Craftsman Trucks
In 1996, Waltrip began his own team in the Craftsman Truck Series team, hiring Bill Sedgwick to drive his #17 Sears/DieHard Chevy. Sedgwick collected eight top tens and finished 14th in points. In 1997, Rich Bickle drove the truck, winning three races and finishing second in points. After the season, Bickle resigned as he had hoped to run with Waltrip in the Cup series in 1998. Waltrip was about to run Phil Parsons in the truck, but after Sears pulled out, he shut the team down until 2003.
In 2003, Waltrip fielded his own truck, this time in partnership with brother Michael and HT Motorsports for a pair of Craftsman Truck races at Martinsville Speedway with the #17, the first with Tide (with the Tide with Bleach brand, intentionally reminiscent of his 1989 Daytona 500 win), and the second with the Aaron's promotion of The Three Stooges that ran in various series.
DWM became full-time in 2004 as one of the new works Toyota teams. NTN Bearings sponsored the truck for two seasons, driven by David Reutimann, who won the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Rookie of the Year award. The team expanded to a second team in 2005, purchasing the #12 truck piloted by Robert Huffman from Innovative Motorsports. Huffman was replaced during the season by Mike Wallace.
Joey Miller attempted to pilot the #12 truck full-time in 2006, but was released late in the season and the team finished with various drivers. Reutimann ended the season third in points and moved up to the NEXTEL Cup and Busch Series to drive for Waltrip's brother Michael Waltrip. The team became co-owned by Darrell and Michael Waltrip but kept the Darrell Waltrip Motorsports banner, as noted on the Waltrip Racing Web site.
As part of changes in 2007 with its move into Michael Waltrip's operations banner, the team became a one-truck team and the number was switched to #00 to maintain consistency with the rest of the Michael Waltrip Racing banner, and A. J. Allmendinger drove the #00 for a few races to help in his NASCAR experience, with Aaron's as the sponsor, along with Red Bull for a few races early in the season) and Michael Waltrip Racing putting developmental drivers Josh Wise and Ken Butler III in the truck, although Justin Labonte also drove a few races for the team. After one last race with Michael McDowell the team sold off its truck equipment in October 2007 to legendary road racing team The Racer's Group.
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