Figures that as soon as I make fun of Michael Waltrip and the Aaron’s Dream Machine, it’s involved in a crash. Check out this video of Michael McDonald wrecking the Dream Machine on Friday in qualifying at Texas. He walks away fine. This is either good proof that the safer barrier and the Car of Tomorrow really work or else he’s taken on some of Michael Waltrip’s superhuman abilities.

I’ve come to the realization that Michael Waltrip is the most enigmatic driver in all of NASCAR. I was considering starting him in my fantasy NASCAR league this week, but at the last second, I decided to do some research. It’s a good thing I did too. Waltrip’s name recognition lures many unsuspecting fans into the idea that he is one of the better drivers, but when you actually look at the results, that isn’t even remotely the case.

People first knew his name because of his brother Darrel’s success, but the notion of him being a good driver stems from the fact that he has won two Daytona 500′s. That is an unbelievable feat. It took Dale Earnhardt 20 years to win that race, even though Daytona was arguably his best track and he dominated the competition in many other races there. Those two wins at NASCAR’s biggest race are what had me leaning towards inserting him into my starting lineup, but then I looked at his career stats and saw the truth.

He has only won 4 times in 762 career starts. He has won .5% of his races. That is half of one percent. What makes that number even worse is that all four of those wins came on restrictor plate tracks (3 Daytona, 1 Talladega) while he was driving for DEI…the team best known for building top cars for those tracks. Looking over the rest of his Winston Nextel Sprint Cup career, he only finished in the top 10 about 1 out of every 7 starts and his average finish was 21st. One of my favorite phrases, “mediocre at best,” cannot even be applied here. There is no way to spin those numbers. Michael Waltrip is just not that good…and because of that his name will never show up on my roster.

While he may not be a good driver, it isn’t all bad news for Michael. I think we can all agree that he is far and away the best at completely demolishing a car and walking away fine. Here’s a few clips to prove it:

He may have won 2 Daytona 500′s, but not all his races ended so well. Check out this clip, which I think is one of the most spectacular wrecks of all time.

This is a video of Waltrip’s car exploding into a million pieces. It’s also got an almost-crying Darrel Waltrip being interviewed after the crash. Be sure to watch till the end to see Michael just jump right up and run past the ambulance.

This is my personal favorite. Somehow he manages to crush the water barrels at the entrance to pit road while moving backwards. Wrecking like this has to be an art.

There’s plenty more where those came from…just search “Michael Waltrip wreck” on Youtube. There’s almost more of those than remixes of the Star Wars Kid video.