Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 22, 1995 TAG: 9506220073
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Dale Jarrett won the first contest of the 1995 NASCAR Winston Cup season, the pole position for the Daytona 500. Ever since, he has been looking at the back bumpers of his competitors.
Driving the powerhouse Robert Yates Ford Thunderbird, Jarrett has led only 43 laps in two events. His best finishes are three fifth places. He is 14th in Winston Cup points.
The Chevy camp he left now reigns supreme, and his replacement in the Joe Gibbs Monte Carlo, Bobby Labonte, has won twice. Jarrett is not happy.
But he said this week he has no regrets, gamely maintaining a confident demeanor in the face of doubters, critics and second-guessers now that his bold move to fill in for injured Ernie Irvan has turned into a struggle.
``Knowing everything I know, I would have been hard-pressed not to make the same decision,'' Jarrett said this week in a teleconference. ``Whatever happens this year, I've already learned a tremendous amount. The whole idea behind this was to start my own team whenever Ernie came back. And I'm getting invaluable information.
``I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who think Dale Jarrett can't drive,'' he said. ``They're entitled to their opinion. Certainly, fans, along with the race team and myself, have expected us to do more. It's a difficult situation to deal with at times.
``I made a decision and it doesn't do any good to look back and say, `What if ... ?'''
Jarrett says he doesn't begrudge Labonte his success. Labonte's crew chief, Jimmy Makar, is his brother-in-law, after all. And he ``fully expects'' to win some races this season.
It has been said that part of the problem for Jarrett is one of adjusting to the Yates Ford, that he likes a different racing setup than Irvan, who is comfortable driving a ``loose'' race car.
``You have to have a race car you can drive hard and be aggressive with, and you can't do that with a loose race car,'' Jarrett said. ``I guess if I looked back and said something should have been done earlier in the season, it would have been that I should have spoken up a little more when the car wasn't exactly what I needed.
``They had been so successful with it, I thought maybe that's what I needed to try.''
``It's hard to say that their styles are different,'' said Larry McReynolds, the crew chief for Irvan and Jarrett. ``Dale is a really good race car driver. He drives a car hard.
``But Ernie would really be one of those who would say, `I think we're close enough,' a we'll-be-just-fine type of a driver, and Dale is looking to fine-tune more.''
Whatever the differences, Jarrett managed to hold a spot in the top 10 in Winston Cup points. He was seventh after Sears Point. But then he was caught up in a crash in The Winston Select, lost an engine in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte, crashed in the big wreck at Dover and crashed again at Pocono after being punted by Sterling Marlin.
Goodbye top 10. He was 17th after Pocono, but pulled himself up to 14th with his sixth-place finish at Michigan.
``Certainly we expected to visit Victory Lane before now, but it hasn't happened,'' Jarrett said. ``We've had times when we felt like we had awfully good race cars. But we certainly haven't had very much good racing luck.''
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB