Fryer's Five: Lowe's

CONCORD, N.C. – Michael Waltrip could hardly contain his euphoria when he brought three brand new race cars to the 2007 Daytona 500. He'd successfully stepped into team ownership, beating all the deadlines and doubters who warned him not to make such a risky move.

His world came crashing down days later when NASCAR found an illegal substance in his engine and the two-time Daytona 500 winner was ensnared in a shocking cheating scandal.

A humiliated Waltrip nearly broke down in tears as he explained his decision not to withdraw from the season-opening race. It was the start of a horrendous first season that embarrassed his sponsors and new partner Toyota, while almost destroying Waltrip's career.

All that seemed like a lifetime ago on Monday night, when Waltrip was near tears again. Only this time, it was for all the right reasons.

Waltrip celebrated his first Sprint Cup Series victory as a car owner when David Reutimann was declared winner of the rain-shortened Coca-Cola 600. The owner and driver had to pace through a third and final rain delay of 2 hours – Waltrip had done it before, winning his second Daytona 500 title in the 2003 rain-shortened race – but it was worth the wait.

"For me as an owner, to get to hug my driver … " Waltrip said, choking back tears. He didn't need to continue. Everyone knows how much his first Daytona 500 victory has haunted him, when he waited in victory lane for the congratulatory hug that never came: Car owner Dale Earnhardt was killed in an accident on the last lap. It was Waltrip's first race driving for Earnhardt, and his first Cup series win.

"I was waiting for [Earnhardt] to come hug me, because he would have hugged me in a way that hurt," he said. "I kind of warned David, 'I'm feeling pretty good about this hug I'm fixing to give you.' So that hug was for David and it was also to sort of make up for something that I missed out on when I won a race one day."

Waltrip quickly composed himself, then quietly allowed Reutimann to enjoy the spotlight of his own first Cup Series win.

But the win belonged to both of them. For Waltrip, who took a chance on hiring Reutimann when he formed his team three years ago, and for Reutimann, who hung with the owner when many thought he was slowly self-destructing.

Through all the bumps, though, Waltrip has held it together.

He found a deep-pocketed partner in hedge fund investor Robert Kauffman, who gave him financial stability in late 2007 when the team was facing a serious cash shortage. And he's weathered sponsorship instability, holding on to his longtime relationship with Napa when the company could have bolted for a more competitive team. He kept UPS through 2008 after Dale Jarrett retired, and talked Aaron Rents into sponsoring Reutimann for all of 2009.

Most important, he's kept Reutimann, who has lived up to the tongue-in-cheek MWR nickname "The Franchise."

Reutimann has proven all season that MWR has turned a corner and can field competitive race cars. He's lingered right around the top 12 in points, and his win Monday night moved him up two spots to 13th in the standings, just six points out of the final qualifying spot for the Chase for the championship.

Waltrip likes to joke around, and he stuck to his routine when asked Monday night why he hired journeyman Reutimann.

"We couldn't find anybody else," he smiled. "Works for cheap. Don't ask a whole lot out of anybody. So it just worked out for us."

But in all seriousness, there's been a time when Waltrip likely couldn't find anybody else. It's hard to lure top talent when your cars can't make races, and MWR suffered through two seasons of unsteadiness.

Now he's got a winner in his shop, and the proof he needs to seriously upgrade his organization.

See, Waltrip wants to drive for as long as he can. But it doesn't always work that way, not when sponsors and partners and Toyota get involved, and there's a solid chance he'll have to step out of the No. 55 at the end of the season.

There's been serious whispers that the job has already been offered to Martin Truex Jr., who plans to make a decision about his future in the next few weeks. The Reutimann win – even though it came on pit strategy – just made the offer a whole lot more attractive for Truex or anyone else considering driving for Waltrip.

And it likely made it just a little bit easier for Waltrip to ease into fulltime ownership.

Five other interesting things from a long weekend at Lowe's Motor Speedway:

1. The weather can be a real bummer: NASCAR had been a roll with four consecutive good races dating back to the Talladega thriller. But a rainy day can suck all the wind from the sails, and the gloomy Coca-Cola 600 is a setback NASCAR didn't need.

It's the second crown jewel event this season to be ruined by weather, joining the Daytona 500 that is remembered more for Matt Kenseth being declared the winner on pit road than for the thrilling racing that preceded the rain.

But the Coca-Cola 600 was worse, in part because it was washed out Sunday and carried over into Monday for the first Memorial Day running in its 50-year history.

Horrendous traffic leaving Lowe's on Sunday night – it took some people more than two hours just to get off track property – likely kept some fans from returning Monday. Others may have been deterred by the gloomy Monday forecast, and many more likely didn't have flexible travel plans.

It made for a sparse crowd for the 227 of 400 laps Monday, and a tough television watch as the three delays totaled more than four hours.

"I feel so bad for the fans out there," second-place finisher Ryan Newman said. "Just to see the grandstands that were packed yesterday … and know that people couldn't make it back. But even the fans that were here, [the weather] wasn't going to get any better."

NASCAR needs spectacular races to rekindle the passion in its devoted fans. But for as much as chairman Brian France gets blamed for everything that goes wrong, he can't control the weather and the fizzle of Monday's race wasn't his fault.

2. Bruton Smith says what's on his mind: Never one to keep his opinions to himself, the track mogul let it fly in a candid session with reporters that touched on everything from his bid to bring a race to Kentucky Motor Speedway to Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s on-track struggles.

