🇺🇸 Michael Waltrip

Michael Waltrip was a professional stock car racer who spent 23 seasons in single-seater and national-level oval racing. He competed primarily in NASCAR Xfinity, where he started 279 times for Diamond-Waltrip Racing, racing on ovals for the vast majority of that tenure. He also made one endurance racing start in the WEC's LM GTE Am class in 2012 with AF Corse-Waltrip.[1]

Across his NASCAR Xfinity career from 1988 to 2011, Waltrip took 11 wins and 41 podiums. He was regularly matched against professional-level competitors; he finished ahead of Denny Hamlin, an elite professional who went on to a long Cup Series career, on 13 occasions. Waltrip operated Michael Waltrip Racing for much of his career, fielding his own entry for 198 of his 279 Xfinity starts. His final competitive appearance came in a multiclass WEC endurance race in 2012.[2]

Waltrip raced through a field that mixed amateurs and semi-professionals with graded professionals. His record against the regular competitors he faced most often, Jason Keller and Kenny Wallace, both professional-level drivers with extensive Xfinity experience, placed him as closely matched with them, a standing consistent with his rating as a professional competitor.