Anyone fortunate enough to sit and ask questions of Darrell Waltrip, owner of Franklin’s Darrell Waltrip Automotive Group, will be treated to engaging stories about his long career as a NASCAR racing champion, a FOX Sports color analyst, TV host, lay minister, bestselling author and voiceover actor. Fun fact: He voiced his animated character “Darrell Cartrip” in the Pixar “Cars” films. His passion for racing and for people is contagious. He hasn’t forgotten the name of a single person who helped him along the path of his rich and rewarding life, and listening to him pay homage to those people is energizing. It’ll make you want to go out and help someone else.
One theme that weaves through stories told by “DW” – that’s what his friends and fans call him – is the importance of teamwork. “Successful people have a good team helping them, and we’ve had people help me ever since I was a kid,” he says. DW often uses the word “we” when sharing an anecdote.
“When you’re a driver,” he explains, “you’re part of a team of twelve to fifteen people. You’ll never be successful unless you’re part of a team. When I say ‘we’ it’s because it’s all a ‘we thing.’ It’s never a ‘me thing.’ I would’ve never had my success without the great people behind me who believed in me.”
One of DW’s earliest, and accidental, mentors was his grandmother Odie. He grew up in Owensboro, Kentucky, the oldest of five kids. “One day when I was six years old, my grandfather called my mom and said, ‘Do you think DW could go to the races Sunday with Granny?’ And my mom says, ‘Why do you want DW to go with Granny?’ and my grandpa answered, ‘To keep her out of trouble!’”
According to DW, Odie was a firecracker with a cigarette in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. All five feet of her could raise a ruckus better than anyone else. “So that’s how I got started going to races when I was six,” he laughs. “I told Granny, ‘I’m gonna be a racecar driver someday,’ and she said, ‘Shut up and eat your popcorn.’”
By the time he was twelve DW was helping his father, LeRoy, a route manager for PepsiCo, deliver soda bottles. “One day we went to West End Hardware to make a delivery, and they were unloading go-karts, and I said, ‘God almighty would you look at that,’ and I sat on one.
“My dad said, ‘Come on we’ve got to get these bottles up on the truck,’ and I said, ‘I know, but I sure do love this go-kart.’
“So every week we’d make a delivery at that store and there would be a go- kart, and I’d sit in it. Finally, one day the owner, his name was Teri, said, ‘You wanna drive one of these things?’ and I I said, ‘Man, I wanna drive so bad.’” Teri invited DW to meet him at the airport that Sunday and promised to let him drive. “So Sunday came, my dad and I went over there, and I was a natural.”
DW talked his dad into buying a go-kart and promised to pay the $150 back by mowing lawns. “I think we still have that lawnmower,” he says.
LeRoy, DW and his brother Michael raced in karts with their friends at tracks around Daviess County, and at age 16 DW entered his first stock car race.
He and his dad built what was called a “hobby car” – a 1936 Chevrolet coupe – in their garage.
“The first time I took it to the track, we had to pull it behind our ’53 Ford with a tow bar because we didn’t have a trailer. My brother Bobby and I were driving down the road and all of a sudden the front end of the racecar started shimmying and that threw us off the road. We were able to get it hooked back up with a chain, pulled it out of the ditch and I told Bobby, ‘You’ve got to ride the rest of the way in the racecar!’”
Bobby sat in the racecar behind the Ford as they drove to the track, gripping the steering wheel to keep it steady.
DW had never driven a racecar before and his first run didn’t go so well.
“The track was all muddy,” he recalls, “and I’m driving along,” he pantomimes holding the steering wheel, “and I get to the first turn. I turn the wheel and the car goes straight. I thought, ‘holy crap!’ then I realized, in a racecar, you’ve got to turn right to go left. So I headed down the straightaway, went into the third turn, turned right to go left, stood up on the gas, and ran straight into a wall. Never made a lap. Tore the whole front end of the car off.” LeRoy was livid about the crash, but he didn’t give up on DW.
“After some time, I ran dirt and I won a lot of races on dirt, but it took a while before I figured out how to turn right to go left.”
