Michael Waltrip learned something from his pursuit of Red Bull Racing last month – a deal that eventually collapsed.

What he learned had nothing to do with the business of trying to buy a team. It had to do with the business of starting a team, something both the energy drink company and Waltrip did in 2007.

Waltrip said he learned something just by walking through Red Bull’s shop.

“I cried walking through Red Bull thinking, ‘Man, I didn’t have a prayer,’” Waltrip said. “And yet we’re still here. Hopefully that desire and commitment and passion will pay off one day.”

Waltrip hopes that he now has MWR in position to contend for wins as it enters its sixth year of competition in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series. In five seasons, it has two victories – both by David Reutimann, who no longer drives for the organization – and no Chase For The Sprint Cup appearances.

“As we look back now and I walk through Red Bull Racing and I saw the resources I had been racing against since we started, I was naive I could financially race like they did,” Waltrip said. “They won a couple of races, that’s it, but they had way more tools than me.”

“Their owners were rich. I just wanted to race. I didn’t consider it all. Fortunately for me, I spent all the money I had and I met a guy that had some more.”

That guy was Rob Kauffman, a wealthy sports car and racing enthusiast based in London. He bought half of Michael Waltrip Racing in October 2007 and – unlike most investors the sport has seen in recent years – brought stability to a Sprint Cup operation.

It’s been a year since Waltrip and Kauffman decided to change the direction of MWR, replacing competition director Steve Hallam, who had come from Formula One, with former Richard Childress Racing manager Scott Miller. They released executive vice president Cal Wells and took more of a leadership role on their own.

“We’re a different organization today,” Waltrip said. “I don’t think philosophically the approach we were taking to building our cars, to building our team, I don’t think was the right direction.

“We decided … [last] January that we were going to go in a new direction. You get your plan together and you’ve got to stick with it to see if it’s going to work. The plan we had in place and the direction and the leadership we had here, it just didn’t work.”

The organization also has two new drivers in Mark Martin and Clint Bowyer. Martin (25 races) and Waltrip (six races) will split the ride that Reutimann used to have while Bowyer will drive for a new third team.

The only driver who remains is Martin Truex Jr., who has struggled in two seasons with the organization.

With Martin, who has 40 Cup victories, Bowyer (five) and Truex (one) as the primary drivers, MWR is one of only three organizations, along with Roush Fenway Racing and Hendrick Motorsports, to have a lineup where three of its drivers have made the Chase For The Sprint Cup.

“It means a lot to everybody here that Clint and Mark are both looking forward to driving their cars, that they feel confident in the equipment that’s being put out here and that they can go out and win races,” Truex said. “I feel confident and at the same time I am happy they are coming here.

“It is going to help me, too. Those guys are going to have the same expectations I do with the equipment. It’s going to be easier for me to relate to the team what I’m fighting if they’re fighting the same thing.”

Waltrip said the team’s ability to recruit someone such as Bowyer shows that they have improved as an organization.

“Where they were wasn’t good enough,” Bowyer, who came from Richard Childress Racing, said of MWR. “They made the investments. When I was looking around, this was the only organization out there that was pushing forward, that was investing and not pulling the reins back. … This is an opportunity for them to catch up.

“That wave is building and it’s a great time to be able to ride that wave on into the future.”

For Bowyer, he has more of a stake in the building of the organization than he did at the established RCR.

“When I started at RCR, there was nothing to prove there,” Bowyer said. “It had been proven hundreds of times over. Richard has won many championships, [more than] 100 races. He has done so much and I was fortunate to be part of that.

“As far as a driver, the only thing you could do is not screw up the opportunity. Here, I am going to have to be a part of the moving on to a championship-caliber organization. That’s a challenge I’m looking forward to.”

With the addition of proven winners in Martin and Bowyer, there will no longer be questions about whether the equipment or the driver is the reason for any lack of success.

“A year ago to this day, I was nervous about who we were going into ’11,” Waltrip said. “I didn’t like our direction, I didn’t like the way our cars were being built, [and] I didn’t like our philosophy on building them.

“But you can’t change things overnight. We crept toward a new philosophy.”

The new philosophy includes working closer with Toyota and Joe Gibbs Racing through the merger of the Toyota Racing Development engine department, where Waltrip was getting its engines, and the Joe Gibbs Racing shop.

With more resources and a revamped team, expectations are higher.

“We have to win more than a race – we just can’t win a race and finish 16th in the points,” Waltrip said. “We have to win multiple races and we have to make the Chase – we have to be right there fighting for it at least.”

Waltrip had expected to fight for Chase spots with Truex, who finished 18th in the standings last year and whom Waltrip believes finally will have some good equipment underneath him.

“He hasn’t had a whole lot to smile about lately,” Waltrip said. “Now with the cars that we’re building and the way he ended the 2011 season, we’re giving him something to smile about and we’re surrounding him with guys that like to smile and like to have fun. That will help Martin, also.”

And while Waltrip has fun, he also would like to have success.

“I could not do what Michael Waltrip has done – and would not do it,” Mark Martin said. “I have got to give him props. You look around here and just think about the payroll every week and the things – he’s built quite an organization here.

“They want to compete week in and week out with the big boys and they’re working hard to try to get there.”

*Courtesy of Scenedaily.com