Michael Waltrip dances his way through yet another pitch
TALLADEGA, Ala. - Michael Waltrip and Emma Slater, the unlikely combination of grease and grace on this season's installment of "Dancing With The Stars," were standing in the midst of a crowd of well-wishers just outside the grandstands of Talladega Superspeedway. They were both gracious with their time, signing everything placed in front of them and posing for selfies by the score. One man held out a little boy wearing a Danica Patrick hat, and both Waltrip and Slater cooed at the lad. They posed for a picture, and then Waltrip pointed right at the kid.
"You have a cell phone?" he asked. "No? All right, here's what you do. Take your daddy's cell phone and call in to vote ... "
That is pure, undistilled, mainlined Waltrip, NASCAR's greatest pitchman. He and Slater have been stumping this entire weekend for desperately-needed votes to advance to the show's next round, but that's only this month's cause. Whatever the sponsor, whatever the need, you can count on Waltrip to be there, bringing promotional muscle at every turn. The dude could not only sell snow to the Eskimos, he'd make sure it was specially branded snow and assure you it's even better than that stuff that just falls from the sky.
This weekend at Talladega alone, he's dragged a game Slater out to Talladega Boulevard, a mile-long wretched hive of scum, villainy, and Dale Earnhardt flags. (Just kidding, 'Dega, nothing but love for you, baby.) He and Slater passed out get-out-the-vote yard signs to be posted in front of RVs and campsites all throughout the infield. Anyone in the infield whose eyes were capable of focusing surely saw a dozen of the signs throughout the weekend.
Then on Saturday, he basically hijacked the press conference of his own driver, Brian Vickers, who'd just won the pole position for Sunday's race. Waltrip asked everyone to tag their articles with a hashtag calling for people to vote for him (no, we won't do that here) and posed for photos in the media center. It's all part of the game.
Waltrip holds the distinction of the longest winless streak in NASCAR: 463 starts from the beginning of his career to his first victory in 2001. Across a 30-year career, he's won only four races, all clustered in the 2001-2003 era. Of course, two of those victories are Daytona 500s. He remains optimistic in the face of tragedy (his first win came in the race in which Dale Earnhardt died) and corporate trauma (the race team that bears his name was severely wounded, and lost a key sponsor, by race manipulations last fall at Richmond).
These days, he only races at the two superspeedways, Daytona and Talladega, and he turns each one into a crowd-pleasing event. He's run cars at Talladega honoring the national championships of both Alabama and Auburn, which in itself should tell you he'll turn the wheel in the direction of whichever pasture is greener.
Here's the thing, though: you can bust on this kind of blatant hucksterism, but this is exactly what NASCAR was built on. Sure, there's the love of competition and all that, but if drivers and teams were only in this for the competition, they'd have been content to run at the dirt track across the street from Talladega Superspeedway on Saturday night. No, this is a business that needs money, a constant infusion of money, and nobody hustles harder to secure the dollars and please the sponsors than Waltrip.
He's racing on Sunday at Talladega, and he's got as good a chance as anyone of winning this race ... or getting caught up in a spectacular wreck. As recently as two years ago, he was in position to take the lead on the final lap when Tony Stewart cut him off, causing a gargantuan wreck.
But racing's only a part of the entire spectrum this weekend. He'll follow Sunday's race with a trip to California on Monday, where his song-and-dance routine, both metaphorical and literal, may be nearing its end on "Dancing With The Stars." According to Waltrip, one of the judges observed their most recent performance and sniffed, "It was entertaining as hell, but I'm tired of being entertained."
Nice sentiment, but asking Waltrip to calm down on the entertaining schtick is like asking the sun to reverse its course. It's not going to happen ... well, unless there's a better offer.
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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter.
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