Waltrip hires technical director

Dr. Eric Warren joined the Michael Waltrip Racing team this week.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Michael Waltrip hired Dr. Eric Warren as technical director, the first of many moves he hopes will strengthen his three-car team.

Warren, who has a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from North Carolina State University, spent the last five years as technical director at Evernham Motorsports. He was replaced midway through this season as team owner Ray Evernham refocused his energy on building cars to help his slumping team.

Warren’s hiring fills a role that has been vacant at Michael Waltrip Racing since he began hiring late last season.

“It was a job we wanted to fill when we first started, but we didn’t feel like the right person was available to choose from,” Waltrip said. “Eric is a special dude. He’ll help us out immensely.”

Started off on wrong foot

Waltrip built his three-car operation from scratch amid high expectations as the face of Toyota’s first season in Nextel Cup racing.

But his team was caught cheating during Daytona 500 preparations, leading to a lengthy suspension for his competition director and crew chief.

It put the organization in a deep hole that it has struggled to climb out of: Waltrip, Dale Jarrett and David Reutimann have combined to make just 44 of 81 races this season.

Waltrip said he was forced to slow down the growth of his company to make it sustainable over time.

“We had an extremely aggressive buildup, but there came a point in time where we just couldn’t spend any more money,” he said. “There was a lot of racing left to go, and we had to say ‘OK, we’ve built a nice shop, we’ve got a lot of cars, but we need to slow down.’

“We know the Rick Hendrick’s and Roger Penske’s aren’t just going to the races. They are investing to their future and R&D and learning and trying to make their products better every day. We need to get to a point where we can do all that, as well.”

Not ruling out investors

As more and more team owners take on partners and look at mergers as a prudent way to maintain the company, Waltrip said he’s not ruled out taking on investors.

But he doesn’t want to sell majority ownership of his team, and is only interested in an equal partnership that would allow him to continue the vision he has for MWR.

“I’ve certainly had a lot of people come to me saying, ‘We want to invest in you.’ But it ends up sounding like they want to take over,” he said. “That doesn’t interest me. A true partner would interest me — half you, half me. You have your responsibility and I have mine.”