christian. Plus, he started working on Fox Sports, so he became a much nicer fellow altogether. Waltrip was introduced in NASCAR Hall of fame on June 14, 2011.

 Top 12 qoutes by Darrell Waltrip:

1. People, who liked me thoughtIe was brash, ruthless, pushy, cocky, conceited, aloof, boastful arrogance and annoying. You can imagine what people who didn’t like me had to say about me.
2. If the lion didn’t bite the tamer every once in a while, it wouldn’t be exciting.
3. I just lost my lunch and I didn’t even have any!
4. If you don’t cheat, you look like an idiotif you cheat and don’t get caught, you look like a heroif you cheat and get caught, you look like a dope. Put me where I belong.
5. Boogity, boogity, boogity! Let’s go racing boys!
6. It’s hard to have a good time and do your job. We’d get our cars inspectedwe’d cover the car up and go to the beach. We’d go to the liquor store and buy a case of beer and sit on the beach or go sit in the lounge at the hotel maybe until it was time to come back the next day.”
7. These guys aren’t having fun anymore, … They have a lot of pressure on them. They have to perform and they have a lot of people they have to beat. When I was running, we had just a few people that we had to beat. You could have a bad day and still finish sixth or seventh. Now, if you are off a little bit, you finish 37th.”
8. They’re treated like prima donnas. But a lot of that is because pit stops are even more important now than they used to be. The cars are all so equal, pit stops are one of the few places you can gain an advantage.”
9. NASCAR logic isn’t always logical.
10. Well, she’s Danica Patrick. She’s a marketing machine. And she takes that and parlays that into a pretty good race car and a pretty good driver. I’m not saying she can’t ever win.
11. If you don’t know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior … you are going to hell … good guys go to hell.
12. We had a great race, when it was over, we had a great fight.

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