But most interesting was his bitterness toward Humpy Wheeler, who spent 33 years by his side at Lowe's Motor Speedway before his stormy departure following last year's Coca-Cola 600. The split was somewhat sordid, with Wheeler seemingly rushing his retirement announcement just to spite his longtime boss.

Although the feud had faded over the past 12 months, it roared back to the forefront when Wheeler felt slighted that he was not included in the 50th anniversary celebrations at Lowe's this weekend.

On the flipside, Smith is annoyed "the Wheeler issue" is still lingering a full year after his departure as president of both the speedway and Speedway Motorsports Inc. The sniping went back and forth, with Wheeler chiming in from the Indianapolis 500, which he attended instead of making himself an unwanted guest at the track he worked so hard to promote.

Smith is correct when he says Wheeler made a lot of money off of him. But he forgets that Wheeler also made a lot of money for him.

Wheeler will likely be remembered as the greatest promoter in NASCAR history, devoting much of his life to the sport he loved. His tireless work should not be dismissed because of a spat between two stubborn old friends.

It may be that Smith and Wheeler will never resolve this dispute, and that will be a shame. Together, they accomplished so much and made a significant contribution to NASCAR. Alone, they may never have been more than footnotes in sport history.

3. Bring your ideas to NASCAR: Attendance and television ratings are down, the economy is making it difficult for small teams to compete and NASCAR's full-time use of its new car has watered down the racing.

NASCAR wants to talk about it all.

Drivers and car owners have been "strongly encouraged" to attend a town hall meeting Tuesday at NASCAR's research and development center, and any topic is fair game. The session will give participants a chance to share their questions and concerns with NASCAR, and perhaps offer suggestions as to how to improve the sport.

It's a good idea, but NASCAR could make it a better idea by considering fan concerns. Since NASCAR can't realistically open the meeting and allow fans to attend, it would be nice if a forum existed for outside suggestions.

The favorable response to the double-file restarts that spiced up last week's All-Star race would probably make the list, as would a litany of complaints about the current car. Fans are fairly outspoken that the actual on-track competition is as much of a turnoff as are the high ticket prices and hotel gouging.

Of course, the inmates can't be allowed to run the asylum, and any discussions from Tuesday will only be taken under advisement. NASCAR needs to be the definitive rule-maker, but, it won't kill sport leaders to take some serious consideration from the people it's trying to please.

4. Carl Long is NASCAR's newest whipping boy: NASCAR refused to show any leniency to underdog Carl Long last week when it levied record fines against his team for bringing an oversized engine to All-Star weekend.

Long's motor blew during a practice session for the Sprint Open, and he handed it over to NASCAR for inspection so he could change engines and continue with the weekend. The inspection process showed the motor was too big by .17 cubic inches, and NASCAR dropped the hammer on the low-budget team.

Long and his car owner wife, Dee Dee, were suspended 12 races and docked 200 points. In addition, his crew chief was fined $200,000 – money Charles Swing doesn't have – so the fine will fall to the team owner and must be paid before Long can work again.

The bigger issue? Until all the penalties are satisfied, Long won't be able to work his regular job as a fabricator and spotter for the No. 34 team in the Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series. He was at Lowe's Motor Speedway all weekend as he appeals the penalty, and his fate will be decided in a June 2 hearing.

It's easy to pick on the little guy, and plenty of people will argue that NASCAR would have never dared levy such a stiff punishment against one of its elite organizations. But over the past several seasons NASCAR has cracked down on top teams, issuing lengthy suspensions for the crew chiefs of Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

So, it's not really a question of applying a punishment evenly across the board. Instead, this is an issue of going overboard in doling out a penalty.

Long is a part-time racer who loves NASCAR, loves being part of the show, but realizes his limitations. With just 45 starts in all three series since 1998 – none in a points race since two Nationwide starts last season – Long makes his living working on cars.

But this penalty not only takes away his ability to enter races but to even work at the track in his real job. That seems just a little bit severe, doesn't it?

5. The Jeremy Mayfield saga drags into a third week: There were no Mayfield sightings during the Coca-Cola 600 weekend, at least not atop the National Guard hospitality center at Lowe's Motor Speedway, where he watched a portion of the All-Star activities a week earlier.

That doesn't mean he's gone away, though. Mayfield and his high-profile lawyer met with NASCAR officials for more than an hour Thursday to discuss his indefinite suspension for a failed drug test.

Although attorney Bill Diehl called the meeting cordial, he hinted he'd be taking official legal action to help Mayfield get back in his race car. Nothing happened Friday, perhaps because J.J. Yeley's failure to qualify the Mayfield Motorsports entry for the 600 bought them time to strategize.

Courts reopen Tuesday after the long holiday weekend, and there's a sense Diehl may take immediate action to try to get Mayfield reinstated before the series moves to Dover. But some of his fellow competitors wondered what Mayfield can accomplish in the court system.

"When a test comes back positive, there's not a lot of bickering about it. It's black and white," driver Greg Biffle said. "I don't know what else there is to fight about."

Meanwhile, NASCAR made sure the industry understands how serious it is about the toughened drug policy by tweaking its testing program this weekend.

Crew members are generally notified they have been randomly selected for testing when the garage opens on race day, and their testing must be completed before the race begins. For the Coca-Cola 600, the crew members weren't notified until the scheduled race start and had until the end of the event to submit a sample.

By moving the testing time, NASCAR proved it's going to keep participants on its toes and defend its policy against any attack Mayfield may be planning.