NASCAR's Dale Jarrett
Dale
Arnold Jarrett was born on November 26 in 1956 in Newton, North Carolina. His father is the son
of the NASCAR legend and two time champion, Ned Jarrett and is the father of
former Busch Series racer Jason Jarrett. Although Jarrett was always interested
in racing cars, he is also a natural born athlete with an excellent background
in playing football, basketball, baseball and golf while in high school. He was
one of the talented few that was offered a golf scholarship at the University of South Carolina but because he knew his
heart was in the driver's seat of a car, he declined.
Jarrett started his racing career on the local short tracks like the Hickory
Motor Speedway which was a race track that his father owned and operated and
was driving late model series events before eventually moving onto the Busch
Series.
It was 1982 when Jarrett began to race the Busch Series and his best finish was
a third place in Hickory with the sixth spot in points as his final
standing. The next season he won four poles, 17 top-fives and the fifth place
in standings. In 1984 Jarrett managed to pull the fourth place in final
standings which was his career's best. He won six more poles in 1986 and his
first Busch race at Orange County Speedway. That wasn't all he did as he went
on to win his second career race at Hickory in 1987.
During that same season, Jarrett had two tenth-place finishes, 26th spot in
points and was runner up for the Rookie of the Year title. Although he was
driving for different teams in 1988, he participated in all of them with an
eighth spot place finish at Riverside International Raceway. In 1989, he ran
again full time with five top-ten finishes and two fifth spot spots.
His big break came in 1990 when he replaced the injured Neil Bonnett and the
next year, he won his first Winston Cup race at Michigan International
Speedway. He ended that season with the 17th spot in final standings. The
next year, Jarrett joined the newly formed Joe Gibbs Racing which was started
by the famed Gibbs football coach. The next year, Jarrett won the Daytona 500
and swung Dale Earnhardt out of the race. The race was remembered as the Dale
and Dale Show, a phrase coined by Jarrett's own father. He had a total of 13
top-fives and fourth in final points that season.
Jarrett joined the Robert Yates Racing team in 1995 to replace the injured
Ernie Irvan and through that merger, Jarrett won at Pocono with a 13th finish.
Even though Ernie Irvan came back to drive for Robert Yates a year later, Yates
decided to create a team for Jarrett in 1996. He won the Daytona 500 again that
season with a top 2 finish in the first three races that season as well. He
went on to win the Coca-Cola 600 and the Brickyard 400 with a third place finish
in final standings. Although he did win seven races the next season, he lost
the championship to Jeff Gordon.
Once 1998 rolled around, Jarrett was faced with a gallbladder problem but he
did manage to win three races with a second finish during the last two races of
the season. He went for surgery during the off-season and came back the next
season winning his fist Winston Cup title by an impressive 201 points. During
the turn of the century, Jarrett won the Daytona 500 for the third time. In
2003, Jarrett brought home the North Carolina Speedway and went back with 26th
in final points. He bounced back in 2004 with a 15th spot in points and
won again in 2005 at Talladega Superspeedway.
Jarrett finished up 2006 with a fourth spot finish at Kansas and 23rd spot in
points. The next year started the 2007 NASCAR Nextel Cup with an 18th place
finish and qualified for the Daytona 500 but ended the race at the 22nd place.
This father of 4 is looking forward to starts in 2008 and although he's only
participating in the Busch Series part-time, you can rest assured that he'll
make you take notice of his presence.
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