Jarrett thrilled to be racing this Sunday
By Lee Montgomery - Associate Editor
Thursday, February 14, 2008
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John Harrelson / Getty Images for NASCAR
DAYTONA BEACH, FL - FEBRUARY 13: Dale Jarrett, driver of the #44 UPS Toyota, stands in the garage area during practice for the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway on February 13, 2008 in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Photo by John Harrelson/Getty Images for NASCAR)
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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The only bad part about Dale Jarrett’s performance in the second Gatorade Duel qualifying race was that his wife and kids weren’t at Daytona International Speedway to watch him race his way into the Daytona 500.
His father, Ned, was in attendance, but wife Kelley and children Natalee, Karsyn and Zachary had to stay home in Hickory, N.C.
“They’ve got to stay in school,” Jarrett said. "When you have a former school teacher for a mother you go to school every single day. That's what they do. They'll be down [Friday] night after basketball games and everything. Hopefully my mom will come, too.”
Martha Jarrett will probably want to watch her son race in his final Daytona 500. Jarrett will retire from NASCAR Cup series driving after the all-star race in May, moving to the ESPN broadcast. But before he does, he’ll try for his fourth Daytona 500 victory.
“We're going to need to work on our cars a little bit, but we can compete,” Jarrett said of his Michael Waltrip Racing team. “I think [team owner] Michael [Waltrip] showed he can compete up there. But can we do it at the end when it's really going to make that difference? I think we're going to have to work on them just a little bit, but those are still the ones that you're going to have to outrun.”
Jarrett is talking about Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing, which split the Duels victories on Thursday. But at this point, Jarrett is simply happy to have a chance to race Sunday.
“It is very gratifying personally,” Jarrett said. “I mean, to know that you have to go out there and you know what you have to do, to be able to take the car and put it up in the top five and run right around that for the majority of the race, especially the latter part of the race, that was very gratifying that we were able to work on the car.
“Personally, hey, when it comes time to get this done, yeah, I enjoy that challenge, feel very good about what we were able to accomplish.”
Jarrett wasn’t guaranteed a starting spot, even though he is a past champion of the series. Penske Racing's Kurt Busch earned that spot after dropping out of his qualifying race, meaning Jarrett needed to be first or second in his race among cars that weren’t in the field.
He got help from Waltrip early in the event and stayed with the leaders for most of the race.
“I saw a lot of cars looked a little out of shape up in front of me,” Jarrett said. “I found myself what I thought was a reasonably comfortable spot. Then after we made our pit stop and went back to racing and Michael got back there, my car was good, especially through the corners.
“I needed just a little push to make that extra pass. Michael came back and gave me that whenever I needed it, and it really meant a lot. The car drove well, the engine ran good. Now we'll just work on a few things for Sunday.”
- Mentioned Drivers:
- Dale Jarrett
Comments
2 responses to "Jarrett thrilled to be racing this Sunday"
LORNA SMITH said:
Feb 15, 2008 at 1:07 PMfunny, in all these articles, no one has mantioned that during the last red flag, both Kevin hervick and mark martin conveyed to Dale Jarrett that they would both have his back also......
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» Confirm Abuse ReportLORNA SMITH said:
Mar 17, 2008 at 7:09 PMfunny, in all these articles, no one has mantioned that during the last red flag, both Kevin hervick and mark martin conveyed to Dale Jarrett that they would both have his back also......
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