NASCAR Cup Series

New car puts premium on the driver

Published Dec. 13, 2008 6:28 p.m. ET

Darrell Waltrip

You know, folks, I feel like I've been reconnected to the early '80s. That's when the drivers were heroes and cars, well, that's just something they rode in.

The cars back then were right off the showroom floor. They never were intended to be race cars. We turned them into race cars. They didn't handle well. They didn't have a lot of aerodynamics. To be successful you had to "man up," and everybody couldn't do it.