CCWS Feature - The Walker Way
06/06/2007
As proprietor of Walker Racing, Derrick Walker has seen lots of drivers come and go over the years: Willy T. Ribbs and Sarah Fisher, Hiro Matsushita and Rodolfo Lavin, Scott Goodyear and Alex Tagliani, Gil de Ferran and Darren Manning, not to mention this year’s pairing, Will Power and Simon Pagenaud. The one most like Walker himself? Robby Gordon.
It’s fair to say Walker shares Gordon’s passion for racing. How else does one stay in the game going on four decades, working for Bernie Ecclestone, Roger Penske and Porsche then striking out on your own? On the other hand, it’s safe to say the wry Scot’s passion seldom affects his decision-making.
Independence? Walker can quote you chapter and verse about the advantages and disadvantages of operating as an independent. On the plus side, he answers to no one but himself. That, Walker freely declares, is the strongest motivation of all.
“My measure of success is to be self-employed,” he says. “Independent. I enjoy getting up early and going to work because it’s a challenge for me; it’s always been a challenge. Racing is a means to an end, in some ways, for me.”
Like Gordon though, Walker embodies the fact that being an independent has its “disadvantages.” In 17 years, Walker’s team has been up and down the proverbial ladder of success more times than a company of New York City firefighters.
One victory and the nearest of misses in the Indy 500 in its first full season (’92) were followed by a fallow spell before Gordon’s time (’94-’96) and then what should have been Walker’s heyday with de Ferran and factory support from Honda and Goodyear but which produced a single victory (albeit runner-up in the ’97 title reckoning).
Since then? There’s been a long drought when the team’s very survival hung in the balance more than once; for which its independent owner takes full responsibility.
“The basics of racing, I think, are pretty obviously what you need,” Walker says. “It’s the people and the money to attract those people to a program they think will win. Whenever I’ve been able to find the money to do that, we’ve pushed up the ladder a bit.
“The downside is that I’ve failed miserably to maintain that on a consistent basis. Probably it’s due to my independence. When you try to go it alone, you are alone, so you live and die by all your decisions. Maybe I should have aligned with the people who can help keep the commercial side of the business strong and let me run the bit that I know the best.
“But I don’t apologize to myself for the choices I’ve made. I just wake up every day and say to myself, ‘How do we keep getting up there?’”
“Simon Pagenaud is the perfect example of why our Formula Atlantic program made sense,” Walker says. “We had a driver who could win the championship, stay within the team and now drive in Champ Car, and I would say with him and Will Power, we have the best driver pairing in the paddock right now.
Simon is an intelligent driver. He studies all the information he can get his hands on and really sucks it up. He just lacks, physically, the experience of running these cars consistently in race events to get to the point where he knows what he needs from a car.
“I joked with him at one of the tests, he was trying so hard to beat Will’s time and he was spinning off on cold tires and everything. I told him, ‘The trouble with you is you’re trying to be the world’s fastest driver today. And it’s not your time, yet. You’re not ready.’”
On the other hand, the evidence from the opening rounds of the ’07 Champ Car season suggests it may just about be Power’s time. Dominant at Las Vegas, he was in the hunt for another victory most of the Long Beach weekend. Then came Houston, where he trundled home 12th after bashing first Justin Wilson, then Mario Dominguez in overtaking attempts gone awry.
Nevertheless, Walker remains Power’s biggest supporter, bestowing the ultimate compliment when he compares him to another of “his” former drivers.
“He’s a pleasure to work with, very much like Rick Mears,” he says. “He’s all about racing. He has an ability as Rick did, when it’s time to hang it out, he’ll hang it out. Rick was a bit more of a tactical racer, but in terms of the personality and the way they approach it – totally consumed by racing, and the ego aspect never enters the picture – they’re a lot alike.” And that says an awful lot.