Dale Jarrett followed in his father’s footsteps to become Cup champion, NASCAR ambassador

Growing up in North Carolina, Dale Jarrett found himself traveling the NASCAR circuit from time to time, watching his dad win races and championships. Little did he know that he would soon follow the same path to success.

At 19, Jarrett was racing in the Limited Sportsman division at his hometown track in Hickory, N.C., where his father, Ned, once worked as a track promoter.

At 26, he was racing full time in the fledgling NASCAR Busch Series, where he became a regular contender and helped build NASCAR’s No. 2 series.

At 31, he jumped to the elite NASCAR Cup series, finishing second to Davey Allison in the 1987 rookie-of-the-year battle.

At 34, he scored the first of his 32 Cup victories in the series where his father won 50 races.

At 42, he hoisted the Cup championship trophy, joining his father – a two-time champion – on an elite list in the sport.

Now, at 51, Dale Jarrett has run his last Sprint Cup points race and is moving to the ESPN broadcast booth full time, again following in his father’s footsteps. The television booth was also the scene of one of Ned Jarrett’s greatest moments, where he emotionally called his son’s first Daytona 500 victory in 1993.

Dale would go on to win the Daytona 500 three times, one of the few feats his father never accomplished – though Dale vividly remembers his dad leading the race when he ran out of gas with two laps to go.

Now, with his racing career over except for a May appearance in the NASCAR Sprint All-Star race, Jarrett again finds himself drawing comparisons to his father – not a compliment to be taken lightly.

“He continued the impact that his father started,” says Brett Bodine, who came through the NASCAR ranks competing against Jarrett and is now a NASCAR official. “Dale certainly [fit] the saying, ‘The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.’”

Still, Jarrett’s life hasn’t always been about racing. He was an all-conference high school athlete in football, basketball and golf and is still said to swing a pretty mean club on the golf course.

Yet racing is what captured and held his interest and what has kept him coming to the track since 1982, when he became a regular in the inaugural season of what was then known as the Busch Series. He went on to briefly become a team owner in that series while remaining a competitor in the Cup ranks.

“It’s literally been my world,” Jarrett says. “I was at Daytona since I can ever remember. Traveling around other places, every small track that my dad was racing at for many years, it’s been a way of life. It has been the Jarrett family’s way of life for over 50 years now.”

While he’s seen changes and developments in both the sport and his life, Jarrett still carries a fiery passion for NASCAR. He chafes at criticism of it and quickly points to what he sees as the good things about the sport – the millions of fans, the intense competition, the quality of the competitors themselves.

He has crafted a life traveling across the country, watching the grandstands grow and fill and the business of racing grow into a multibillion-dollar industry.

He’s watched the men behind the wheel, though, remain essentially the same.

“I’m still very proud of this sport that you don’t pick up the paper every week and read about people in trouble and shootings or DUIs or whatever it may be,” he says. “Certainly there are things along the way. Yeah, we’re not perfect by any means and don’t even want to start to think that, but we do have a good sport that’s made up of a lot of good people and run by a group of people that are very smart, very innovative.”

Many place Jarrett in that group. Like his dad, he has become one of the sport’s greatest ambassadors.

“Forget about championships and wins,” says fellow veteran Ken Schrader. “I just thought the way he carried himself and represented the sport was pretty classy.”

“I have always respected him as a competitor, but the person that he is off the track and away from the race car, to me, is as good of a person as you are ever going to meet,” four-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon says.

As he became a star in the 1990s, Jarrett also became a role model for younger drivers.

“Dale is one of the drivers that I’ve always looked up to,” says fellow Cup champion Matt Kenseth. “He’s one of the old-school guys ... that you had extra respect for. They had been there for so long and done so many things and were so good that they commanded a certain respect.”

While Jarrett came from a racing family, it’s clear that his father’s career didn’t pave the way to instant success. He fought to gain solid footing in the sport and toiled in the Busch Series, patiently waiting for a competitive Cup team to take a chance on him.

In 1988, Jarrett drove for four different Cup teams before joining Cale Yarborough full time in 1989. A year later he joined Wood Brothers Racing, one of the oldest and most successful teams in the sport. In 1991, he finally earned his first Cup win, driving the No. 21 Wood Brothers Ford to victory at Michigan.

In 1992, Jarrett moved to the new Joe Gibbs Racing team, becoming the first driver for what is now one of NASCAR’s elite organizations. It was with Gibbs that Jarrett won his first Daytona 500 in 1993 with his dad calling the final laps of the race for CBS.

In 1995, Jarrett moved to Robert Yates Racing, filling in for the injured Ernie Irvan. His performance that season led Robert Yates to start the No. 88 team for Jarrett, a monumental move for both Jarrett and Robert Yates Racing.

With crew chief Todd Parrott, Jarrett won his very race with the No. 88 team, taking the Budweiser Shootout at Daytona. A week later, he won his second Daytona 500.

Jarrett won 29 Cup races with Yates, becoming a perennial championship contender from 1996-2001, winning the title in 1999.

It appeared that Jarrett would end his career with Yates, but he had one more trick up his sleeve. Lured by the chance to build something new, he joined upstart Michael Waltrip Racing for 2007, helping the time land sponsor UPS and build its Toyota program. He ran the first five races this season, running his final points race March 16 at Bristol.

While his recent endeavor hasn’t matched the success of the rest of his career – his team was outside the top 35 in owner points entering 2008, though Jarrett made the field for all five races this year and left it with a locked-in position – it hasn’t dimmed his love for the sport.

As he started thinking of retiring, Jarrett found he couldn’t walk away from the sport entirely.

“That would’ve been difficult,” he says. “That was one of the reasons for going to Michael’s deal, to stay involved and help develop that race team.

"I don’t want to leave the sport. I want to still be involved because I like the people around here and I like the things that go on. I think there’s a reason why we have the fan base that we have and why the sport is as popular as it is, because there’s a lot of good people involved. Now, ESPN has given me the opportunity to do it in another way.”

Jarrett is expected to embrace his new role with the same dogged determination that helped him become a champion. Many expect him to continue to be a consummate professional and an ambassador for the sport.

How would he like to be remembered?

“I don’t know that it’s necessarily what I’ve accomplished, but more that people look and understand that I have a huge passion for this sport and that when I was a driver, I drove to win each and every time that I got behind the wheel of a race car and that I was a competitive and that the decisions I made as a driver had this sport in its best interest,” he says. “I was taught that by my dad and by my friend Dale Earnhardt. … I hope they understand that I gave a lot of time and effort to make this a better sport.”

As he reflects on his career, Jarrett realizes just how much it has meant to him and has a fitting perspective.

“If you gave me a chance to go back and do it all over again, I wouldn’t have changed a thing about it,” he says.

• Mentioned Drivers:
• Dale Jarrett