After the Kentucky Speedway was paved, DW won races almost every week. By the time he was 22 his success was noticed by P.B. Crowell, an owner/driver who invited DW to race at Nashville’s Tennessee State Fairgrounds Speedway. At about the same time, in 1969, DW married his lifelong companion, Stevie, a girl from the better side of the Owensboro tracks. “She was from the good side, I was from the bad side, and somehow we ended up together.” They moved to Franklin’s Indian Springs condos in 1970. Their landlady, “Miss Grigsby,” helped them stay afloat when they were broke. “Sometimes we could pay the rent and sometimes we couldn’t, but we always paid it eventually.”
Their lives were centered around racing, with DW driving and Stevie counting laps. Thursday nights they raced in Huntsville, Friday nights in Birmingham. Saturday nights were at the fairgrounds in Nashville and Sundays they went to Owensboro. They returned home on Monday and left again on Wednesday to prepare for the next race. Even with all that travel, Stevie managed to earn a degree at Vanderbilt. The couple anxiously waited for 18 years to welcome their first daughter, Jessica. Her sister Sarah arrived five years later. Stevie homeschooled the girls so the family could be together on the road and they both went on to earn degrees from Belmont University.
“Stevie is smart, smarter than me,” says DW. “When Jake Elder was my crew chief, he was old-school, and he didn’t like having Stevie in the pits because he thought it was bad luck. One day we were at Charlotte trying to figure out how far we could go on a tank of gas. I said, ‘Let’s see, we’ve got twenty-two gallons of gas, we get four and-a-half miles to the gallon, how many laps can we go?’ And Jake, who couldn’t read or write, said, ‘Go get that woman, she’ll figure it out!’
“I wouldn’t have won the Daytona 500 in ’89 if it hadn’t been for Stevie,” he continues. “She figured the gas mileage right down to the last drop. We went fifty-four laps when we should’ve only been able to go fifty-two. Her calculations got us into the Winner’s Circle.”
Stevie and DW celebrated their 54th wedding anniversary in August.
Together, their teams competed in 809 Cup starts over 29 years, scoring 271 Top Fives, 390 Top Tens and 84 wins. DW thinks back to a highlight of his career: “It was 1975. We got our first Cup win in Nashville, and my mom and dad, grandparents, everyone who had been a supporter of mine was in that Winners Circle.”
Over the years DW drove for P.B. Crowell, DieGard, Hendrick Motorsports, Junior Johnson, Dale Earnhardt, Inc. and as an independent. He was the first NASCAR driver to earn over $10 million in winnings.
In 1983, his life took a turn. DW was badly hurt in an accident at Daytona and it served as a wakeup call. Stevie was a Christian and had spent years trying to convince DW to attend church, but he said he didn’t have time. “I race on Sundays!” She continued to pray for him and after his accident, DW’s heart was softened. The couple began attending church on Wednesdays at Hillsboro High School, where a well-known pastor from Christ Presbyterian, Cortez Cooper, conducted services. “I got down on my knees with Dr. Cooper and asked God to come into my life, and it changed everything.”
During the drive home with Stevie after that experience, she asked him how he felt. He didn’t know how to describe it, but he knew something had changed. “That was the beginning of my walk with the Lord,” he says. He quit drinking too much, became less arrogant, started thinking of ways to serve others rather than serving himself. After another serious crash at Daytona in 1991, DW thought about what would happen to his family if he got hurt again, or worse. “My kids were little, and I was a dad,” he says. “Before kids, winning races was my identity. My priorities were Racing, Marriage, God. After kids, I wasn’t as fearless. I shifted my priorities, and it affected the way I drove.” He continued racing until 2000 but didn’t win after 1992.
After he retired from racing, DW spent 18 years as a popular NASCAR commentator on Fox Sports. He had been a celebrity driver on the racing circuit and won numerous awards, including NASCAR’s “Driver of the Decade Award” and the “Most Popular Driver Award.” He represented the attitude and style of auto racing but was probably best known for the colorful catchphrase that he shouted during the televised races he analyzed. “When I first started doing commentary, the broadcasters were so boring.” He lowers his voice and speaks slowly, “Now, they have lowered the green flag …” he laughs. “I wanted it to be exciting. It’s a car race!” He shakes his head in amusem*nt as he recalls a stranger hollering the catchphrase across a crowded restaurant. “I was in New York City and this man shouted, ‘Hey DW! Let’s go racing! Boogity Boogity!’”
