For those that missed Darrell Waltrip on Larry King here's the transcript...
We will open the program with Darrell Waltrip from his home in Franklin, Tennessee, his first interview since the tragedy yesterday. Darrell Waltrip was one of the all-time great drivers in NASCAR. He was announcing this for Fox, and this was Fox's first call of a Winston race. They've taken over NASCAR from CBS, and here is the way Darrell called the finish of the race; his brother wins it. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, FOX NASCAR COVERAGE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Three wide behind them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You got him, Mikey -- you got him, man, you got him. Come on, man! Oh, my! Get him in the fold.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The three car down -- big trouble, big wreck behind him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Beat him back, beat him back, come on.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To the flag. Come on, Mikey, you got it, man! UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You got it! You got it! You got it! Mikey! All right! Yes! All right!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Michael Waltrip wins.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How about Dale, is he OK?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Schrader has climbed out of his car.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Darrell? (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: DW, what was that like? Mixed emotions to the highest, right?
DARRELL WALTRIP, DAYTONA 500 ANNOUNCER: I'm focusing on the race, I'm watching Michael, I'm watching Dale Jr. Out of the corner of my eye I see Earnhardt and Schrader get together, but my brother has come to the line to win his first race, and it's the biggest race of his life, it's our biggest race -- the Daytona 500.
I'm calling him to the line, I see he is going to win and, as soon as he gets across the line, we flash back up the track, and I see Dale's car at bottom of the track, and then we went to a replay, and as soon, Larry, as I saw that car snap and go straight up the hill, straight up the banking into the outside retaining wall, I had a vision -- in my mind, I had a vision of a great friend of Dale's and I, it was Neil Bonnett -- a similar incident and a similar result -- well, same result, Neal was killed in that same corner several years ago. And it just all came back to me so clearly, and I worried about Dale.
KING: Your brother -- your brother was driving a Dale car. So was the runner-up, his son.
WALTRIP: Yeah. Yeah.
KING: Was the move he made designed to protect the two leaders? That's been said today, that that was a strategic move he made, which in a sense -- in essence got him killed.
WALTRIP: Well, what he was doing was -- he was actually, he was talking to his spotters, and he was giving instructions to Dale Junior's and to Michael's spotters to tell them stay low, to stay together.
And he was a blocker. He was doing something that -- I have been watching Dale Earnhardt drive for 30 years; the man always would go to the front, no matter what, at any cost. This day, yesterday, he was being a blocker, kind of holding off the competition, to see that -- for one thing, my brother won his first race, and I think Dale knew he didn't have the car to win the race, all he had was a car maybe good enough to get up there and cost Michael the race.
So, he came -- he did the next best thing he could do, and he protected the -- my brother and his son from somebody getting up there and racing with them.
KING: How is your brother dealing with all this today?
WALTRIP: Well, I'm -- my poor brother. He has waited, Larry, he's raced for 15, 20 years, and he has never won a race. Now he wins the biggest race we have, the Daytona 500, and he had 15 minutes of glory.
And then, 15 minutes in victory circle, they first came to him and told him that his boss had been killed, and all that happened -- all that excitement -- everything he had lived for, everything he had worked so hard for, he had to turn it off, right there and then, and turn his attention to the tragedy that we had all just witnessed.
KING: Were you were with the family today, Darrell?
WALTRIP: I went -- as soon as I got out of the booth, I got in a police car and went straight to the hospital, and I was there with Dale Junior and Teresa and Richard Childress, Dale's car owner, and other members of racing -- and all the friends and family was all there -- Mike Helton, Mike Helton.
KING: Should he have worn that special new rig, that helmet rig?
WALTRIP: Larry, we can debate it the rest of our lives. Dale wore an open face helmet, in other words, just -- like you see a motorcycle, probably rider wear. A lot of drivers wear a full-face helmet with the guard around chin, shield on it. There was controversy -- Dale didn't like the closed face helmet, he liked the open helmet.
The HANS device has been discussed time and time again. I don't believe anything would have saved Dale's life. When a car turns that way, Larry, and goes straight up the banking, your brain is floating around your body, your heart's floating around your body. That sudden impact and that recoil, it just snaps the spinal cord, and I just don't think anything would have saved him, unfortunately.
KING: The code in the sport, DW, used to be that drivers didn't go to other drivers' funerals. Are you going to Dale's?
WALTRIP: I loved Dale -- I loved Dale Earnhardt; he was a good friend. I -- Larry, there were times on -- I wanted to grab him and shake him and ask him what was he thinking and what was he doing.
But the man had a side to him. He was one guy on the racetrack, when he put that helmet on he was somebody else, but when he took it off, he was Dale Earnhardt, and he was as gentle as they come. He was a gentle giant.
This sport -- we can't replace Dale Earnhardt. This is the worst thing -- this is the biggest thing that's happened to this sport since I've been in it. Dale Earnhardt is known all over the world. This is like when John Kennedy got shot, or when Martin Luther King got shot. This is a day that we will remember for the rest of our lives.
KING: You will go to funeral.
WALTRIP: I'll be there. I'll be there for him, his family, Dale Jr. I love these people, they are my family, it's what this sport is all about. We live and die together.
KING: You won a lot of races. You were a great champion. The obvious question when we see something like this -- why do you drive?
WALTRIP: Larry, that's a question that gets asked over and over again, particularly in tragedies like this. You know, why do farmers have a drought and lose their crops and go back and plant them all, go all over again? Why do airplanes fall out of sky? And -- but we got to get to where we are going, we get back on an airplane.
I mean, there are so many an allergies I could make. But I think, for me and for others like me, it's the love of the game, it's that passion we have. We can't quit. We're in it -- we're in it to the end. We're in it to the bitter end or we're in it to the sweet end, and you just never know in a game like this how it's going to turn out.
KING: Will you extend our best to the family, will you ask Michael whenever he is ready to come on, we would love to talk with him?
WALTRIP: Oh, he'd love to talk to you. He is a sweet man, and he deserves that win, and he drove his heart out -- and one thing that Dale Earnhardt I think was trying to do was to -- people said, why did he put Michael in that car, and I think Dale was trying to help Michael prove a point.
KING: I have no doubt of it. We'll talk with Michael and you tomorrow and try to get Michael on.
Thank you so you much, DW. Thanks for -- I appreciate this.
Darrell Waltrip, a great driver himself, announcing the finish. His brother wins, and one of the people he admired most in the world dies. Couldn't write that in a fiction. We'll be right back.
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