him out of the way and Dale responded by flipping the bird. 1986–90 In 1986, driving the No. 23 car for Bahari Racing, Waltrip finished second in the Rookie of the Year standings to Alan Kulwicki on the strength of a pair of 11th-place finishes at Martinsville and Pocono. The following season, he posted his first career Top 10 finish when he ended up 10th in Martinsville's spring race. In 1988, Waltrip began running Busch Series events, making five starts for his brother's team. He took the checkered flag for the first time at Dover in his 4th start. In 1989, he had his first Top 5 finish in the No. 30 Country Time Lemonade/Kool-Aid-sponsored Pontiac. Crash at Bristol Motor Speedway For Waltrip, 1990 was memorable for a horrific crash at Bristol in the spring on the 170th lap of the Budweiser 250, where he destroyed his Busch Series Pontiac Grand Prix. After making contact with Robert Pressley in the No. 59, he hit a gate that was in the outside wall at the exit of turn two. The gate was used to allow vehicles in and out of the infield because the track did not have a tunnel. The impact broke the gate, and Michael went head-on into the end of the wall, disintegrating the car on impact and collapsing the car into itself. Onlookers were sure that Waltrip was severely injured, perhaps fatally, because of how massive the impact was and his brother Darrell rushed to the wreck fearing the worst. Amazingly, Waltrip survived the accident and he only suffered cuts, soreness, and bruises in the wreck. After Mike Harmon had an almost identical impact several years later (and also amazingly walked away), the gate was moved down to just before the entrance of turn 3, thus lessening the chance of a car hitting it because cars are diving away from the wall at that point. Later, when asked about the crash by Ken Squier, he replied saying he had "some contusions and a little bit of confusion" and ended with "Hope we did a good job for Kool-Aid." Years later, Waltrip said that at first, he thought that Pressley wrecked him on purpose, and thought about fighting him after the incident before thinking better of it. 1991–2000 In early race lineups, Waltrip was referred to by broadcasters as "Mike Waltrip" or Darrell's little brother. It wasn't until