Sun setting on Jarrett
Fontana victory eyed before exit
By J.P. Hoornstra, Staff Writer
Article Launched: 02/21/2008 10:17:23 PM PST
The official race results of the June 21, 1987, Winston Cup race at Riverside International Raceway reveal a 30-year-old driver named Dale Jarrett did not have a sponsor for the event. It was the first of many business trips Jarrett made to Southern California, and he left town with $5,765 for his 18th-place finish.
Twenty-one years later, with his silvery-white hair and brown UPS-emblazoned jumpsuit, Jarrett looks as if he should be behind the wheel of a delivery truck. But anyone who's followed Jarrett since the beginning knows he is among the most accomplished drivers on NASCAR's top circuit.
He plans to end his racing career after four more Sprint Cup events, at which point he will become a full-time analyst for ESPN. Sunday's Auto Club 500 will be Jarrett's last NASCAR race in Southern California, and only now is a sense of finality starting to hit home for the 51-year-old.
"With Daytona last week, that made the whole concept very real," Jarrett said. "Just to win one race was such a thrill, and I've been able to win 32 races in my career as well as a championship. So I feel very good about this being my time to walk away from the sport."
He walked into the sport bearing the burden of a famous last name. His father, Ned, had won 50 races and two series championships between 1959 and 1965.
Jarrett more than bore the burden over his career, which peaked during his 12-year run (1995-2006) with Robert Yates Racing. The
Advertisement apex came in 1999, his lone series championship season, which included a career-best fifth-place finish at the spring race in Fontana.
Jarrett, starting ninth from the pole at the inaugural California 500 in June 1997, finished eighth at the first Cup race at California Speedway.
"I think the thing that will stand out the most to me is when we first went there and all the comparisons of how it was built just like Michigan," Jarrett recalled. "Certainly as you drove in and looked at it, it looked a lot like that, but then once you got on the race track it was totally different and had its own personality.
"Really to me, it's probably a more difficult speedway than what Michigan was to drive. So that stands out. Then it's just a very nice facility, and it gave us the opportunity to get closer to that L.A. market again."
But after achieving early success at California Speedway - four top 10s in his first six tries - Jarrett has only two top 10s in his last nine Fontana races going back to 2003.
Last year, with Michael Waltrip Racing - the first team of Toyotas to circle the track - Jarrett finished 32nd in February and did not qualify for the September race.
"I think if you look at the first couple of years that I raced there, it was when the team I was with was at its peak," he said. "And then if you look at the later years, then as a team we weren't performing like we had in the mid-to-late 1990s.
Which isn't to say Jarrett won't miss sweating in the hot summers, seeing the snow- capped San Gabriel Mountains in winter and heading around the low-banked turns at California Speedway.
"I'll still be coming back to visit when we're back here in September, and that will be from the broadcast booth," he said. "But it will be different."
Jarrett is walking away from the track the same way his father did.
Ned Jarrett was a respected broadcaster from 1988-2000, and Dale earned positive reviews calling a few Busch- turned-Nationwide Series races on ESPN last year. In January, he was hired full time to replace Rusty Wallace for the remainder of the season.
"(My father) told me to relax and just talk like I do," Jarrett told The Associated Press last summer. "I think that's the thing I always loved about my Dad, he never tried to be somebody that he wasn't. And I can't be somebody else if I tried. So he just told me to relax and have fun with it."
One of Jarrett's partners in the booth will be Andy Petree, a high school classmate from North Carolina. It was Petree who needed a driver for a Chevrolet Nova he was building in 1977 and turned to his friend to drive the car in a local short-track race, Jarrett's first ever behind the wheel.
Before he settles into the booth, Jarrett's driving route will take him through a particularly important neighborhood one last time.
"The only track that I didn't win at where I probably would have liked to have won is California," he said. "I obviously have one more chance to do that this weekend, but I also am happy with what I was able to accomplish and do in this sport."
http://www.sgvtribune.com/sports/ci_8329536