Published: Thursday, Oct. 22, 2009 / Updated: Thursday, Oct. 22, 2009 01:40 PM

Michael Waltrip can drive, but does he know math?

Driver is Tega Cay ‘dad' for an afternoon

TEGA CAY -- The schoolbus lights started to flash, and bus driver Valerie Crawford pulled old yellow to a stop on Tega Cay's Lake Forest Drive. The kids piled out, and boom — crossing the street strode this big, tall guy about 6-feet-4 with a bush of brown hair and wearing a Best Western racing shirt and the biggest smile any kid who just got off a school bus ever saw.

“Hey, that's Michael Waltrip, the racer,” called out one of the throng of little kids who tumbled off the bus. Sure enough, Waltrip the famous NASCAR driver strolled up and asked for Jackson Prince. Jackson raised his hand, took the racing shirt Waltrip gave him, put that shirt on and immediately became the coolest 10-year-old fifth-grader in the history of this sleepy suburban enclave on the shores of Lake Wylie.

Here, to pick Jackson up from the bus stop in the No. 99 race car just like the one that zooms 200 mph in places called Talladega and Darlington and Daytona, was Waltrip himself. Not the loud real race car, but it looked just like it, and Waltrip himself was driving. Jackson's parents, Jack and Jami Prince, had won a Best Western fan swap charity auction with Jami's last-minute bid of $5,515. The prize meant Waltrip, who owns and drives the Best Western car, would swap jobs with Jackson's daddy.

In September, Jack and Jami Prince spent four days in Richmond, Va., with Waltrip's team for a NASCAR race. That was Jack's swap, and he sure loved that. But Jackson didn't get to go: The cool part for him came Wednesday, when Waltrip's job was to be like Jack Prince, who sells commercial real estate but is home a lot in kind of a new millennium Mr. Mom set-up. That means Waltrip had to meet the bus, check the homework, feed the kid, start the laundry and hang out until the older sisters got home and the chaos of family starts afresh.

Wednesday afternoon, it sure was cool to be 10-year-old Jackson Prince. His new buddy/dad Waltrip hammed it up with the girls at the bus stop, telling a beaming 6-year-old neighbor named Delaney Jones, “You have a beautiful smile — some of your teeth are missing.”

Sure enough, Delaney's baby front teeth are long gone, and she's waiting for the big ones. She said she had no idea who that tall guy was, “but he sure was nice.”

“Wanna go make some laps?” Waltrip asked Jackson.

“Sure, let's roll,” Jackson said.

Jackson leaped into the front seat of the car with Waltrip, one of the best racers on earth, at the wheel. A round of cheers boomed from the kids left on the school bus, and the No. 99 car high-tailed it away — in 25 mph zone Tega Cay. No. 99 flew at about 13 mph. Walkers passed them they went so slow. But the look on Jackson's face showed it still was cool to tool around in the 99 car after school.

Then they got to the house — after waiting in school bus traffic — where ESPN waited to tape Waltrip's antics. The bus came back by on a loop and the kids on board cheered again, and Jackson yelled out: “Hey, everybody come on over later! We're havin' a party!”

Jami had the house all set up, had a few friends over and took the day off from her job selling houses in Concord, N.C. She didn't have to do anything more than direct the traffic of the house — which is what wives and moms do all the time anyway. She was a great hostess, cutting up with Waltrip and everybody else.

“But he hasn't done the laundry, yet,” she said with a grin, as Waltrip seemed to have this afternoon fatherin' thing down.

Waltrip and Jackson got busy with the homework. Long division, estimating quotients from the “Math Connects” workbook just like every other fifth-grader at Gold Hill Elementary School took home Wednesday. Except nobody else had a famous driver going over the answers.

Then they ate a little bit and trudged upstairs to the laundry room.

“Time to fold the socks and underwear,” Waltrip called out.

“You better do it right,” came the melodious tones heard in a million houses on earth Wednesday afternoon, in so many countries and states, and even little cul-de-sacs in the 'burbs Tega Cay. The shouter: The mother-in-law.

Freda Borden, Jami's momma, first-generation American whose parents came from Italy. Freda already had cooked homemade spaghetti sauce and meatballs because that is what Italian mothers-in-law do, and the sauce bubbled on the stove so she could feed everybody.

She even had a good laugh with Waltrip and everybody else about the laundry and the whole hubbub in her daughter's house. Great lady, that Freda. Betcha she double-checks that laundry later.

Waltrip didn't have to fold any clothes, but he did start one load of wash. Jack Prince, the dad, sure didn't mind not doing chores for one afternoon.

“Hope he doesn't mind doing one of my jobs, paying the mortgage,” Jack Prince quipped.

And then Waltrip and Jackson went back downstairs to play some video games. Just a swapped dad who drives fast for a living and a 10-year-old kid, hanging out.

On the way to the couch, Jackson Prince summed up having Michael Waltrip as his dad for a couple hours on a Wednesday afternoon: “Sure is pretty cool.”

Recent crash

After switching spending time in Tega Cay, NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Michael Waltrip was involved in a collision with a motorcycle Wednesday evening and was cited by Mooresville police, according to The Herald's news partner, The Charlotte Observer.

Waltrip, 46, who also owns a racing team and is a part-time TV commentator on racing shows, was driving a Lexus that collided with a Harley Davidson shortly before 8 p.m. on Perth Road, according to a police report. The report says Waltrip was trying to make a U-turn at the time.

The motorcyclist was treated at Lake Norman Regional Medical Center. Waltrip was cited for failure to yield but was not injured.