Why do you think Michael Waltrip is having so much trouble qualifying and racing this year?

Question

I know he is racing with Toyota but other drivers have been able to consistently qualify this year in a Toyota car. I've never seen a top driver such as Waltrip fall so hard, usually drivers of his caliber can find a way to win. Also why do you think Nascar hasn't metioned his woes as much as I think they should?

Answer 1

he is a never was. he had a team to help him hide the fact he can't drive

Answer 2

It is hard to get into a 43 car field when 35 spots are already taken, possibly 36 with a championship provisional. It hurts even worse when you qualify much better than some of those 35 guys. The Napa 55 Camry has missed most of the races this year by mere thousandths of a second. Most of the go or go homers, especially the cars in the Toyota camp are qualifying at almost the same speed every week, barring of course accidents, which have plagued all the Toyota teams this year. It will come around. I believe with the new powerplant that TRD has been working on, and released at Charlotte, that all of the Toyota teams will be seen alot more on the track. I don't think that the media should focus on the hard times of any certain team. At the beginning of the year it was all about Toyota, now they are just another car in the series with issues. Look at Dodges failing performance over the past few weeks, they should have some tried and true set-ups, but they are not doing that great either. #36 Jeremy Mayfield is one heck of a driver, and he has made two races for Toyota. #22-Dave Blaney, had owners points, and a well-established marriage with Toyota from the truck series. The 83 and 84 cars are sporadic. MWR's responsibility to its sponsors and drivers is steadfast. Keeping a rookie and a Cup champion in contention is very important, not that it takes priority over getting the #55 on the track, MWR is making changes, set-up as well as personnel changes that they hope will make a difference. With TRD being a go between with the Toyota teams, you should see more consistency from engines and chassis. They just have not brought it up to par with the Chevrolets that are out there. Chevy's new RO7 engine will force all the non-chevy teams to step it up. Short answer Why can't the #55 Qual or win- TRD's engines are weeker throughout the powerband compared to other manufactures which causes aggressive set-ups and driving to make up time. Why MWR's not in the news as much??? In case you haven't heard Dale Jr is leaving DEI, people care more about the sports #1 driver.

Answer 3

Michael Waltrip a top driver....no. I don't think Toyota is helping their drivers much. When Dodge came into the sport they were competitive. Toyota wasn't really that good until this past race at Lowes. Toyota needs to fork out some $$$ and do more R&D on thier cars.

Answer 4

He just bit off more than he can chew this year. His focus is spread too wide, running a brand new 3 car team with a new manufacturer and also trying to drive at the same time can be pretty taxing. If he was running a team with one of the other manufacturer's then he'd at least have some history to build off on race builds and such. I wouldn't classify him as a "top driver", he only won when he had people pushing him to the front, but he should be able to at least qualify. If he didn't have the pressure of also running the new team then I think he would have been able to.

Answer 5

I think that he has too much on his plate trying to run 3 cup teams a Busch Team, driving and making sponsor appearances. Plus this team as a whole is brand new. They need time to adjust and then play catch up. The team members must learn to gel, in other words learn to work together. Jeff Gordon had this same problem a few years back after Ray Evernham left. The team sucked that first year with a new crew chief and crew. But they were able to prevail the following year. I really believe that Michael Waltrip and MWR will be a better stronger team next year.

Answer 6

I agree. Mikey made a extensive mistake dropping Chevy for Toyota. i think of his deadly blow so far has been having 3 communities with so-so drivers and a commencing producer. Reutiman is O.ok. yet he isn't cup fabric. D.J. is a huge motive force and he has a bad automobile and group. And Michael's group is the worst at MWR. i think of Micheal will finally qualify for a race whether it is going to in all probability be at Talladega. the single element Micheal Waltrip greater useful desire for is that the automobile of Tommorrow balances the competition like it is going to. If it does and his communities are nevertheless performing poorly after a whilst, Toyota will say Sayanora to Michael Waltrip Racing.

Answer 7

He definitely isn't a top driver that is for sure. Liking a driver and calling him a top driver is two different things. But I do think there are a lot of hidden things go into running your own team than we know, and he just has to much on his plate. Apparently he is not capable of doing the both of them.
I thought he might of lucked out and made more races than he has but never thought for a moment he would win any more races in the cup division.

Answer 8

I think Michael is struggling to handle all the things required of him as a team owner as well as a driver. It worked ok when he was driving the Dodge the last few years but he took a huge gamble by switching over to a brand new manufacturer.

If Michael was able to find an interested partner to take over all the off-track obligations, he would be able to focus solely on what we want him to do; driving the car as hard as he can.

Great to see him make the field for Dover :)

Answer 9

As soon as we become perfect when we undertake new projects/jobs then we may judge
He is and will always be a good person and you can't ask for more
As for his ads for his sponsors they are taped in off season
And if he ups and quits the tv shows hes commited to b4 Team Toyota then people would call him a quitter

So remember unless ur perfect don't judge

And as for not making races look at his times compared to some of the bums who cant qualify on speed and have to buy their way in (points)

Answer 10

I wouldn't really call him a top driver, note that his wins were restrictor plate wins, where a surprise winner is more likely.
Doesn't mean he's horrible, nothing against him.
If they mention his woes any more, it might seem unfair to the other non-top 35 teams who work as hard as he does and gets about the same results(he's not the only one missing a ton of races you know).

Answer 11

Well if he was half as good of a driver runnin his car as runnin his mouth he would qualify seems he likes bein on TV more than learnin to drive his new car maybe if he spent more time on the track instead of behind the camera he would do alot better or at least qualify!!!!