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Sporting backgrounds
Other sports:Waltrip played tennis in high school, and according to his publicist Chris Goodnight, didn’t lose a tennis match during his junior and senior years in high school. He’s best known for running marathons, including the Boston Marathon. He said he started running the day after Thanksgiving, 1996, at the age of 33. “Sporadically over the years, I’d always worked out playing basketball, racquetball and all that. But that was the first time I really set out a plan to start running and make a commitment to it.” JEFF BURTON Status: Drives the No. 31 Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing. Finished seventh in the 2006 Cup standings. Other sports: He played soccer and basketball in high school. “If you read the press reports, I was darn good, but in reality, I wasn’t that hot. ... I was a pretty good soccer player, but I wasn’t that good at basketball.”
Status: Drives the No. 48 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports.Won the 2006 Nextel Cup championship. Other sports: Johnson had to drop sports during his senior year because he was racing and accepting prize money, so his eligibility was gone. “I used to swim [and] I was on the diving team and also played water polo,” Johnson said. “I was all right. I won some different meets ... and some individual stuff, but I never made it to varsity. I guess I needed an engine.” GREG BIFFLE Status: Drives the No. 16 Ford for Roush Racing. He finished 13th in the Cup standings in 2006. Biffle won the Busch Series title in 2002 and the Craftsman Truck Series title in 2000. Other sports: The Vancouver, Wash., native wrestled in high school before turning his focus to racing. “It was a lot of fun,” said Biffle, who wrestled in the 120- to 127-pound classification. “I enjoyed it. I was kind of a competitive person. I think I wrestled because my brother did. So, I wrestled for a couple of years anyway. Then I decided that cars were more important. But I won a fair amount of my matches.”
Status: After finishing 36th in the Cup Series in 2006 driving for Cal Wells in the No. 32 Chevy, Kvapil will drive the No. 6 Ford in the Craftsman Truck Series for Roush Racing in ’07. He was the 2001 rookie of the year in the Craftsman Craftsman Truck Series and the truck series champion in 2003.
Other sports: He played defensive back and wrestled for a year in high school. “I was all right as an athlete. I played sports coming up. I was quarterback on the JV team, but it got to the point where I saw I didn’t have a future in those sports but I did in racing, so I quit all my high school sports and went to work on race cars.”
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