NASCAR's Dale Jarrett - From Boy to Superstar

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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