He also got involved with Motor Racing Outreach, a ministry for the racing community. As chairman, DW helps to oversee food drives, racetrack ride-alongs, and chaplains who visit race teams every week for Bible studies and Sunday services.
In 1986, Honda Motor Company was looking for ways to expand their brand in the U.S. Rick Hendrick of Hendrick Motorsports was a successful Honda dealer. “We’re good friends, he has helped me so much,” says DW. With his lifelong love of cars, owning a dealership was a natural transition, so DW opened a Franklin Honda business in partnership with Hendrick Automotive. Another fun fact: In 1990, Rick Hendrick, DW and other members of the racing community collaborated with actor Tom Cruise, writer Robert Towne and the Simpson/Bruckheimer production team as they made the NASCAR-themed film, “Days of Thunder.”
More dealerships soon became part of Darrell Waltrip Automotive Group (DWAG): Volvo in 1995 (since sold); Subaru in 2009; and Buick GMC in 2014. Visitors to the 30-acre campus at the corner of Highway 96 and I-65 can see the Buick Regal that DW drove for Junior Johnson, sponsored by Mountain Dew. “We won 24 races in two years in that car. I knew it would be unbeatable,” he says.
Darrell Waltrip Automotive’s most important role is to provide as much as they can for the people -- and animals -- of Williamson County. John Gallagher, Vice President and General Manager, and Jessica Perry, Community Outreach Coordinator, regularly meet with DW to discuss ways to help the community.
“It’s amazing what John and Darrell do with outreach,” says Jessica. “For instance, with our Hometown Heroes program, we were able to honor 100 local heroes from 82 charities over 11 years. Darrell calls them ‘ordinary people doing extraordinary things.’”
So far Waltrip Cares Initiatives has donated over $5 million to Williamson County nonprofits and people in need. Recipients of their generosity include the Williamson Health/Williamson Medical Center expansion project chaired by music artist Luke Bryan and his wife Caroline. DWAG was the first corporate sponsor to help fund the $200 million addition to this vital hospital center.
DWAG has also partnered with the Williamson County Animal Center to build a dog park that will open in October.
“Life is better for the animals and the people in Williamson County because of the support we received from Darrell Waltrip Automotive Group,” says the Center’s director, Ondrea Johnson.
Another initiative, the Drive Away Hunger Challenge, was started in 2013 by DWAG and has so far collected over 1.4 million pounds of food for pantries throughout the county. One Gen Away, a nonprofit dedicated to eliminating food insecurity, is one of the recipients. “Through the Waltrip Cares Initiative, this incredible team has provided over eight-hundred-thousand meals for the One Gen Away community,” says Chris Whitney, Founder and CEO. “Hendrick Automotive Group and Darrell Waltrip Automotive are setting wonderful examples of what it means to be a community-focused organization in the for-profit sector.”
DW is 76 years old now. As he leans back in a chair in his dealership office, he chokes up slightly as he reflects on his blessings. “A lot of wonderful people have helped me get where I am today. One thing I need is for people to believe in me. We all need people to trust us and want to help us, and that’s what I’ve always had. I’ve been blessed in so many ways, I just want to give back.” With Gallagher at the helm as his capable “driver,” DW can now relax with Stevie and their dog Rosie in their Franklin home, at their Center Hill Lake house or on their annual vacation in Nantucket. He loves stopping by the dealership campus. “Everyone working here is so nice and so friendly, and that’s all because of John,” he says. “He knows how to run a dealership and he hires the best people.” More than anything, DW loves being a grandfather. Both Jessica and Sarah live nearby with their families and his face lights up as he describes his three grandchildren. “They’re five, two and-a-half, and one. The oldest is smart as a whip and going on 25. The second one is a little nutcase, don’t know what we’re going to do with her, and the baby is looking around like ‘What have I gotten myself into?’ They’re all great.’” And they sound a lot like their grandad!
For more information about Darrell Waltrip Automotive Group’s Outreach Initiatives, visit www.waltripcares.com.
