updated 3:35 p.m. ET Aug. 5, 2006

INDIANAPOLIS - Michael Waltrip will miss a Nextel Cup race for the first time since 1998 after failing to qualify for Sunday’s Allstate 400 at the Brickyard.

The top 35 cars in team owner points are guaranteed a starting spot at each Cup race, but Waltrip is currently 38th and has to qualify each week on speed. The two-time Daytona 500 winner needed to finish in the top eight Saturday among those who didn’t automatically qualify, and his lap of 178.091 mph was 10th.

Jeff Burton won the pole at 182.778.

Waltrip, who declined to be interviewed, currently drives the No. 55 Dodge for Bill Davis Racing. He also has formed Michael Waltrip Racing, which will field three cars next season when Toyota enters the Cup series.

Chris Goodnight, a spokesman for Waltrip, said the driver told him the car wasn’t quite right Saturday.

“He said the car was pushing a tad bit,” Goodnight said. “We picked up nearly half a second from our best lap at practice yesterday, but it wasn’t good enough.”

Waltrip missed the Daytona 500 at the start of the 1986 season, then started every race until he failed to qualify at Phoenix late in 1998, a streak of 387 consecutive races. The next week at Rockingham, he began a streak of 270 straight starts that ends Sunday.

Waltrip didn’t qualify for the Coca Cola 600 in May, but bought a car that had qualified to get into the race and keep his streak alive.

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Waltrip, who left Dale Earnhardt Inc., after the 2005 season to join BDR, hasn’t placed in the top 10 this season and already had been mathematically eliminated from the Chase for the championship.

Goodnight said Waltrip spoke with team officials after practice Friday and they agreed that they are “no longer in the business of buying someone else’s car.”

“They pretty much said we give ourselves one mulligan this year, and that’s it,” Goodnight said.

Waltrip’s last win was at the EA Sports 500 on Sept. 28, 2003. His last top 10 finish was at the Batman Begins 400 on June 19, 2005. He was driving for Dale Earnhardt Inc. at both events.

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