Dale Jarrett
Dale Jarrett
Dale Arnold Jarrettis a former American race car driver and current sports commentator known for winning the Daytona 500 three timesand winning the NASCAR Winston Cup Series championship in 1999. He is the son of 2-time Grand National Champion Ned Jarrett, younger brother of Glenn Jarrett, father of former driver Jason Jarrett, and cousin of Todd Jarrett. In 2007, Jarrett joined the ESPN/ABC broadcasting team as an announcer in select Nationwide Series races. In 2008, after retiring from driving following...
ProfessionRace Car Driver
Date of Birth26 November 1956
CityConover, NC
I'm fired up about this. I don't understand it.
I know you're supposed to slow down, and I know that I saw the caution lights, but I was just making sure.
If Dale could see what has happened, he would have a huge smile on his face. Even though there's nobody to take his place, the sport has done exactly what he wanted it to do. It's gone right to the top.
This is our first opportunity to see how our cars are gong to handle in the draft in actual race conditions. We've been to test, but this is an actual race.
I think that everybody in the garage area has a lot of respect for Jeff and I think that's because of what he's accomplished and the way he's gone about it that NASCAR has that same respect for him.
I think he took it like he did everything else. He was the man in charge.
There's no way that you're going to be able to tell with the naked eye. And there's no way of knowing what was intentional, and how are you going to judge what was too hard when the cars are running 190 miles an hour?
At the beginning of this year I felt like we were better prepared for this season, but it turned out that wasn't the case. It's disappointing that we haven't run any better than we have this year, especially since we've been able to be there at the end of the race.
After the sun sets, there's no more problem.
A good run in the Bud Shootout doesn't guarantee a good run in the Daytona 500, but it is a nice indicator that this part of the program is at least headed in the right direction. The extra seat time is always good to have, and I think there are things you can learn by participating in that race that the teams who aren't competing don't have the opportunity to learn.
I don't think I'm alone in saying that Michigan is my favorite track,
I think more than anything, this is our first opportunity to see how our cars are going to handle in the draft in actual race conditions. We have been to the test, but it's not an actual race and this is, so that's probably the biggest advantage.
You like to think every time you come here you have that opportunity at least, but you look at it and we've had kind of a dry spell as far as running well here. We've won some poles and things, but that's not really what we're after.
We have two crew chiefs who are willing to work with that engineering staff. Before, we haven't exactly had that combination working. Now we feel like because everyone who has come here has been talked to about the same ideas, everyone is on the same page. We're going to be a much better organization than we have in quite a few years.