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Dale Jarrett gets a 'Thanks Dale' from the crowd during his last points event at Bristol Motor Speedway. (Todd Warshaw/Getty Images Photo) ยป More Photos
When the checkered flag waves on the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race Saturday night, May 17, it will mark the end of Dale Jarrett's nearly three-decade racing career.
“The All-Star Race. (is) an opportunity to say goodbye to the fans,” said Jarrett, driver of the No. 44 UPS-sponsored Michael Waltrip Racing Toyota. “The fans that you see come to that All-Star event are the fans that really make up what this sport is about. That is really my opportunity to get in front of a huge crowd in a place that means a lot to me.”
For the athletic Jarrett, the honors he earned in prep sports paled in comparison to the exhilaration he felt the first time he strapped into a race car at Hickory Speedway. He knew what he wanted, even though his father, two-time NASCAR champion Ned Jarrett, encouraged him to take a different career path. The elder Jarrett knew the sacrifices the sport required and the hardships it dealt, and he didn't want his son to have to experience them.
But the younger Jarrett would have it no other way. Still, at times, it seemed as though difficulty was Jarrett's constant companion, from injuries to people questioning his decisions and sometimes his talent.
Early in Jarrett's career, it was a severely broken foot suffered in a 1980 accident at Lowe's Motor Speedway
The injury prevented Jarrett from running the first few races in 1981 at Hickory, but it gave him time to get everything in order for the 1982 season, the first year of the NASCAR Busch (now Nationwide) Series.
That's when Jarrett developed his own team and Newton-Conover High graduate Jerry Punch invested a “small amount” in the organization, while he studied to become a doctor. Jarrett was racing against his older brother, Glenn, but he also was finding himself involved in numerous crashes.
“I had a long talk with D.J. in my office sometime in the mid 1980s and we talked about his career and what he really wanted to do with it,” said H.A. “Humpy” Wheeler, president and general manager of Lowe's Motor Speedway. “At that time, he was kind of stuck in second gear, which is what happens to most race drivers. They start off, they get into second gear and they can't go. But he persevered and kept digging after a lot of people would have given up. As a matter of fact, he was really a late bloomer if you look back on his career when he really started winning races.”
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