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Michael Waltrip Racing Holdings LLC, doing business as Michael Waltrip Racing ("MWR"), was an American professional stock car racing team that last competed full-time the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. The company was as a 50–50 partnership between Robert "Rob" Kauffman, the 44-year-old founder and managing partner of Fortress Investment Group, and two-time Daytona 500 winner Michael Waltrip, who first established the team in 1996 in the Busch Series (now Xfinity Series). The team was the first full-time three-car team to field Toyota Camrys when Toyota entered the Sprint Cup racing fold in 2007, before being joined by Joe Gibbs Racing in 2008. MWR was also the last original Toyota team in the Sprint Cup Series to still be in operation, as Bill Davis Racing and Red Bull Racing Team have both ceased operations. The team last fielded the No. 15 5-hour Energy Toyota Camry for Clint Bowyer and the No. 55 Aaron's Dream Machine Toyota Camry for David Ragan. Brian Vickers would normally drive the No. 55, but repeated health problems including blood clotting forced him out for much of 2015. Development driver Brett Moffitt and team owner Waltrip have also competed in the car. ==History== Michael Waltrip Racing began racing in the Winston Cup Series in 2002, making its debut at the 2002 Aaron's 499. The car was the No. 98 Aaron's Chevrolet Monte Carlo driven by Kenny Wallace. Wallace qualified 27th and finished 21st. Following that first race, Waltrip sold the No. 98 and its owner points to Innovative Motorsports. After that, MWR fielded one Cup Series car, the No. 00, on an intermittent basis through 2005. In 2006, MWR, in partnership with Bill Davis Racing, added a second car, Waltrip's No. 55, but neither car had manufacturer support. In 2006, MWR signed an agreement with Toyota to field multiple Toyota Camrys in the Nextel Cup Series for 2007.〔("Michael Waltrip Racing and Toyota Enter NASCAR Nextel Cup Series Competition Together in 2007" )〕 Waltrip was then able to add a third car driven by Dale Jarrett to his team for 2007, along with new sponsors.〔("Dow Automotive Announces Marketing Partnership with Michael Waltrip Racing, Dale Jarrett and No. 44 UPS Toyota Team" ), Feb. 2, 2007.〕 However, the MWR team had a disastrous season. In February, Waltrip's teams were disallowed from their starting spots in the Daytona 500 due to an illegal fuel additive. The team members each faced a $100,000 fine and many team members were suspended. Though they backed up their qualifications by using back-up cars they suffered a terrible year. The team was unable to recover, failing to qualify for many events and losing sponsors such as Burger King and Domino's Pizza. Waltrip partnered with British-American billionaire Rob Kauffman as a 50% co-owner in order to fix the problem.〔 After the season, an ugly controversy emerged with Jack Roush of Roush Fenway Racing, who accused MWR of stealing one of his team's sway bars after a September 2007 race. While Waltrip and some other drivers, such as Jeff Gordon, argued that parts are often inadvertently swapped during post-race inspection, Roush held a lengthy news conference in March 2008 to accuse "the non-descript Toyota team" (MWR) of deliberately stealing the bar and threatened legal action. However, Roush, who had previously accused Toyota teams of being "ankle-biting Chihuahuas" and brought up Pearl Harbor in his effort to keep Toyota out of NASCAR, did not pursue such a lawsuit as NASCAR declared that the Toyota teams did nothing wrong and that Roush's ideas against Toyota were ridiculous. For 2008, MWR once again added Aaron's as a sponsor and ran competitively, but again managed only one pole and just one top-5 finish, and UPS withdrew as a sponsor after Jarrett retired and transferred its sponsorship to MWR's archrivals Roush Fenway. In 2009, MWR was forced to form a technical alliance with JTG Daugherty Racing to have sponsorship for its third car. However, during this season, MWR finally achieved success as a Sprint Cup team, including winning a race and placing two cars in the top six two weeks later. Both of those cars ended up in the top 20 for the year. For 2010, MWR added Martin Truex, Jr. as a full-time Sprint Cup driver.〔(Official: Martin Truex to Michael Waltrip Racing )〕 Michael Waltrip continued as a part-time driver, while also adding on talent such as former RCR crew chief Scott Miller, and hiring drivers Mark Martin, Clint Bowyer, and Brian Vickers. In 2013, controversy arose in the Federated Auto Parts 400. Clint Bowyer spun out with seven laps to go, forcing a caution. Rumors abounded postrace that Bowyer had deliberately forced a caution to help Truex into the Chase. Truex was just ahead of Ryan Newman for the final Chase wildcard slot. They gained even further credence when it was revealed the third MWR driver, Brian Vickers, had pitted after the restart on orders from general manager Ty Norris, who was serving as his spotter. As it turned out, by the time Gordon was able to pit, he lost several spots and ultimately finished third, tying him with Truex in points. However, Truex got the final wildcard spot in the Chase via a tiebreaker. An investigation was unable to turn up conclusive evidence that Bowyer's spin was deliberate, but did find that Norris had tried to manipulate the race and Chase standings by having Vickers pit. As a result, NASCAR issued some of the stiffest penalties imposed on a team in its history. It fined MWR a record $300,000 and docked all three MWR teams 50 driver/owner points prior to points being reset for the Chase. The point penalty had the effect of ejecting Truex from the Chase and putting Gordon in. Norris was suspended indefinitely. Crew chiefs Brian Pattie, Scott Miler and Chad Johnston were placed on probation until December 31. To make matters worse NAPA Auto Parts, who had sponsored Waltrip in both his driving and ownership roles since 2001, elected to end its business relationship with MWR following the incident, a decision that forced Waltrip to release Truex from his contract.〔(Race HUB - MWR Loses NAPA Sponsorship )〕 On August 19, 2015, co-owner Rob Kauffman announced that MWR would cease full-time racing after 2015. () 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Michael Waltrip Racing」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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