In 2019, Darrell Waltrip brought the curtain down on his broadcasting career, signing off at Sonoma Raceway. The 78-year-old had been a fixture in the FOX Sports booth since 2001, when the network became an official NASCAR broadcast partner. His move to full-time television followed a well-known driving career that got him three championships, 84 wins in NASCAR\u2019s Cup series, 13 in Xfinity, and a place in the NASCAR Hall of Fame\u2019s Class of 2012.<\/p>\n
However, reflecting on his Term 2 in NASCAR, as an analyst and his TV tenure in the latest episode of Dinner Drive, after Kyle Petty told him, \u201cYou were made for TV,\u201d Waltrip said<\/a>, \u201cWell, it was God sent.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cI felt like I was back in the game. Yeah. I felt like I\u2019d kind of from \u201995-\u201996 on I kind of fell off the map, but now I\u2019m back in the game, and not only am I back in the game, I\u2019m on TV. And that made a huge difference. And so, my confidence was back. I just loved it. Driving was fun. Doing those telecasts on Sunday was by far and away the best thing I ever did.\u201d<\/p>\n However, it wasn\u2019t the first time Waltrip was attempting to analyze the races from the booth. Instead, his broadcasting roots stretch back well before his FOX Sports run. Even in the height of his driving career, he was a frequent guest and occasional stand-in for Nashville disc jockey and TV host Ralph Emery.<\/p>\n His natural ease behind the microphone, whether in post-race interviews or the booth, can be traced to his early radio and television appearances.<\/p>\n As his racing days wound down in the 1990s, Waltrip became a regular color analyst for TNN, TBS, and ABC\/ESPN, lending his voice to coverage of the Xfinity Series and the former IROC Series.<\/p>\n