Race Fan's Reflections ~ Son Of A Gentleman: Dale Jarrett, Part III
3/27/2013
Jim Fitzgerald
In 1997, everything remained the same for Jarrett and his
team. After a 23rd place
finish in the Daytona 500, they ripped off six consecutive top four finishes,
including wins at Atlanta and Darlington.
The rest of the season was a rollercoaster with very high peaks and
oh-so-low valleys. It seemed if Jarrett
wasn’t in the top five, he would finish in the bottom five. A 35th at Talladega, 27th
at Charlotte, 32nd at Dover, 38th at Loudon, 32nd
at Watkins Glen and another 21st at Talladega easily undid all of
the progress gained by wins at Pocono, Bristol, Richmond, Charlotte and
Phoenix, and top-fives at Indy, Michigan, Darlington,
Dover, Rockingham and Atlanta. Still,
out of 32 races, Jarrett finished in the top five in 20 of them, and had only
one DNF. He finished second to Jeff
Gordon in the standing after the final race by a mere 14 points. 1998 was not as successful for the team in regards to the
win column. It might be a little
difficult to gather wins for any team, however, when Jeff Gordon took home
thirteen of those trophies. Jarrett and
his Yates owned team did manage wins at Darlington, Dover, and Talladega, and
for the third year in a row, finished second in the season ending race at
Atlanta. Jarrett finished third in
points that year, but 709 points behind a most dominant Gordon. The team was looking to rebound and come out strong early
for the 1999 campaign. A crash in the
Daytona 500 was not what they were looking for, but a second place finish at
The Rock the following week helped, and moved them from 36th to 13th
in points. An eleventh place at Vegas
moved them up two more spots. After that
Vegas race, Jarrett scored an unbelievable string of nineteen consecutive
top-ten finishes, which included seventeen top-five finishes, and wins at
Richmond, where he took the point lead, Michigan, Daytona, and again at The
Brickyard. After the second race at
Michigan, Jarrett held a 314 point lead over Mark Martin. The streak would end the next week with an
early crash at Bristol. There was a 16th
at Darlington and an 18th at Loudon.
Every other finish for the rest of the year was in the top-ten,
including six consecutive to end the season, and for the fourth consecutive
year, finished second in the final race of the season. The four wins, 24 top-five runs and only one
DNF equated to Dale Jarrett and the No. 88 Robert Yates Racing team winning the
1999 Winston Cup Championship by 201 points over Bobby Labonte. In 2000, Jarrett opened the season by winning his third
Daytona 500 after passing Johnny Benson with four laps to go. Jarrett once again knocked off an impressive
string of fifteen consecutive top-ten finishes, but the poor finishes were once
again very poor, and Jarrett was unable to repeat as Champion. He did win another race at Rockingham, but
finished fourth in points to Champion Bobby Labonte, 446 points in arrears. When the 2001 season began, gone were the familiar red white
and blue colors of Ford Quality Care as Jarrett’s sponsor. Now adorning the sides and hood of the car
was the United Parcel Service, or UPS, a stark contrast with its brown, white,
and yellow design. The team did their
new sponsor very well early in the season, taking wins at Darlington, Texas and
Martinsville before the season was a quarter of the way through. Another came at New Hampshire just past the
halfway point of the year, but aside from a few top-five and top-ten finishes
sprinkled here and there, the rest of the season had to be disappointing. After the final race of the season, that
year at Loudon, Jarrett was fifth in the final point standings, and Jeff Gordon
had his fourth series title. The 2002 and 2003 seasons were difficult. Jimmy Elledge had
become the crew chief after Todd Parrott departed, but that lasted only six
races, and 24th place in the standings, and then Parrott was
back. It didn’t get much better, but the
Parrott/Jarrett tandem relied on some old friends to keep the winning ways
going, scoring victories at Michigan and Pocono. A ninth place finish in the points brought
the departure of Todd Parrott, who went to work with Elliott Sadler, and
brought the arrival of Todd’s brother, Brad.
There was early promise in the season as Jarrett scored a win at
Rockingham, but poor finishes brought the dismissal of Parrott and the hiring
of two new crew chiefs. First, it was
Garth Finely, who lasted three races, and then Shaw Parker who would stay until
the end of the season. Jarrett’s only
top five that season was the Rockingham win, and a string of twelve consecutive
finishes outside of the top ten to end the season relegated Jarrett to the 26th
position in the final standings. In 2004, Mike Ford would be the crew chief atop the pit box,
but the change did not pay off, as Jarrett, for the first time since the 1992
season, went winless. There were only
six top five finishes to be found, which included a second place run at Indy
and a third at Michigan. At the end of
the season, Jarrett was scored as fifteenth in the final standings. It was easy to see the dominant days of Dale Jarrett and the
No. 88 Yates racing team were numbered, if not over. Mike Ford was still the crew chief, and
Jarrett started the season by putting the car on the pole for the Daytona
500. A fourth Harley J. Earl Trophy was
not in the works though, as he finished 15th. They managed a fifth at Bristol and a 9th
at Talladega, but by the time the circuit hit Charlotte in May, Ford was gone,
and Bill Wilburn was in. An eighth at
Charlotte and a fifth at Sonoma and Daytona were all they could muster, and at
Dover in September, Wilburn was gone, and the familiar face of Todd Parrott had
returned. The following week at
Talladega, the duo teamed up with a strong Robert Yates engine, and Dale
Jarrett won, scoring the final victory of his career. In 2006, Slugger Labbe was the
crew chief, and the season was just dismal.
A fourth place finish at Kansas in September was the only top-five of
the year, but that was with Butch Hylton as the crew
chief as Labbe left the team before the race at
Indy. Jarrett went to finish 23rd
in points after five DNFs. Jarrett would
leave Yates racing at the end of the season, and head over to Michael Waltrip
Racing. He would take UPS with him, but
the number would be 44. Yates would
eventually abandon the No. 88, which would go to Dale Earnhardt, Jr. At MWR,
Jarrett failed to qualify for twelve events, and have a best finish of the
season, a seventeenth, in the final race of the year at Homestead. The 2008 season was to be Jarrett’s last, and it would be a
much abbreviated one. Brad Parrott was
the crew chief for the first two races, only to be replaced by Bill
Pappas. The highpoint was not even the
best finish of 16th at Daytona. It was the sendoff Jarrett received from the
fans and UPS at Bristol Motor Speedway, the final points
race of Dale Jarrett’s career.
Dale Jarrett made 668 starts in the Sprint Cup Series. During that time, he won 32 races, scored 163 top-five finishes, and an additional 97 more in the top-ten, while scoring 16 poles. He won the 1999 Winston Cup Championship, two IROC races, the 1996 Busch Clash, the 2000 and 2004 Budweiser Shootout, 11 Nationwide Series events, three Daytona 500’s, two Brickyard 400’s, the 600 at Charlotte, and was named one of NASCAR’s 50 Greatest Drivers. In 2014, Dale Jarrett was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame. He and his family currently live in Hickory, North Carolina, and Jarrett works with ESPN as a commentator, just as his father did.
Son Of A Gentleman.
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