In the Blink of an Eye by Michael Waltrip

on the track. Whaddaya got? What can you do? How fast can you go? It was time to “put up or shut up.” That was something else Dad said. And that definitely applied today.
    The first practice session of the year at Daytona was always the most anticipated. Not just because it was the first practice, but because it was Daytona. Winning at Daytona can define your career. And when practice starts, if you’ve got a fast car, that means you have a shot. In my case, with a new team, we couldn’t afford to waste a lot of time trying to catch up. We needed to be up front right from the beginning.
    When I rolled onto the track for the first official practice session with my new #15 car and my new team, we were plenty fast. Very competitive.
    As I made my way through the days and nights at Daytona, I was feeling quite comfortable. In qualifying that was held the week before, our NAPA team posted a solid time. We were top fifteen, earning us a solid start in our qualifying race that Thursday. My car was very fast, and I was very ready.
    You know how much I’ve always loved the qualifying races at Daytona.
    Now here we were, twenty-five years later. I didn’t wake up in a hotel that morning after driving all night from Kentucky in a smoke-filled Chevy. When I woke up I was through that tunnel, in the infield, in my bus.
    I had all the enthusiasm I’d had when I was that twelve-year-old boy though. Today was going to be my day. I wanted to deliver a statement to the whole NASCAR world: Anyone who wanted to win the Daytona 500 on Sunday would have to beat me to do it. I wanted there to be no doubt about that.
    I was going to make that point loud and clear in my qualifying race. And that was just a couple of hours away.

CHAPTER 19
DALE’S PLAN
    I t was time to strap myself in for my first race of the 2001 NASCAR season, the twin 125-mile qualifiers for the Daytona 500.
    These twins would set the field for Sunday’s running of the Great American Race. This was the first opportunity for my team and me to show our owner and the whole NASCAR world that we were here and we were going to contend. Confidence was no problem at all. Dale had been getting me ready for this day since he hired me in 2000—actually even before that, with his you’d-win-in-my-car speeches. He believed I could win. He believed in me. He had gotten me to the point where I believed it too.
    And then there was the late restart. I had positioned myself perfectly to win that day and make a statement. I wanted to show the competition that I and my team had what it took to win in Daytona. Instead of delivering that statement, I made a mistake behind the wheel that cost me the race.
    Eager to show everyone I was there to win, I messed up. I just simply missed a shift. I didn’t shift cleanly from second to third gear and lost my momentum. When the momentum was lost, so was the race.
    I had it all set up. I could see exactly what I needed to do to win my qualifying race, but I didn’t execute. And I was right. What I saw would have won me that race. However, my missed shift caused me to finish eighth or ninth.
    That night, my mistake ate at me. No wonder you’ve never won a race, I thought. You can’t even shift gears. All the work Dale had done to prepare me mentally to win the 500 was in jeopardy.
    He had gotten me into such a great place. Now I was confused. I didn’t think I had what it took to win, not after what I had just done. That’s where I was mentally, not exactly the frame of mind you want to take into any race, much less the Daytona 500.
    I was really beating myself up over what had happened. That night, I tried to explain it all to Buffy. As any wife would, she tried to comfort me. “That’s just part of it,” she said. “Get over it. You’ll do great on Sunday. Just remember: You put yourself in a position to win today. You can do it again Sunday.”
    I certainly appreciated her effort, but I can’t say it did me much good. When I went to