“Dodged a Lot of Bullets”: Darrell Waltrip Looks Back at Iconic Daytona 500 Triumph After 16 Years of Misery

Darrell Waltrip was one of NASCAR’s most iconic stars in the 1980s. He’d won three Cup Series championships and numerous other accolades, but the one thing he did not manage to achieve until much later was a Daytona 500 win. A NASCAR driver’s career is never complete until he wins The Great American Race, and Waltrip is only thankful that he finally did it in 1989.

The 1989 Daytona 500 was Waltrip’s 17th attempt at winning the Crown Jewel event. Coincidentally, the number 17 played a crucial role in the race. He drove the #17 Hendrick Motorsports car, his full name has 17 letters in it, the purse for the race was $1.7 million, and so on. While not superstitious, Waltrip understood by this that the race held special significance.

He remembered in a 2019 interview, “So many things added up to 17. And I’ve said this before: I told (crew chief Jeff) Hammond, I said, ‘I think there’s some good things happening here. We’re either going to win it, or we’re going to finish 17th. I’m not just sure which.” 

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Aligning with the numbers, he qualified second in the single lap time trials, next only to his teammate Ken Schrader. Just when it appeared like he might finally break the curse and take the silverware home, the sanctioning body threw another hurdle. It declared that the tires he used in qualifying were illegal. This significantly impacted the #17 car’s setup for the race.

Waltrip overcomes hurdles to win the 1989 Daytona 500

Changing the tires meant that neither the crew nor the driver could predict how the race would go. As vaguely expected, they kept having trouble with the handling and updated the setup every time Waltrip came to pit road. He still managed to keep the car running inside the top 10 for most of the race, thanks to Daytona‘s newly repaved surface.

“We dodged a lot of bullets during that race,” he said of the multiple accidents he avoided in the effort. Ultimately, a big change to the car by crew chief Jeff Hammond, with 53 laps to go, ended up making a big difference. Waltrip and the team also made grueling efforts to save fuel and it all paid off with the now 77-year-old in victory lane.

The iconic Ken Squier called the race, “Out of turn four, after 17 years of effort. The DAYTONA 500 belongs to Franklin, Tennessee’s Darrell Waltrip. He’s done it.” It was Waltrip’s 74th career victory and he was beyond thrilled. The scenes of him grabbing pit reporter Mike Joy to do a celebratory shake, out of his car remain etched in the fans’ memories.